Spotlight
Julia Thom
Professor Julia Thom's research group is part of an international collaboration preparing the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment that will operate at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) scheduled to begin operation in 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland. "This is a really exciting time to be a particle physicist," says Thom. "The LHC is capable of collision energies that are orders of magnitude higher than previous colliders. At these higher energies there are new possibilities, some that may change our entire picture of physics." For example the LHC is predicted to be able to create dark matter, which will give clues into the nature of space and time. The LHC should also be able to create Higgs Bosons, which theorists believe generate the masses of the other particles through the Higgs field. By creating and observing Higgs particles directly, physicists hope to understand where mass itself comes from. Professor Thom explains that the LHC is a collaboration of over 2000 people world-wide. "It's a long-term project, like a modern cathedral. The design phase started decades ago, and now it's all coming together. Our group has been preparing the detectors and performing calibrations. Our software will go to CERN to be used with the detector there. We are running simulations to understand how the detectors will work. Students that come to Cornell will be coming here at a very exciting time."