Together with scientists from around the world, physicists at the MPP have developed and constructed the particle detector ATLAS. ATLAS is an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at the CERN research center in Geneva. The LHC began operating in 2008. In March 2010, the research program got under way at this proton-proton accelerator, working with the highest energies achieved to date at any accelerator facility. With the help of the LHC, researchers from all over the world want to coax out the secrets of the structure of matter and the fundamental forces.
ATLAS records the results of proton-proton collisions produced by the LHC. In the process, conditions similar to those in the extremely early, hot and dense universe shortly after the Big Bang are created. From that, the researchers gain insights about the fundamental building blocks of matter as well as their interactions. They are looking for new phenomena, such as the existence of higher dimensions of space and time and the origin of the dark matter that holds our universe together.
The MPP was and is involved with the development of instruments essential to the ATLAS detector – the inner detector, the calorimeters, and the muon chambers – as well as the setup of the computing system. A major technical upgrade is scheduled to start from 2026. The goal is to increase the number of proton collisions in order to obtain more data. MPP scientists and technicians are working to make ATLAS fit for the coming surge of new data.
30 years of ATLAS
The history of the truly big experiment began on October 1, 1992, when close to 90 research instituitions signed a common letter of intent to build a detector for proton-proton collisions. The Max Planck Institute for Physics was one these, its scientists contributed to the devolopment of major ATLAS components.
The greatest success of the ATLAS experiment so far was the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. As early as the 1960s, the theoretical phycisitst Peter Higgs, François Englert and Robert Brouthad proposed the existence of this particle: As a building block of the Standard Model, it gives other elementary particles their mass. For this, Higgs and Englert received the 2013 Nobel Prize.
Since June 2015, the LHC accelerator has been running with a record energy of 13 teraelectronvolts – nearly twice as much as in the years before. With that, the researchers hope to discover "new physics" – that is, particles and effects that do not occur in the Standard Model but which could help to solve the puzzles of the dark matter, the dark energy, and the missing antimatter in the universe.
Further information on the ATLAS experiment
News releases
06/04/2018
New Results from the ATLAS Experiment
Scientists observe coupling of the Higgs boson to top quarks
Group members
E-mail address: e-mail@mpp.mpg.de
Phone number: +49 89 32354-extension
Phone number: +49 89 32354-extension
| name | function | extension | office | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bangaru, Nayana | Student | bangaru | 240 | A.2.15 |
| Barillari, Teresa, Dr. | Senior Scientist | barilla | 369 | A.1.41 |
| Bethke, Siegfried, Prof. Dr. | Director | bethke | 381 | A.2.05 |
| Bharthuar, Shudhashil, Dr. | Postdoc | shudhash | 462 | A.1.39 |
| Britzger, Daniel, Dr. | Postdoc | britzger | 453 | A.2.31 |
| Buchin, Daniel | PhD Student | dbuchin | 376 | A.2.21 |
| Cieri, Davide, Dr. | Senior Scientist | dcieri | 226 | A.2.10 |
| Delle Fratte, Cesare | Senior Scientist | cdf | MPCDF 3299-1157 | A.1.77 |
| Etzel, Lando Melvin von | Student | etzel | 462 | A.2.15 |
| Fallavollita, Francesco, Ph.D. | Postdoc | fallavol | 256 | A.3.01 |
| Feng Lin, Storm | Student | storm | A.2.17 | |
| Grewe, Simon | PhD Student | grewe | 358 | A.2.19 |
| Hanser, Elias | Student | hansere | 299 | 220 |
| Hessler, Johannes | PhD Student | jhessler | 453 | A.2.28 |
| Hill, Siddha | Student | siddha | 453 | 229 |
