Antimatter has been disappearing and Melbourne researcher Phillip Urquijo wants to know why.
Phillip Urquijo—looking for missing antimatter. Credit: Casamento photography
He’s hoping that the Belle II experiment, commencing in Japan in 2017, will give him an answer—and if he’s lucky it will answer many other questions about the beginning of the Universe too.
“What I hope we’ll discover is clear evidence of new quarks, leptons or other force-carrying particles,” says Phillip. “And I’d be really excited if we found a new kind of Higgs particle using this indirect approach.”
Melbourne shared in the announcement of the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle in 2012, and the city is expected to reap millions of dollars in economic benefits brought by the conference at which this discovery was announced.
The Melbourne Convention Centre hosted the 36th International Conference on High Energy Physics, where the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle was announced in 2012. Credit: MCVB
The announcement that a suspect matching the elusive subatomic particle’s description had been found came at the 36th International Conference on High Energy Physics, held at the Melbourne Convention Centre in July, in a joint announcement with CERN in Switzerland. Continue reading Melbourne takes centre stage in physics→
In 2012, scientists celebrated at the announcement of the discovery of a Higgs boson-like particle, a subatomic particle that completes our model of how the Universe works.
Director of the High Energy Physics Conference, Geoff Taylor (right) celebrates the Higgs-like particle announcement at the Melbourne Convention Centre with Pauline Gagnon of CERN. Credit: Laura Vanags/ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale
The announcement was made simultaneously at CERN in Geneva, and to hundreds of physicists gathered in Melbourne for the International Conference on High Energy Physics.
“As scientific discoveries go, this is up there with finding a way to split the atom,” says Prof Geoff Taylor, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Terascale (CoEPP).
