Description du projet
La recherche sur les générateurs d’événements en première ligne de la physique des particules
La physique des collisionneurs plonge dans les mystères de l’univers en examinant les plus petits éléments de la matière. La phénoménologie permet de combler le fossé entre les théories fondamentales et les expériences, en particulier dans la chromodynamique quantique (CDQ), qui décrit les interactions fortes. Cette théorie joue un rôle important dans les collisions à haute énergie, comme celles qui se produisent au Grand collisionneur de hadrons du CERN. En raison de la nature complexe de ces collisions, des modèles inspirés de la CDQ sont élaborés et mis en œuvre sous forme de code informatique. Les générateurs d’événements constituent des exemples de ces codes informatiques. Financé par le CER, le projet MorePheno mène des recherches de premier plan dont l’objectif est de faire progresser les générateurs d’événements et la compréhension de la physique des collisionneurs.
Objectif
Collider physics is about exploring the smallest constituents of matter, and unravelling the basic laws of the Universe. Unfortunately there can be a huge gap between a one-line formula of a fundamental theory and the experimental reality it implies. Phenomenology is intended to fill that gap, e.g. to explore the consequences of a theory such that it can be directly compared with data.
Nowhere is the gap more striking than for QCD, the theory of strong interactions, which dominates in most high-energy collisions, like at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN. And yet, when such collisions produce hundreds of outgoing particles, calculational complexity is insurmountable. Instead ingenious but approximate QCD-inspired models have to be invented.
Such models are especially powerful if they can be cast in the form of computer code, and combined to provide a complete description of the collision process. An event generator is such a code, where random numbers are used to emulate the quantum mechanical uncertainty that leads to no two collision events being quite identical.
The Principal Investigator is the main author of PYTHIA, the most widely used event generator of the last 30 years and vital for physics studies at the LHC. It is in a state of continuous extension: new concepts are invented, new models developed, new code written, to provide an increasingly accurate understanding of collider physics. But precise LHC data has put a demand on far more precise descriptions, and have also shown that some models need to be rethought from the ground up.
This project, at its core, is about conducting more frontline research with direct implications for event generators, embedded in a broader phenomenology context. In addition to the PI, the members of the theoretical high energy physics group in Lund and of the PYTHIA collaboration will participate in this project, as well as graduate students and postdocs.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitution d’accueil
22100 Lund
Suède