| Holzbock, Michael, Dr. | Postdoc | holzbock | 376 | A.2.23 |
| Kado, Marumi, Prof. Dr. | Director | kado | 382 | A.2.45 |
| Kakati, Nilotpal | PhD Student | nkakati | nnn | A.2.30 |
| Kiryunin, Andrey, Ph.D. | Senior Scientist | kiryunin | 286 | A.0.91 |
| Kluth, Stefan, PD Dr. | Senior Scientist | skluth | 468 | A.2.37 |
| Kortner, Oliver, PD Dr. | Senior Scientist | kortner | 240 | A.2.12 |
| Kortner, Sandra, Dr. | Senior Scientist | sandra | 288 | A.2.14 |
| Kroha, Hubert, Prof. Dr. | Senior Scientist | kroha | 435 | A.2.29 |
| Leis, Ulrich | Engineering | leis | 550 | A.1.67 |
| Li, Changqiao, Ph.D. | Postdoc | changqia | 265 | A.2.30 |
| Maly, Pavel, Ph.D. | Engineering | pmaly | 385 | B.2.FL2 |
| Meier, Nick | Student | meiernic | 240 | 119 |
| Menke, Sven, Dr. | Senior Scientist | menke | 410 | A.1.37 |
| Murnauer, Josef | Student | josef | 453 | A.2.28 |
| Nisius, Richard, PD Dr. | Senior Scientist | nisius | 474 | A.1.43 |
| Piacquadio, Giacinto, Dr. | Visiting Scientist | giacinto | 416 | A.2.26 |
| Proto, Giorgia, Dr. | Postdoc | proto | 559 | A.3.01 |
| Reed, Alice | PhD Student | reed | 220 | A.2.19 |
| Rendel, Marian | PhD Student | rendel | 559 | A.2.21 |
| Richter, Robert, Dr. | Senior Scientist | richterr | 358 | A.1.15 |
| Sahinsoy Karacasu, Merve, Dr. | Postdoc | sahinsoy | 565 | A.2.30 |
| Schacht, Peter, Dr. | Emeritus | pys | 228 | A.1.15 |
| Schielke, Anja | Secretary | schielke | 299 | A.2.47 |
| Schmidt, Elia | Student | elia | 462 | A.2.17 |
| Soyk, Daniel | Engineering | soyk | 374 | B.2.FL2 |
| Spalla, Margherita, Dr. | Postdoc | mspalla | 286 | A.3.03 |
| Stonjek, Stefan, Dr. | Senior Scientist | stonjek | 296 | A.2.39 |
| Tabriz, Meisam | IT | tabriz | 603 | A.1.77 |
| Turkovic, Timur | Student | turkovic | 559 | 122 |
| Verbytskyi, Andrii, Dr. | Senior Scientist | andriish | 453 | A.2.33 |
| Voevodina, Elena, Dr. | Postdoc | voevodin | 559 | A.2.23 |
| Wenke, Nina | PhD Student | wenke | 767 | A.2.19 |
| Zimmermann, Jörg | Engineering | joergzim | 446 | B.2.FL2 |
Key publications
Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
ATLAS Collaboration (Georges Aad (Freiburg U.) et al.). Jul 2012. 29 pp.
Published in Phys.Lett. B716 (2012) 1-29
arXiv:1207.7214
DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2012.08.020
The ATLAS Experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
ATLAS Collaboration (G. Aad (Marseille, CPPM) et al.). 2008. 437 pp.
JINST 3 (2008) S08003
DOI: 10.1088/1748-0221/3/08/S08003
Measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates and coupling
strengths using pp collision data at √s=7 and 8 TeV in the ATLAS experiment
ATLAS Collaboration (Georges Aad (Marseille, CPPM) et al.). Jul 16, 2015. 64 pp.
Eur.Phys.J. C76 (2016) no.1
arXiv:1507.04548 [hep-ex]
DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-015-3769-y
Measurement of the top quark mass in the tt¯→ lepton+jets
and tt¯→ dilepton channels using √s=7 TeV ATLAS data
ATLAS Collaboration (Georges Aad (Marseille, CPPM) et al.). Mar 18, 2015. 35 pp.
Published in Eur.Phys.J. C75 (2015) no.7, 330
arXiv:1503.05427
DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-015-3544-0
Search for the electroweak production of supersymmetric particles in √s=8 TeV pp
collisions with the ATLAS detector
ATLAS Collaboration (Georges Aad (Marseille, CPPM) et al.). Sep 23, 2015. 61 pp.
Published in Phys.Rev. D93 (2016) no.5, 052002
arXiv:1509.07152 [hep-ex]
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.93.052002
ATLAS profile
The ATLAS detector is the largest particle detector ever built at an accelerator.
- Dimensions: 46 meters long, 25 meters in diameter
- Weight: 7,000 tons
- Location: Meyrin, Switzerland
- ATLAS Collaboration: More than 3,200 staff members from 38 countries
- German participants: Universities of Berlin (HU), Bonn, Dortmund, Dresden, Freiburg, Giessen, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Mainz, Munich (LMU), Siegen, Wuppertal, Würzburg, Max Planck Institute for Physics, DESY