The Tevatron as a Probe of the Fundamental Particles and their Interactions in our Universe

Beate Heinemann (University of California, Berkeley)
DESY auditorium, 17:00h

The understanding of our Universe today is built on a theoretical model that describes all interactions of matter via the exchange of electroweak and strong force carriers. This model is quite complex involving three generations of quarks and leptons and the strong, electromagnetic and the weak force carriers. Its validity at high energies is in doubt since it is unable to provide answers to the most simple questions, e.g. why there are so many particles, why they have the masses they do, why there is matter in the Universe and no anti-matter or how gravity works. The Tevatron proton-antiproton collider at Fermilab near Chicago is testing this model currently with high precision, resolving particles and interactions at extremely short distances of 10–18 m. I will discuss the most important recent experimental results from the Tevatron experiments and discuss their impact on our understanding of Nature and their impact on the Large Hadron Collider that will start delivering proton-proton collision data next year.

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Transparencies (.pdf)