ReseaRch Quality assuRance foR the futuRe a ... - Lund University

Panel 13 – PHYSICS / MATHEMATICS
2.2.5 Evaluation of future plans
The division plans to have stronger activities within renewable fuels.
The plans are not very concrete yet, but it is certainly an area where
basic science and basic understanding is necessary in order to make the
significant large progress that is needed for our future society.
2.3 Division of Experimental High Energy Physics
2.3.1 Background
In the recent past the Division has been involved in experiments at
CERN (DELPHI), at DESY (H1) and at Brookhaven (PHENIX).
This programme is coming to an end and has been replaced by ATLAS
and ALICE at the LHC at CERN and an R&D programme towards a
detector for the International Linear Collider (ILC). On top of this there
is a vigorous programme on Grid computing.
There is no doubt that the past programme of the division has been
of very high quality, the experiments themselves DELPHI, H1 and
PHENIX, are all large international collaborations and are at the
forefront the subject. In each case the Lund group has made essential
intellectual, technical and managerial contributions which certainly are
commensurate with the size of the group involved.
The present programme of ATLAS and ALICE are well chosen. It is clear
that any first rate university particle physics department must have an
important stake in the areas of the subject that appear to maximise the
possibilities of new discoveries leading to new understandings. Therefore
involvement in an LHC all-purpose detector (ATLAS) is a “must”. The
involvement in ALICE follows on from the work on PHENIX, and
addresses the new state of matter – the quark-gluon plasma, a fundamental
question.
Both these programmes are huge international enterprises of which the
Lund group is only a small part (as are essentially all other individual
groups). The pertinent question is not whether the programme is of the
highest international standards (it clearly is), but has the Lund group’s
contribution also been up to this standard? In both cases the answer
is yes. In ATLAS the fairly small group has had impact in hardware,
software and more recently in preparing for the analysis of the truly
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