Unraveling the Hidden Symmetries of Nature

Abstract

After more than twenty years of worldwide effort, and a strong collaboration among physicists from four different continents, the proton-proton Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Switzerland, has begun operation.
This starts a new era in particle physics. This new experimental input will help us improve our understanding of the world at its smallest scale, the particle scale.

Some of the questions still unanswered are: what is this form of energy we call mass, which all particles seem to have in different amounts? Why forces between particles are so different, as we observe in our world today?

In this colloquium I will explain how theoretically we explain such an asymmetric particle world today as a product of a highly symmetric one at some early stage of the Universe, and how we expect to test this theory with the new data collected at the Large Hadron Collider. I will also highlight what my contribution to such an exciting area of research is.

Coffee and tea will be available before the lecture and refreshments will be served after.

Speaker

Associate Professor Stefania Xella.

Time and place

24th of February in Auditorium 3, H.C. Ørsted Institute.