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Zurich physicist receives ERC grant for revolutionary particle research
Dr. Vasily Sotnikov receives ERC Starting Grant to collaborate with the University of Mainz and develop new particle calculation methods.
Zurich physicist receives ERC grant for revolutionary particle research
Dr. Vasily Sotnikov from the Physics Institute at the University of Zurich has been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant. This grant aims to strengthen collaboration with research groups at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). As part of his “HiNPrecise” project, he will work on the development of new calculation methods for particle scattering.
Scattering amplitudes are a central element in quantum field theory and provide crucial predictions for particle scattering. These predictions are particularly important for precise measurements at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The LHC is currently the most powerful particle accelerator in the world and plays a crucial role in researching fundamental physics questions.
Focus on Higgs boson
A focus of Sotnikov's research will be the Higgs boson, whose properties are still largely unexplored. Precisely studying the interactions of the Higgs boson with other particles is crucial to test the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. The HiNPrecise project aims to provide powerful numerical tools for high-energy physics, representing mathematical and physical structures in scattering amplitudes.
Currently, the theoretical tools available to physicists are inadequate to meet the requirements of future measurement precision. The LHC, since it became operational in 2011, has already made far-reaching discoveries, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.
Preparing for the future
In the coming years, the LHC will be modernized to be able to collect a larger amount of data. Recent proton collisions at unprecedented energies of up to 7 TeV make it possible to simulate the conditions of the universe just ten millionths of a second after the Big Bang. These extreme conditions give rise to a form of matter that is only theoretically described in the Standard Model of particle physics.
Dr. Andre Mischke, Period Run Coordinator of the ALICE collaboration, highlights that heavy quark particles correlated through these experiments can serve as sensitive indicators of the dynamical properties of the quark-gluon plasma. The observations at the LHC will help us better understand physics beyond the Standard Model.
A promising career
Dr. Sotnikov studied physics at the University of Moscow and received his doctorate from the University of Freiburg in 2019, where his doctoral thesis was awarded summa cum laude. He previously worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and at Michigan State University. Since 2022 he has held the position of Senior Research Associate at the University of Zurich.
The ERC Starting Grants support outstanding researchers who are in the early stages of their careers to advance innovative research projects. The “HiNPrecise” initiative could therefore make a significant contribution to the future development of high-energy physics and significantly deepen the understanding of the fundamental interactions of matter.
The LHC will play a key role in studying new forces and forms of matter in the coming years. Researchers like Prof. Dr. S. Dittmaier and Prof. Dr. G. Herten at the University of Freiburg work at the interface between theoretical and experimental physics and contribute to the study of elementary particles and the laws of the universe, potentially going beyond the Standard Model and opening up new physical concepts.
In summary, the combination of sophisticated theory and precise experiments could answer some of the most fundamental questions in physics in the next few years and give us a deeper understanding of the structure of the universe.