Particle Pneumonia

2025/04/27

The last major breakthrough in particle physics was the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the ATLAS and CMS experiments. This was a monumental moment which was the promise that was made with the building of the Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator ever built. It was the pay off decades of work by theorists, experimentalists and engineers. This exciting period was documented in the 2013 film, Particle Fever. The crown jewel of particle physics in the 21st century. But it has not left much to find now.

The Higgs discovery marked the completion of the Standard Model of particle physics and an end of an era. As the current generation of particle physicists, we now need to tackle larger questions and dive in the dark unknown. There are still unanswered questions about the universe, which may reveal themselves in the study of fundamental physics. The uncertainty of the source of dark matter and dark energy, the matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe and the hierarchy problem associated with the strength of forces are the prominent open questions. Theories exist which aim to tackle these issue but these have not been validated in any experiments. We are poking around in the dark and hoping to find the light switch.

I am a young researcher in the ATLAS experiment and have only been doing active research for 5 years. I’ve heard so much about the great discoveries within the field and I am jealous. The photos of elated faces during the Higgs discovery that hang around my office at CERN, bookmarking the completion of the Standard Model in 2012. Will my peers and I be one of those faces one day? It’s hard not to slip in nihilism when in the past century, particle physics has been upended so drastically but we’ve not lifted any trophies since 2012. This could all be a product of a short career and an impatient perspective. But in past generations, there were idea on the horizons.

There is currently an update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics which conclude in 2026. A primary focus of this document will the be next generation circular collider, dubbed the FCC.
If it is successfully greenlit, this object will be the northstar of my later career. We don’t have the clear goal of a Higgs discovery like the pioneers of the LHC, we have a open field and a shovel. A incredibly interesting field with a remarkably engineered shovel. I just hope I don’t need to wait so long for us to hit treasure.