Alumni Festival – talk by Professor Ben Allanach
As part of the University’s Alumni Festival, we are delighted to host a talk by Professor Ben Allanach, Clare Hall Professorial Fellow and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, in the Richard Eden Suite, 10.45am – 12pm.
Title: ‘Quantum Collisions: A New Force?’
When protons collide at near light speed inside the vast underground ring at CERN, they recreate conditions that last existed fractions of a second after the Big Bang. These extraordinary experiments led to the discovery of the Higgs boson, but they may now be hinting at something even more surprising.
In this talk, Professor Ben Allanach will take us inside the world of high-energy particle collisions. Proton-proton collisions at CERN have discovered the Higgs boson. Currently, some other particles being produced are decaying certain ways that disagree with the standard theory. After describing how the collisions and their measurements are done, he will discuss the hypothesis that this is due to a previously undiscovered force.
Speaker bio: Professor Ben Allanach joined the University of Cambridge after post-doctoral stints in laboratories in the UK, France and CERN. His research involves interpreting data coming from CERN and making new theoretical hypotheses in response, hoping to shed light on unsolved mysteries.