Descriptif

This course introduces the fundamental quest to understand the ultimate constituents of matter and the laws that govern their interactions, from the subatomic scale to the vastness of the Universe.

The quest to identify the ultimate constituents of matter has revealed a nested structure spanning many orders of magnitude: atoms contain electrons and nuclei; nuclei are made of nucleons, themselves composed of quarks and gluons. Today, particle physics focuses on the fundamental laws governing these constituents and their interactions, with key questions such as how particles acquire mass, illuminated by the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC, notably by experiments like CMS.

At the same time, the infinitely small is deeply connected to the infinitely large: studies of neutrinos and astroparticles, including the highest-energy cosmic rays whose origins may lie in extreme astrophysical environments such as black hole accretion disks, link particle physics to cosmology and the physics of the early Universe. This field also relies on cutting-edge research and development in detectors and instrumentation, driving innovation while pushing the frontiers of our understanding of the cosmos.