Physics Colloquium, February 20, 2007
Searching for the Progenitor of Mass Stan Durkin

The Ohio State University

The Standard Model is a landmark achievement of 20th century physics. After successfully predicting for the past 30 years the successful outcome of experiments of a broad range of conditions, the Standard Model stands as one of the most thoroughly tested theories in physics. An untested part of the Standard Model is the Higgs field, a fifth force governing interactions. This force can explain at a primary level why the fundamental particles have mass. Necessary for the Standard Model's convergence and essential to the unification of the electromagnetic and weak interactions, the existence of the Higgs field would be validated by observing the Higgs particle, which has yet to be detected. The world's highest energy accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, is due to supply the proton-proton collisions this fall. Designed to discover and measure the Higgs particle, the Atlas and CMS detectors represent 12 years of R&D and construction by over 2500 physicists and engineers from at least 250 institutes worldwide. This talk will focus on the design, present status, and commissioning of the detector subsystems as well as predictions for early analysis of the data.

Dr. Durkin's Talk

Dr. Durkin's Web Site

4:00 p.m., Physics Research Building (PRB), Room 1080

Reception at 3:45 p.m., Atrium, PRB