Welcome

• Carsten Peter Welsch (Cockcroft Institute / University of Liverpool)

Particle accelerators have numerous applications across many fields including fundamental research, medicine, electronics, environment and energy. As the limits of performance are reached new methods for particle acceleration and beam optimisation are needed. This requires technology breakthroughs that can then also benefit many other science and society applications. This talk will present the motivation and context for this international Symposium.

The Future Circular Collider study

• Michael Benedikt (CERN)

The Future Circular Collider (FCC) study, which was formally launched in 2014, would see a 100 km-circumference tunnel built at CERN to host post-LHC colliders that could offer a rich physics programme until the end of the 21st century. The goals of this international project are to boost the energy and intensity frontiers in our efforts to search for new physics that could answer the important unsolved questions in fundamental physics after the discovery of the Higgs and the completion of the Standard Model. Experiments at future colliders could contribute to determine which, if any, of the theories trying to answer these questions are realised in nature, and to expand our knowledge about the fundamental laws of the universe. Dr Michael Benedikt will discuss the motivation for and the main scenarios covered by the Future Circular Collider study and present the rapid progress made in technological R&D across the many domains of this mammoth technological effort. He will present the challenges of this project and the opportunities offered by this endeavour as the realisation of these machines calls for a major global training, technological and industrial programme.

Exploring the energy frontier - our journey to understanding nature

• Kate Shaw (University of Sussex (GB))

Particle physics has given us unique insight into what matter is and how it works. It allows us to address questions such as 'What is the world made of?' and 'What holds the world together?' The fundamental building blocks of our universe have been studied successfully with particle accelerators since the early 20th century. This has allowed new particles to be discovered and existing theories to be tested. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is currently the world's largest and highest energy accelerator. In 2012, it enabled the discovery of the Higgs Boson - the last missing piece in the Standard Model of particle physics. The question now is 'What are we looking for next?' and what tools, what accelerators will be best suited to answer this question. This talk introduces the key concepts of modern particle physics and shows how the LHC and its detectors have helped discover new particles. It also discusses currently open research questions and where our journey might lead us to next.

The Data Science revolution in scientific research

• Jonathan Rowe (Alan Turing Institute)

The use of big data methods in science has curious roots, from bioinformatics and paranormal psychology, to particle physics and social economics. These methods took a strange detour via advertising, social media and playing Go, but are now finding applications in research across the breadth of science and the humanities. We will look at a range of projects where AI is transforming research practice, and the role the Alan Turing Institute is playing in this revolution. We will then consider a number of challenges this approach presents, in which some traditional philosophical questions gain unexpected practical applications.

Particle Accelerators and Five Decades of Colliders

• Steve Myers

There are more than thirty thousand particle accelerators in the world, ranging from accelerators used for cancer therapy in modern hospitals to giant ‘atom-smashers’ such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, used to unravel the secrets of the universe. This presentation gives an overview of the history of particle accelerators, starting at the beginning of the 20th century and continuing all the way to the most advanced accelerators and colliders that are in operation today. Professor Myers presents the fundamental principles that are used to accelerate charged particles, challenges that had to be overcome to push the energy and intensity limits, as well as how accelerators have been used for scientific discovery and what societal applications they have enabled. Finally, the presentation also gives a vision of how future accelerators will help gain an even better understanding of nature and prospects for new breakthrough technologies.

Closing remark

• Carsten Peter Welsch (Cockcroft Institute / University of Liverpool)