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The Liverpool experimental particle physics programme is driven by the search for answers to the key questions in the field. We are addressing the quest for the origin of mass through two programmes. At the energy frontier, through CDF then ATLAS, we will search for the Higgs boson and aim to measure its dominant decays; while we believe the International Linear Collider (ILC) will be needed to fully test whether the Higgs mechanism provides an explanation for the fermion masses. At HERA, through e-p scattering, the QCD explanation for most of the visible mass in the universe (deriving from the energy locked in the fields binding the quarks inside baryons) is tested through a campaign of measurements aimed at checking as much as possible of the predicted phenomenology.
The issues of Grand Unification (including gravity) and of dark matter will be addressed by us through searches at the Tevatron (CDF) then at the LHC (ATLAS) for evidence of new physics, with particular emphasis on supersymmetry as the theoretically preferred framework for addressing both of these fundamental questions. The understanding of the relationship of new physics to ideas deriving from supersymmetry or other possibilities (such as large extra dimensions) is expected to require further studies, both using the enormous luminosity of the Super LHC (SLHC) with an upgraded ATLAS detector and the ILC. Testing ideas on the unification of forces requires accurate determination of fundamental couplings such as αS. We lead one of the most precise current measurements of αS (using H1 data) and the ILC will be key to improving determinations of the many parameters required for fits to Grand Unification models
We are addressing the issue of the dominance of matter over anti-matter through key measurements at BaBar and CDF in the b-quark sector, to be followed by measurements of even greater precision for most channels at LHCb. Should leptogenesis provide the basis for the observed matter anti-matter asymmetry in the universe, our neutrino programme (which also addresses another PPARC priority, understanding neutrino mass) will seek to find experimental evidence for this, firstly through the T2K experiment and then through participation in the Neutrino Factory.
See tbe European Particle Physics Strategy
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