Particle Physics at Columbia
Particle Physics addresses the most fundamental questions about the elementary particles and forces in our Universe. The Standard Model describes these particles and their interactions in great detail and has been verified in a wide range of experiments for nearly half a century, culminating in the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2012. However, the clear evidence for phenomena with interpretations that lie outside the Standard Model, such as neutrino masses, dark matter, and dark energy, motivates the search for a broader theory and even more unexpected results.
The Large Hadron Collider is producing the most energetic collisions of any accelerator, and the study of neutrinos with a suite of experiments at Fermi National Accelerator Lab in the U.S. continues to probe their masses and properties. Columbia is home to two experimental particle physics groups that play leading roles on these two experimental programs: the ATLAS Group, based at Columbia's Nevis Laboratories and at CERN, and the Neutrino Group, based at Nevis Laboratories, at Fermi National Lab, and at CERN. If you are interested in our research, follow these pages to learn more and reach out to any members of our groups.