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Abstracts of current research in particle and particle astrophysics in Sweden.

Main activities in high energy physics in Sweden have traditionally been CERN related. However today many groups are also involved in other Big Science Laboratories and Science Projects around the world as Fermilab (the world's highest-energy particle accelerator and collider Tevatron), DECY (the Deutsches Electron Synchroton in Hamburg, Germany), RHIC (the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA) and IceCube /  Amanda a neutrino telescope at the South Pole as well as a number of satellite carried telescopes and detectors.

Sweden hosts several national accelerator physics laboratories: A National Electron Accelerator Laboratory MAX-lab in Lund with research in synchrotron radiation and nuclear physics. The Manne Siegbahn Laboratory (MSL), a laboratory research centre based on the CRYRING accelerator and the double electrostatic storage ring DESIREE. The activity at the laboratory is mainly basic research in atomic, molecular and accelerator physics. The Svedberg Laboratory in Uppsala with its former CELSIUS (Cooling with ELectrons and Storing of Ions from the Uppsala Synchrocyclotron) ring has now been converted from a national laboratory into a university facility (2004). The synchrocyclotron is now an important tool for proton therapy and proton irradiation projects.





Experiments   Theory

Current research in particle physics is mainly concentrated in a few large experiments.

The ATLASexperiment, one of three experiments in the former LEP tunnel, where the large hadron collider (LHC) will be ready for physics experiment in 2007. All Swedish research groups in experimental particle physics have been participating in the preparations for ATLAS. The readout electronics for transition radiation tracker, which is a part of the ATLAS tracking detector (Lund). In Stockholm the particle physics group and the system instrumentation group are jointly active within the first level trigger and front end electronics for the TILE calorimeter in ATLAS. A group at the Royal Institute of Technology has together with a group in Grenoble developed the electromagnetic presampler, an essential support to the liquid argon electromagnetic calorimeter in ATLAS. Uppsala has been developing control and monitoring for the semi-conductor tracker (SCT) in ATLAS as well as designing and building the interlinking and support system for the SCT. The physics in ATLAS are prepared by all groups with help of computer simulations.

IceCube is a high-energy neutrino detector, that started construction at the South Pole in the 2004/20054 sesaon. It will eventually consist of about 4800 optical modules containing photomultipliers, deployed in the antarctic ice at depths between 1400 m and 2400 m. The 80 strings to which the modules are attached will encompass a volume of about one cubic kilometer.

The D0 experiment at Fermilab (Chicago, USA) is an experiment designed to explore the basic components of matter. It allows to study a wide range of physics signals from the proton-antiproton collisions provided by the Tevatron accelerator. The swedish groups involved are from Stockholm (Stockholm university and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Lund and Uppsala.

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a dedicated heavy ion experiment at the LHC. The goal of the experiment is to study strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities (QCD thermodynamics). One group in Lund has focused the experimental activity on development of advanced read-out systems for tracking chambers.

The Lund group also participates in the PHENIX collaboration, one of two large experiments at RHIC, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA. RHIC started to deliver colliding beams of gold in the summer of 2000.

A Lund group is also involved in H1 - an experiment at the electron-proton collider HERA at DESY. The experiment started taking data in 1992. Among the physics tasks are measurements of the proton and photon substructures, QCD analyses, tests of the SM and searches for new phenomena.

Other large collaborations and experiments to be mentioned are:

The Amanda experiment (Stockholm, Uppsala) was a project to build a detector for cosmic neutrinos, deep in the ice at the geographical South Pole. Kilometer deep holes were drilled in the ice to allow optical modules (large PM tubes) to be placed at depths between 1500 to 2000 meters. The light from neutrino induced muons has been detected and the direction to the sources and the origin of the most energetic cosmic neutrios found and investigated. In March 2005 the Amanda project with its 19 strings and 678 optocal modules was officially incorporated as a part in the IceCube-project.

The DELPHI experiment, one of four experiments at the former large electron positron collider (LEP) at CERN and which started to take data in 1989. On the instrumentation side many swedish groups had main responcibilities in a number of subdetectors in DELPHI. The very small angle tagger (VSAT) used to determine the luminosity and two photon collisions in DELPHI (Lund). The central calorimeter (HPC) and scintillator counters for improvement of the hermeticity of DELPHI (Stockholm). In the physics analyses of DELPHI data, Bose Einstein correlations studies, inclusive hadroproduction and fragmentation functions, QCD and two-photon physics has been performed in Lund. Search for the Higgs boson, studies of hyperon production and measurements of inclusive branching ratios of the tau lepton in Stockholm. The LEP-accelerator stopped in November 2000 but data analysis is still carried out.

The WA89 and the EMU01 experiments with contributions fom Lund.



Experiments   Theory

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