CERN International Masterclasses in particle physics

On 3, 7 April and 23-25 October of 2017 Georgian Technical University hosted international particle physics masterclass organized by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). IPPOG (International Particle Physics Outreach Group) representative in Georgia, Dr. Keti Mirziashvili, Dr. Despina Hatzifotiadou, IPPOG Coordinator of ALICE Experiment and Dr. Irakli Minashvili, ATLAS Georgian claster leader participated in the event together with GTU administration authorities. Georgian Technical University Nuclear Engineering Center (GTU NEC) team took all responsibilities for local organization of event. The members of HEPI TSU group at ATLAS experiment G.Devidze, A. Durglishvili and T. Zakareishvili took responsibility for carrying out of ATLAS sessions of IPPOG Masterclass in Georgia at 7-th April and 23-rd October  of 2017 together with GTU NEC team.

These International Masterclasses give students the opportunity to be particle physicists for a day by analysing real data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In the International Masterclasses, high-school students work with real data collected by the experiments at the LHC. The main idea of this annual programme is to let students work as much as possible like real scientists. Masterclass involves 52 countries and more than 200 universities or research centers and gives opportunity to youth (aged 15-19)  to unravel the mysteries of particle physics. Lectures from active scientists give insight in topics and methods of basic research at the basics of matter and forces, enabling the students to perform measurements on real data from particle physics experiments themselves. At the end of each day, like in an international research collaboration, the participants joined in a video conference for discussion and combination of their results.

Four experiments of LHC – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – have made data available for educational use for the International Masterclasses. Students examine the products of collisions between elementary particles that travel through the 27-kilometre accelerator at close to the speed of light. A wide range of study tasks is available. For example, students can rediscover the W and Z bosons or the structure of the proton. One of the highlights is of course the hunt for Higgs bosons. ATLAS and CMS have made available real Higgs candidate events for students to track this rare, and very short-lived particle. On 7-th April of 2017, besides Georgian Technical University masterclass in parallel was conducted in Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York, US), Czech Technical University (Prague, Czech Republic), INFN - Rome Tor Vergata (Rome, Italy). After the masterclasses participants from given universities had a chance to ask questions to CERN moderators and do a little quiz, after this they were given International certificates.