High Energy Physics

High Energy Physics (HEP) is the study of the most fundamental building blocks of nature.

representation of a particle collision
Representation of a particle collision inside the Large Hadron Collider (CERN)

It seeks to elucidate the very nature of matter, using accelerators that produce energies not seen since the big bang, as well as natural sources of high energy particles. 

High energy physics is an international endeavor, and we work at laboratories all over the world. The Duke HEP group is made up of faculty, staff and students working both here in Durham and also at the labs in Chicago, Switzerland and Japan.

At Duke, members of the Physics department are working on the CDF experiment at the Fermi national laboratory in Chicago, the Atlas experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland and the Super-Kamiokande,T2K and Belle II experiments in Japan.

Topics include the search for the Higgs boson and the study of the properties of the neutrino and heavy quarks, with a focus on understanding the origin of mass and the observed matter asymmetry of the universe.

It is an exciting time to be a particle physicist, and to take part in these cutting-edge experiments.

Image of the inside of the atlas detector
The ATLAS detector
Image of the inside of the Super-Kamiokande detector
Inside of the Super-Kamiokande, T2K's far detector.