ICHEP2024: The future of particle physics resides in international collaboration

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ICHEP2024, the largest international conference on high energy physics, attracted 1400 participants from 55 countries to Prague. In addition to thousands of lectures, scientists were also offered three panels – two dealing with the future of particle physics and its benefits for society and the third on the importance of education and popularisation of science.

In order to study the smallest building blocks of nature and search for answers to fundamental questions about the nature of our universe physicists use particle accelerators and complex detector systems, which act like the most powerful microscopes. The variation in experiments allows them to connect views of particle physics and test existing theoretical models.

"The conference was jointly organised by representatives of five Czech universities and two institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Several dozen of our students acted as assistants, getting an invaluable opportunity to participate in the conference sessions," said the national organiser of ICHEP2024, Professor Zdeněk Doležal from Charles University.

Accelerator experiments and measurements of neutrino properties push the boundaries of particle physics

Significant research results were presented at the conference by representatives of experiments carried out at the LHC accelerator at CERN, such as the parameters of Higgs boson interactions with other particles and with itself. The detailed measurement of the properties of this particle, which was discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS LHC experiments, is one of the main research goals of the upcoming upgrade of the HL-LHC (High Luminosity LHC).

"Czech physicists have not failed to leave their mark. Not only did they present new results from LHC experiments on, for example, Higgs boson physics, heavy top quark physics, strong interaction physics, proton structure and ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions, but their contributions could also be heard in other parallel sessions, e.g. in the neutrino physics, astroparticle physics and cosmology, theory, detector operation, data processing or education and popularisation of particle physics sections," says Alexander Kupčo, member of the local organising committee of the conference.

Neutrino experiments have also yielded ground-breaking findings, both in accelerator, reactor and atmospheric experiments, and in observations of cosmic sources. Neutrinos, unique particles with no electric charge, are one of the most important questions that particle physicists are trying to elucidate. At the conference, scientists presented significant advances in understanding neutrino oscillations and their potential to reveal CP violation, a phenomenon that is crucial to explaining the asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the Universe. CP asymmetry currently observed in quarks is not sufficient to explain the antimatter asymmetry. T2K and NOvA experiments presented new results suggesting CP violation in the neutrino sector.

Astrophysical neutrino detectors, such as those used in the ORCA, ARCA, IceCube and DeepCore experiments, have achieved remarkable results, including the detection of neutrinos with the highest energy ever recorded. In addition, the Dark Energy Survey has yielded new insights into the distribution of galaxies, providing deeper insights into the structure of the early Universe and supporting models of cosmic evolution.
 

International collaboration is the future of physics

Another major theme of ICHEP2024 was the future of accelerator physics. The visions of the world's largest accelerator laboratories were discussed by their leaders Fabiola Gianotti (CERN), Lia Merminga (Fermilab, USA), Yifang Wang (IHEP, China), Shoji Asai (KEK, Japan) and Dmitri Denisov (BNL, USA).

The discussion focused on large accelerator projects with proposals for new 90 km rings at CERN and in China. These projects aim to reach higher energies and potentially reveal new physics beyond the standard model. To achieve this goal, however, international cooperation is needed because, as Karl Jakobs, responsible for the European particle strategy, has noted: "You can't build an accelerator in every country." His words were confirmed by CERN Director General Fabiolla Gianotti: "Collaborating on basic scientific research in particle physics is a common goal for all of us." 

On the Czech part, the debate was attended by Martin Procházka, the Rector of Palacký University in Olomouc; Ladislav Krištoufek, the Vice-Rector for Research of Charles University; Jan Řídký, the Vice-Chairman of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Pavel Doleček, the Deputy Minister for Science, Research and Innovation.

The Ministry of Education, which is the main financial source and guarantor of the cooperation with CERN, was represented by Marek Vyšinka, Head of Unit for Research Infrastructures. CERN is the closest and most important international laboratory for Czech particle physicists and at the end of the debate CERN director called on scientists to deepen cooperation: "Meeting and sharing experience is extremely valuable and it is really important to keep this in mind and set aside time for these 'soft skills'. This full auditorium is proof of that. And I would like to take this opportunity to invite your wonderful scientists to join us. Because our laboratories at CERN are available to all European countries."

In a panel discussion titled Communication and Outreach - by all of us - is critical for the future of HEP, leading physics communicators took the stage: Matthew Chalmers, Editor of the CERN Courier, Sarah Demers, professor of physics at Yale University, populariser Paris Sphicas, and two renowned TV journalists Spencer Kelly from the BBC and Daniel Stach from the Czech Television. The hour-long debate was organized and co-hosted by Connie Potter and Dave Barney and can be viewed here.

Awards for promising scientists and best posters

The ICHEP conference not only showcased important advances and future directions in particle physics, but also recognised young scientists. Two promising scientists received the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Award from the Chair of the Commission on Particles and Fields, Professor Florencia Canelli. Jennifer Ngadiuba (Fermilab) won the award for co-creation, developing and deploying new machine learning techniques for solving complex elementary particle physics problems, focusing on ultra-fast real-time data analysis on hardware triggers (systems deciding which events to record and which not to) and for model-agnostic search for physics signals outside the standard model at the LHC." The second award went to Ian Moult (Yale University) for designing new observable parameters for the jet substructure that had a direct impact on the accelerator physics program, and for developing new effective field theory techniques that enable high-precision calculations.

Over the course of the conference, attendees were able to view 282 posters over three days, 180 of which qualified for the best presentation competition. Although the posters covered all of the topics the conference focused on, the level of representation of posters from each field reflected the most current trends in physics and the problems being addressed by the community. Posters on the operation, performance, and upgrade of current accelerators (56), neutrino physics (46), issues beyond the standard model (26), and computation, AI, and data management (25) had the highest representation. 

The expert programme was accompanied by activities for the public

Particle physics and CERN, which will celebrate 70 years since its foundation this September, could be experienced by thousands of visitors at the Colours of Ostrava music festival. They had the opportunity to attend a lecture by CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti on the Big Bang Stage. Hundreds of visitors were also attracted by the Particles and Arnošt Lustig exhibition, which was open for the duration of the conference at the Prague Congress Centre, together with an exhibition of student work inspired by particles in the BeInspired project.

About the conference:

The International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) is a series of international conferences organized by the Commission of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP). It has been held every two years for more than 70 years and is the reference conference for particle physics, where the most important results are presented. ICHEP brings together physicists from around the world to share the latest advances in particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology and accelerator science and to discuss plans for major facilities in the future.

ICHEP 2024 at national level is organized by key institutions involved in particle research, namely Charles University, Czech Technical University in Prague, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Palacký University in Olomouc, Technical University of Liberec and University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. The Chairmen of the Organizing Committee are prof. Zdeněk Doležal and prof. Tomáš Davídek from the Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University.

 

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