Juan Rojo, Professor of Theoretical Physics, has received an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for the ‘UNICORN’ research program, through which he is casting a new light on the building blocks of the universe, the protons, thanks to ‘lost’ particles from the LHC: neutrinos.
What does a proton look like from the inside? That question is central to the UNICORN research project, which utilizes a unique new source of information: high-energy neutrinos generated in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). With this approach, Rojo hopes to create the most detailed images of proton structure ever.
Protons are among the fundamental building blocks of all visible matter. “Yet there are still many open questions about their internal structure. We know that protons consist of quarks and gluons, but we do not yet sufficiently understand exactly how these particles interact and what role heavier quarks and antimatter play in this,” says Rojo.
Measuring Neutrinos
The research uses neutrinos released during proton collisions in the LHC. Although these particles have been produced for years, they could not be measured until recently. Thanks to the recent installation of the FASER and SND@LHC detectors, that has changed. With the UNICORN project, FASER is being further developed into an extremely precise ‘microscope’ that allows scientists to study the interior of protons.
Rojo has high expectations for the results. The project is intended to lead to the most precise measurements of proton structure to date. This will enable researchers to make more accurate predictions about processes taking place in the LHC, including the production of Higgs particles and other heavy elementary particles. The research may also potentially definitively demonstrate that protons contain so-called charm quarks, a question that physicists have been debating for years.
Societal Impact
The impact of the research extends beyond particle physics alone. “A better understanding of protons and the strong nuclear force also helps us explain extreme phenomena in the universe, such as the origin of very high-energy cosmic particles. My project thus bridges the gap between the smallest structures in nature and the most-energetic processes taking place in the universe,” says Rojo.
Rojo’s research also stimulates the development of new artificial intelligence techniques for analyzing complex datasets. In the future, such methods could also be used for societal applications where large amounts of data need to be processed and interpreted.
Rojo: “With UNICORN, we hope not only to solve some of the greatest mysteries surrounding the proton, but also to offer new insights into the fundamental laws of nature that shape our universe.”