Page 26 - Frontiers of the Universe
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Weizmann scientists’ multi-year involvement in the design, construction, management, and operation of ATLAS—the largest subsystem of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN—contributed signi cantly to the discovery of
the Higgs boson, an elementary particle considered the last hold-out in the quest to con rm the Standard Model of Physics. Our physicists believe there is much more yet to be discovered.
CENTER FOR HIGH-ENERGY PARTICLE PHYSICS
The identi cation of the Higgs boson particle veri ed the existence of the Higgs eld—energy
thought to exist everywhere in the Universe, and which is necessary to explain why certain particles, and not others, have the property of mass.
In the Center for High-Energy Particle Physics, Weizmann Institute particle physicists working at CERN and on the Weizmann campus are continuing to pursue such fundamental questions
about the basic building blocks of the Universe. Among the burning questions that will light the path toward future research is around the existence of dark matter—long- predicted massive particles whose presence has never been veri ed, but which may hold the key to
the Universe’s structure and many elements of its observed behavior.