Cooperation between MEPhI and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has started in 1978. According to CERN management, contribution of the University to creation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was substantial. University representatives participated in many accelerator experiments at CERN: R808, NA32, RD-6, etc. At the moment, MEPhI actively works in a scientific programme ATLAS – the largest and the most representative experiment, which is attended by more than 3,000 scientists from 38 countries. It is important to note that 2/3 of hundreds of Russian physicists, executing the most difficult and responsible work, are graduates of the University.
A group of scientists of the University has played a leading role in the design, creation and operation of a Transition radiation tracker (TRT) – main detector of the Central tracking system of the ATLAS experiment, starting with basic ideas and ending with commissioning and operation of the detector during operation of the Large Hadron Collider. Until now the TRT has no analogues in the world.
After running of the experiment a group of MEPhI scientists significantly expanded its field of activity in the field of physical analysis and development of new detectors. Currently representatives of the University provide the experiment with necessary research support. Russian physicists coordinate and supervise work of research teams of the universities from countries participating in the project ATLAS TRT and contribute to the development of the software for the project and for the ATLAS experiment as a whole. In addition, the group from MEPhI is a part of the collaboration for modernization of the muon system of the ATLAS experiment.
The University offers its students a unique opportunity to do an internship at CERN. Every year its students take part in international experiments. It became possible because of a Programme for competitiveness increase, in which MEPhI participates. Young scientists of a Department “Particle physics”, who recently returned from Switzerland, told about their impressions from the internship.
Daniil Ponomarenko:
It was my second trip to CERN. The first was last year during the summer program of students’ preparation directly at the European Centre for Nuclear Research, and lasted two months. This year, thanks to the MEPhI Program of competitiveness increase, I spend three months there. During my stay I managed to do a huge work on analysis of transport properties of quark-gluon plasma.
Every week I attended in meetings with colleagues from collaborations, where we discussed current results and developed plans for future. I participated in a week of the ALICE experiment: for one week all groups of the ALICE experiment presented their results to the whole collaboration. Also there were lectures and seminars, where experts shared their skills and experience. I especially liked a course on software AliROOT.
A large number of people work at CERN, who have made a significant contribution to the development of particle physics. So, in June I was lucky enough to meet former spokesperson of the ATLAS collaboration Peter Jenni. He told about history of the LHC, about difficulties that had to be overcome and strategies for solving problems during the construction of the detector. He noted huge contribution of MEPhI in research at the TRT detector. I was also lucky to be a part of an operators team of the ALICE experiment in the control room as a Detector Control System Shifter on the day when the LHC provided the first in this season stable beams at an energy of 13 TeV.
The result of my three-month trip was preparation and successful defense of master's thesis at the Department №40 “Particle physics” on the topic “Analysis of pi0-hadron azimuthal correlations in pPb and PbPb at the ALICE experiment”.
I'm truly grateful to MEPhI for the opportunity to receive skills of work in such a place like CERN. In addition to invaluable experience I have been fortunate to acquire many new friends and colleagues in the field of experimental and theoretical high energy physics!
Nadezhda Proklova:
When in November I was told about an opportunity to undergo a new program of foreign training at CERN, I could not believe it, because I had been dreaming about it since a freshman year at MEPhI. On arrival at CERN I immediately found myself in the whirl of events – interesting work, communication with colleagues, presentations at various meetings. My work is devoted to study of various background processes that arise in misidentification of hadron jets as photons, as well as various evaluation methods of backgrounds.
Three months were rich for events and flew by. I managed to take part in assembling and debugging of test TRT in a group, which is located on the line of a beam bump at the SPS ring and which tested various gas mixtures required in the work of the TRT detector. I was a Detector Control System Shifter at a test beam during the preparation of the LHC for the second session (Run2). I made a speech at a large meeting of the collaboration and have received a positive feedback about the done work, met lots of interesting people; they helped in my research, which is related to the photon identification for the process of decay of Z boson into leptons using Run2 data. Preparation of my master's thesis took place in tense conditions, in parallel with participation in the meetings of my working group. Thanks to the support of colleagues and classmates I met the challenges and defended thesis excellently.
During the trip I was lucky to meet many wonderful colleagues from experiments ALICE, CMS and LHCb, to experience CERN atmosphere – the atmosphere of universal focus on a common goal. I was able to learn a lot about our world, to see how to create detectors for new experiments. I really hope that soon I will have an opportunity to return to CERN.
