Norwegian Centre for CERN research

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has been the leading research centre in Europe since 1954. Today, it is one of the largest particle physics laboratories in the world and hosts some of the most advanced and interesting research in particle and nuclear physics. It is highly versatile and consists of international collaboration between over 20 member states. Norwegian scientists have contributed to research at CERN from the start and are currently participating actively in several of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The research that the Norwegian community participates in can be divided into two areas; high energy and low energy. The high energy area consists of numerous experiments. ATLAS has its main focus on studying the Higgs boson and searching for new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry, dark matter and other exotic particles. ALICE, on the other hand, is a heavy-ion experiment studying the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities. The Norwegian community also work at the forefront of accelerator and detector research for both LHC and the upgraded High-Luminosity LHC. After the LHC period, this research will be further developed with other future projects such as Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) and AWAKE. In addition to the high energy program, Norwegian scientists are participating in low energy research at CERN. In particular at the ISOLDE experiment, which is a unique source of low-energy beams of radioactive nuclides, permitting the study of the vast area of atomic nuclei including the most exotic species. Last but not least, the theory community in Norway is growing fast and is working closely with CERN to explore open fundamental physics questions such as the origin of dark matter and the life of the Universe. This grant enables Norwegian scientists to work at the frontiers of physics and be at the midst of physics discoveries such as the Higgs boson. 2023 was a very important year for NorCC as the Large Hadron Collider and its experiments continued collecting Run 3 data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity exceeding 60 inverse femtobarn for proton-proton collisions at a world-record energy of 13.6 TeV. The events were detected by the completely revamped ALICE detector as well as the ATLAS detector, thus providing new indispensable data to physics researchers. This new data will be pivotal in the search for even rarer processes and even heavier unknown particles. Due to several technical problems with the collider, helium leak being one of them, the proton-proton run at 13.6 TeV had to be interrupted. Some compensation will be made in 2024. We also see important developments for accelerator R&D, the ISOLDE and AEGIS experiments, our technology activity and other fields. Last but not least our NorLHC upgrade infrastructure project is funded for another five-year period (NorLHC-II, 2023-2027), which will be essential to complete the future computing and detector upgrades for ATLAS and ALICE.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has been the leading research centre in Europe since its start in 1954. Now one of the largest particle physics laboratories in the world it is at the centre of some of the most advanced and interesting research in particle and nuclear physics performed today. Norwegian scientists have contributed to research at CERN from the start and are today participating actively in the ATLAS and ALICE experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as well researching and developing novel detectors for the LHC and the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). Whereas the research at ATLAS is focused on studying the Higgs Boson and finding new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry, dark matter or other exotic particles, ALICE is a heavy-ion experiment studying the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities. Norwegian scientists are also working at the forefront of accelerator research in particular for the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), which will be essential to design novel accelerators for the future after the HL-LHC, and AWAKE, investigating the use of plasma wakefields driven by a proton bunch to accelerate charged particles. In addition to the high energy program, Norwegian scientists are participating in low energy research at CERN. In particular at the ISOLDE experiment, which is a unique source of low-energy beams of radioactive nuclides, permitting the study the vast area of atomic nuclei including the most exotic species. Last but not least, the theory community in Norway is fast growing and is working closely with CERN to explore open fundamental physics questions such as the origin of Dark Matter or the life of the Universe. The future of CERN related research in Norway is very much dependent on a stable funding situation and this grant enables Norwegian scientists to work at the frontiers of physics and be at the mids of physics discoveries such as the Higgs Boson.