Marie Curie Actions: Inspiring Researchers - Imdea

Recreatingthe Big BangArtemis is a research training network that is exploring oneof the most fundamental questions in modern science – theorigin of mass of the elementary particles. The network hasbrought together the very best brains from several key areasin particle physics in order to exploit the physics potential ofthe ATLAS detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) –the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator,located 175 metres beneath the Franco-Swiss border nearGeneva, Switzerland.Big Bang bonanzaArtemis is expected to provide unprecedented data that willbreak new ground in our understanding of nature at its mostfundamental level. It will recreate the exact conditions just afterthe Big Bang and thus show once and for all just how theuniverse was formed. This study has the potential to change ourperspective on the universe forever. In particular, the LHC datawill allow for a defi nitive investigation of the mass-generationmechanism for elementary particles. This investigation couldoccur through the Higgs fi eld (which permeates all of space)and the Higgs particle, or through another process. TheArtemis researchers are at the forefront of this research withinthe ATLAS collaboration.The four-year project is developing tools and methods forimproving the reconstruction and identifi cation of elementaryparticles in the ATLAS detector and optimising the data analysesfor the all-elusive Higgs search. It will also measure well-knownprocesses of particle physics and crucially, once enough datahave been recorded by the ATLAS detector, will search for theHiggs boson – a colossal but so far elusive scalar elementaryparticle that particle physicists believe exists.However, the project is not only about fi nding the keys to theuniverse. ‘At the same time, an equally important Artemis goalis to form a strong platform for training European researchersand to push them to the front line of this high-profi le researcharea,’ says Rosy Nikolaidou, the French scientist in chargeof the Artemis network. ‘The strong links between theATLAS detector61