Technion researchers and the "divine particle"

Technion researchers played an important part in the most powerful particle accelerator in the world - the LHC project at CERN. The Technion magazine reveals the groups of Technion researchers

The Technion researchers played an important part in the most powerful particle accelerator in the world - the LHC project at CERN - we have now been informed that the largest scientific experiment in history produced amazing results and discovered the Higgs boson, which was nicknamed the "divine particle".

During the sixties and seventies, a model was developed to explain the phenomena in the world of particles that make up the entire universe. The model is called the "standard model" and it describes in a wonderful and precise way all the experimental results and observations. But originally the model had a problem, it could not describe particles with mass. Mathematically, the formulas did not survive if they tried to add the mass of the particles to them. In the mid-sixties, a number of physicists, including Peter Higgs, proposed what is now known as the "Higgs mechanism" thanks to which the mass can also be added to the standard model. The addition of this mechanism required the existence of a new particle - the Higgs boson. We have been looking for him ever since. Last night the world was informed of his discovery.

This is without a doubt a technological achievement, but in fact the great achievement is actually not in the technological field but in the news that the model we followed is probably the right thing. We actually completely completed our first puzzle. Now you can safely continue the search for the next puzzle, which is generally known as "new physics" or "physics beyond the standard model" where we search for phenomena that are not described by the standard model. Any such discovery, if it comes, will completely change our perception of the universe around us.

The Technion group contributed a lot to the discovery, construction and testing of the muon detectors which are a crucial part of the ability of the experiment to measure the events that was done in Israel. Software for finding the muons was developed by Professor Terem and the massive computer system known as "The Grid" is in charge of Professor Rosen. Students under the guidance of a professor have not yet developed the control system for the detector. And today a number of students and researchers are working under the guidance of Professor Rosen on one of the Higgs decay channels as presented at the press conference last night.

About three years ago, just before the closing of the huge tunnel where the accelerator was built, Avi Blizovsky was a guest at the place and now we bring his impressions again.

We stayed at "Atlas" - one of the main detectors in the LHC project at CERN. In a modest office in building number 40 - one of the central buildings of the CERN campus - sits Professor Shlomit Tarem from the high energy group at the Technion's Physics Faculty. The professor is not yet involved in the project together with her group colleague Professor Yoram Rosen and with both of them paying.

The office also includes the postdoctoral student Sophia Valcorsa (from Rome, originally) and the doctoral student Sagi Ben Ami. The Israeli group in the project also includes researchers from the Weizmann Institute and Tel Aviv University. Working together with you is Arva Banura, a student from Bir-Zeit living in Bethlehem, who came to CERN for a summer semester.

The head of the Israeli group is Giora Mickenberg from the Weizmann Institute, who previously also held official positions at CERN. According to Mickenberg, the credit for Israel's entry into the project goes first and foremost to the late Professor Paul Singer, a member of the Physics Faculty at the Technion, who served as head of the National Science Foundation.

international league
The human composition testifies to the nature of this international project, in which Israel is defined as a member. Israeli engineers collaborated, during construction, with engineers from the Atomic Energy Agency of Pakistan, and Israeli equipment enables accurate and fast optical communication between the facilities and the vast server farm. Many Israeli companies participated in the construction of "Atlas", the huge facility containing 2,700 detectors placed on eight "wheels" with a diameter of about 20 meters.

As mentioned, after the closing of the tunnel in August it is no longer possible to enter it, therefore the importance of the tests carried out in preparation for this move to avoid bringing in technicians to repair faults after the start of the experiment is clear.

The various elements of the CERN project were indeed tested before the start of the experiment, but a test of the project's activity in its entirety was not possible before the actual experiment began. As you know, the project was shut down shortly after the start of the experiment due to a helium leak for a period of about two months, but the professor still recommends not to get excited. "This is an experiment that will last at least a full decade, so two months is not a very significant period of time. Besides, in such a large and complex experiment it is impossible to expect that there will be no malfunctions."