90-Minute Symposium

090-010

Beyond E=mc2: Unveiling the Early Universe with High-Intensity Accelerators

Session Start/End Time:

Friday, Feb 13, 2009, 10:30 AM -12:00 PM

HRC Regency C

Subatomic processes in the early universe determined the matter content and the initial evolution of the universe. Yet many questions remain about those crucial first moments. The observations of dark matter, dark energy, and neutrino masses tell us that new physics exists beyond the standard model of particles and their interactions. But even the most powerful particle colliders cannot recreate the mass and energy scales that existed shortly after the Big Bang. Fortunately, particles and forces that exist at high energies subtly contribute to low-energy physics phenomena through quantum effects. Low-energy experiments repeatedly pointed to the existence of new particles and forces long before they were produced by particle colliders. Examples include the W and Z bosons, the charm quark, the top quark, and the not-yet-observed Higgs boson. This symposium will summarize the indirect searches for new physics with current and future high-intensity particle accelerators in the United States, Switzerland, and Japan. Using these innovative machines, physicists produce incredibly large samples of muons, B mesons, and neutrinos to look for effects predicted by theories beyond the standard model. They look for the transitions of, for example, muons into electrons, B mesons into their own antiparticles, and muon neutrinos into electron neutrinos. These low-energy processes are particularly sensitive to contributions from high-energy processes that have eluded detection so far.

Organized by:

Kurt Riesselmann, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL;Bob Tschirhart, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL

Presentations:

  Symposium Organizer--Kurt Riesselmann, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL

  Symposium Co-Organizer--Bob Tschirhart, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL

  Beyond E=mc² Rare Particle Decays--Craig Dukes, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

  Searches for New Subatomic Phenomena Using B Factories--Gregory Dubois-Felsmann, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA

  The Role of Neutrinos in the Evolution of the Universe--Boris Kayser, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL