Physics at the Terascale

Physics at the Terascale: Physics Analysis, Grid Computing, Detector Physics and Accelerator Physics

Research in particle physics is motivated by the goal of attaining a fundamental description of the laws of physics, such as explaining the origin of mass and understanding the dark matter in the universe. Although fundamentally driven by the quest for knowledge, the ensuing research is performed at the edge of what feasible technologically is and hence drives the development of technology in many areas.
With the start-up of CERNs Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2007 and preparations for the International Linear Collider (ILC) in full swing, we expect revolutionary results explaining the origin of matter, unravelling the nature of dark matter and providing glimpses of extra spatial dimensions or grand unification of forces. Any of these insights would dramatically change our view of the world.
In order to optimally place German particle physics in an increasingly global environment, it is now the right moment to create new and improved structures for particle physics in Germany. This is the overarching goal of the proposed Alliance. A structured network comprising 18 universities, 2 Helmholtz institutes and 1 associated Max Planck Institute will be created as a tool for a more effective collaboration, in particular between experimentalists and theorists. The Alliance will cover four Research Topics, addressing the fundamental questions of particle physics, distributed computing, novel detector development and accelerator science. An important aspect of the Alliance will be the creation of common infrastructures. All partners of the Alliance will contribute to and use these infrastructures for specific research projects.

At the Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin in addition to the two experimental groups, the newly established research group in theoretical physics "Phenomenology of elementary particles", contributes to the research program.
The focus of the new group is on improving theoretical predictions for scattering reactions at the LHC and top-quark physics.