More than 80 students of Batxillerat (Spanish upper secondary school education) from the Valencian Community will participate on the days 2 and 8 March in the traditional masterclass ‘Hands on particle physics’, an informative international activity promoted by the main laboratories of particle physics of the world- including CERN and Fermilab- aimed to stimulate scientific vocations. The Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-Universitat de València), organises and hosts the seminar.
The students come from 28 high schools of the Valencian Community. The activity, of an international character, tries to stimulate the scientific vocations. The students will immerse themselves in particle physics on the hands of researchers from the Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-Universitat de València), pioneer centre in carrying out this informative activity for more than a decade. In addition to looking for particle with data from the largest particle accelerator of the world, the LHC, the Valencian students will share their results by video conference with participants from France, Italy, Germany and Romania, coordinated by the CERN.
The international masterclass ‘Hands on particle physics’ is an initiative organised by the international particle physics outreach group (IPPOG) and promoted by the main laboratories of particle physics of the world, including the CERN (Switzerland) and Fermilab (USA). The participants are 210 laboratories and research centres of 45 countries, among which there are new participants from Argentina, Slovenia, India, Peru and Venezuela.
The Instituto de Física Corpuscular, centre of excelence Severo Ochoa with a significant participation in LHC and its experiments, has taken part in this activity from its beginning, in 2004. From two editions ago, the IFIC organises two sessions, one of them with data from the LHCb experiment and the other one with data from ATLAS. In both cases, groups of 40 students of first or second year of Batxillerat go to the research centre to introduce themselves in the world of particle physics on the hand of researchers of the IFIC that take part directly in this experiments.
The session of Wednesday 2 March is dedicated to the LHCb experiment , that studies the differences between matter and antimatter in the universe and that, in 2015, announced the discovery of particles compounded by five quarks. Students are proposed to measure the ‘lifetime’ of one of the particles produced in the LHCb collisions, the D0 meson. By studying its disintegration, scientists try to solve one of the enigmas of current physics: Why do we live in a universe made by matter and not antimatter?
After the activity carried out at the of the Universitat de València, students will share their results via video conference with high school students in research centres in Marseille (France), Suceava (Romania), Ferrara and Pisa (Italy), in a session led by scientists of the CERN from its headquarters in Geneva. Apart from reproducing the work method of the largest collaborations in particle physics (with thousands of scientists) distributed around the globe), it is evidenced the importance of accumulating statistics in order to achieve reliable results in science.
The session of the 8 March will be carried out with data from the ATLAS experiment, one of the largest of LHC, where the Higgs boson. The exercise consists of proving that the proton, one of the constituents of the atom nucleus, it has an intern structure formed by quarks, the ‘bricks’ of matter. Furthermore, hidden in the ATLAS data students can find some of the Higgs bosons that are produced rarely in the experiment. In the afternoon, students will share their results via video conference with Freiburg (Germany), Saclay and Clermont-Ferrand (France), with the mediation of scientists from the CERN.
For more information and to contact:
http://ific.uv.es/masterclass/index.php
http://physicsmasterclasses.org/index.php
http://physicsmasterclasses.org/index.php?cat=country&page=sp_valencia
Last update: 29 de february de 2016 11:00.
News release