Cosmic Variance's very own JoAnne is coming to USC on Monday to give a colloquium! Her talk is entitled "Discovering the Quantum Universe: The Role of Particle Accelerators", and you can read the abstract here. It sounds so exciting, I did a special extra "fun" poster around campus to bring in a few non-regulars, and ... oh... well....I'll reproduce the abstract here after all:
We are on the verge of a revolution in our understanding of what the universe is made of and how it works. Today, a special opportunity is at hand to address the fundamental nature of the quantum universe through astrophysical observations, in underground experiments, and at particle accelerators. Here, I will focus on the special role of particle colliders, which recreate the conditions in the first instants after the Big Bang. The Large Hadron Collider, under construction in Geneva Switzerland, will begin operations in 2007 and will provide the first clear look at a region of energy beyond the reach of today's colliders. Physicists expect that the LHC experiments will find new particles never before observed. These particles will be messengers, telling profound stories about the universe and their discovery will be the opening chapter of the story. The proposed International Linear Collider will allow us to listen very carefully to these stories and consequently discover the corresponding new laws and symmetries that govern the new particles. I will highlight the roles of these two colliders in three scenarios: solving the mysteries of the Terascale, shedding light on Dark Matter, hunting for ultimate unification.
Should be fun! -cvj
