Experimental particle physicists at UCD work on the LHCb experiment at CERN, situated at one of the four collision points of the Large Hadron Collider. The UCD team observed the first W and Z bosons at LHCb. They used this data to develop new methods to observe the structure of quarks and gluons in the proton. They have also isolated unusual 'glancing collisions' of the proton beams at the LHC in which charm and anti-charm quarks are created from the energy transfered using Einstein's famous equation E=mc2. 10 Ph.D and 2 MSc. degrees have been awarded to Irish students for their work on LHCb, funded by IRC, the (now disbanded) SFI Research Frontier Programme, and by UCD.
Sample Publications
LHCb collaboration, Inclusive measurement of W and Z production in the forward region at root(s)=7 TeV, JHEP 06 (2012) 058 . (see also J. Anderson, J. Keaveney theses)
LHCb collaboration, A study of the Z production cross-section in pp collisions at root(s)=7 TeV using tau final states, JHEP 01 (2013) 111. (see also S. Farry thesis)
LHCb collaboration, Measurement of the forward W boson cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV, JHEP 12 (2014) 079, (see also W. Zhang thesis)
LHCb collaboration, Limits on neutral Higgs boson production in the forward region in pp collisions at root(s)=7 TeV, JHEP 05 (2013) 132. ( see also S. Ilten thesis).
LHCb collaboration, Exclusive J/psi and psi(2s) production in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7TeV, J.Phys.G 40 (2013) 045001, (see also D.Moran thesis)
LHCb collaboration, Measurement of forward W and Z boson in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=8 TeV, JHEP 01 (2016) 155 (see also R. Wallace thesis)
LHCb collaboration, Central exclusive production of J/ψJ/ψ and ψ(2S)ψ(2S) mesons in pp collisions at sqrt{s}=13 TeV, JHEP 10 (2018) 167.
R.McNulty at al., Isolating the Odderon in central production in high energy pA and AA collisions, Eur.Phys.J.C 80 (2020) 3, 288.