E-Paper
Unravelling mysteries of elementary particles
HARISH-CHANDRA Research Institute (HRI) is gearing up to host a six-day 'Topical Meeting on Physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)' from December 16.
HARISH-CHANDRA Research Institute (HRI) is gearing up to host a six-day 'Topical Meeting on Physics at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)' from December 16.
The meeting, of a very specialised nature, will witness noted physicists of US and India coming on a single platform to discuss emerging issues and challenges in the physics of elementary particles and provide guidance to researchers.
"The aim of the meeting is to focus the active researcher on relevant issues and open problems related to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), especially those where a close interaction between theoreticians and experimentalists is required," said Dr Biswarup Mukhopadhyaya, the convener of the organising committee.
The other members of the HRI faculty involved in the organisation of the meeting are Dr Aseshkrishna Datta and Dr V Ravindran.
"A major thrust of the meet will be to enrich the pool of expertise in calculation and computation, connected with high energy colliders, especially the use of event generators and other packages", Dr Mukhopadhyaya added.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator which will make highly energetic protons to collide against each other, and thus probe deeper into the inner structure matter than has been done ever before. It is located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research which is the world's largest particle physics centre and is located at the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva in Switzerland.
Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to start operation in November 2007, when it will become the world's largest particle accelerator.
The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from 34 countries, universities and laboratories.
The LHC is considered the next step in a voyage of discovery which began a century ago. Back then, scientists had just discovered all kinds of mysterious rays, such as X-rays, cathode rays, alpha and beta rays etc. These discoveries raised many questions tantalising scientists the world over. Many of these questions have now been answered, giving the world a much deeper understanding of the universe, and changing en route our daily lives, giving us televisions, transistors, medical imaging devices and computers.
On the threshold of the 21st century, the world now faces new questions about the laws of nature at very small distances, which the LHC is designed to address.
The international speakers expected to participate in the meeting include Bogdan Dobrescu and Peter Skands of Fermi National Accelerator Lab (Fermilab), Illinois (US), Sally Dawson of Brookhaven National Lab, New York (US) and S Nandi of Okhlahoma State University, Stillwater (US).
And of course, a large number of Indian physicists of international repute will participate.
