Searching for the next Higgs boson: SFU team drives global effort to boost science experiment at Large Hadron Collider

Simon Fraser University researchers are driving Canada’s involvement on a major upgrade of the renowned ATLAS experiment as scientists seek to enhance our understanding of the universe.

Deep within a high-tech lab at SFU’s Burnaby campus, researchers are assembling new detector components for the ATLAS experiment, which aims to boost the discovery potential of the Large Hadron Collider.

The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the collider shut down yesterday for upgrades. When it comes back online in 2030, it will feature ATLAS detector components assembled right here in B.C.

Canada is among dozens of countries involved, with SFU taking a leading role in one of the most significant international scientific efforts in history.

“What scientists are trying to do is discover new fundamental particles and interactions that will unlock the secrets of the universe. But it’s a bit like looking for needles in a universe-sized haystack,” says Bernd Stelzer, a professor in SFU’s department of physics.

“The new detector components that we’re assembling right here at SFU greatly improve the chances of finding something new. That’s what makes it so exciting to be involved and what keeps pushing us forward.”

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN sits in a 27-kilometer ring, 100 metres underground on the France-Switzerland border. It is home to the ATLAS experiment, which is best known for the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.

Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams are made to collide at four locations around the ring.

When the beams collide, they erupt into an explosion of new particles. The SFU team is assembling large parts of the new ATLAS tracker, known as petals, which detect the particles produced by the collisions.

“The ATLAS experiment and the Large Hadron Collider are the energy frontier. It’s the only place where you can study the universe's fundamental workings and discover new particles and new phenomena at the highest energies,” says Stelzer.

A total of 400 new petals are being produced worldwide as part of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider project.

The SFU team was the first to produce a petal for installation in the new tracker, in collaboration with TRIUMF, Canada's particle accelerator centre. They will make around 100 petals overall over the course of three years.

Luise Poley, adjunct professor in SFU’s department of physics and project scientist at TRIUMF, has been co-ordinating international efforts for the last eight years.

“Being able to build the first petals for production was a huge achievement for us,” says Poley.

“The Large Hadron Collider is being upgraded to a much higher collision rate. We’re going to throw ten times the amount of particles together compared to before.

“And when you throw ten times as many particles together, a lot more particles come out. The current detector that is in there won't be able to handle it.

“So not only do we have to replace it, we have to replace it with something much better, much faster and much more efficient.”

The SFU-TRIUMF team includes postdocs, students, engineers and technicians. Richard Salami, an SFU PhD student, has been involved in the project for two years.

“It feels like a dream come true to be involved. One of the reasons I was initially interested in studying physics is from learning about the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider,” says Salami.

“What motivated me to come to SFU for graduate studies was the opportunity to do research at a university that is at the forefront of particle physics instrumentation in Canada and is a key contributor in the global ATLAS collaboration.”

SFU’s involvement in the ATLAS experiment goes beyond making the new petals. The ATLAS team in SFU’s department of physics has been working on processing the data collected by the experiment for more than 15 years.

SFU is home to the ATLAS Tier-1 Data Centre, a large-scale data-intensive facility, which enables researchers to reconstruct and discover the properties of new particles.

“It's very rare that students have the opportunity of seeing both the construction of a particle detector and the analysis of the data – it's a full circle experience that we can offer our students,” adds Stelzer.

“These efforts are critical to unlock immense scientific discoveries and it’s great to see Canadian researchers and students at the heart of breakthrough science.”

The Data Centre has just received $5.3 million in government funding to advance particle research.

• Photos from the SFU lab are available to download here.