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CHIPP Statement on European Strategy Particle Physics Update

19 June 2020, 12:00

Logo CHIPP

CHIPP[i] welcomes and strongly supports the update of the European strategy for particle physics [1]. The Swiss particle physics community started a bottom up discussion on the strategic goals in 2016 with a series of strategic workshops and submitted their input in December 2018 [2]. Many recommendations of the Swiss input find their echoes in the adopted European strategy update. As Switzerland is a host state of CERN, there are very close scientific, organizational and political ties between them. We welcome the European Strategy that aims at securing the future of CERN as a leading research institution in the world.

Exploring the properties of the Higgs boson continues to be one of the most pertinent tasks of the field, both in understanding electroweak symmetry breaking, the mechanism by which particles acquire mass, as well as searching for new clues to answer deep questions in the understanding of the universe. CHIPP notes with satisfaction that first exploratory studies will be launched into the feasibility of a next generation hadron collider with a Higgs and electroweak factory as a possible first stage hosted by CERN, to continue the direct exploration of the high energy frontier, and provide further insights to the Higgs sector.

Intensifying focused research and development on accelerator technologies, in particular high field magnets, required for such a high energy collider are important aspects of the European Strategy. Switzerland is already making important contributions to these efforts via e.g. the CHART initiative [3] supported by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), EPFL, ETH Zurich, PSI, ETH Board and the University of Geneva in collaboration with CERN.

Another key element of this strategy in which Swiss researchers are particularly active are current and future experiments exploiting high intensity particle beams both at low and high energies. These experiments complement the search for new phenomena with high precision measurements. In Switzerland, PSI is hosting unique experiments at this frontier.

CHIPP researchers are also very active in the realm on neutrino physics and astroparticle physics. New long base-line neutrino facilities, as well us low background underground experiments, will be necessary to elucidate the long-standing riddles of neutrino properties such as neutrino masses and matter-antimatter asymmetries. CHIPP welcomes the support of the CERN neutrino platform both for future Japanese (Hyper-K) and US facilities (DUNE). Astroparticle physics allows a unique view to the universe via particle physics methodology and technology. Synergies between particle physics and astroparticle physics are well exploited in the CHIPP portfolio, in line with the recommendations of the European strategy.

CHIPP will actively engage in the implementation of this strategy in the Swiss, European and global context. We are looking forward to the prospects the updated European strategy of particle physics opens up in the quest for a better understanding of the universe for years to come.

[i] CHIPP, the Swiss Institute of Particle Physics, is an association uniting researchers active in particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics in Switzerland. Participating universities and research institutes are U Basel, U Bern, U Geneva, EPFL, ETH Zürich, PSI and U Zürich.

[1] press release CERN ESPP

[2] Swiss Input to the Update of the European Strategy of particle physics

[3] https://chart.ch/; article: Swiss research initiative CHART works on particle accelerators of the future

Categories

  • Particle Physics