This fall, the University of Alberta launches COSMIC 100, a series of talks to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of cosmic rays.
University of Alberta physicists are at the forefront of experiments that could not have been possible without cosmic ray science, including IceCube - which uses a particle detector made of Antarctic ice - and ATLAS, which discovered a Higgs boson-like particle this summer.
Cosmic rays were discovered in 1912 by Austrian scientist Victor Hess, who measured cosmic radiation at a lofty 5,300 meters during a hydrogen balloon ride. Since then, scientists have learned that cosmic rays are created in deep space. They are ordinary elementary particles that are accelerated to very high energies, either in the shockwaves of a supernova explosion, or after being sucked in and spat out by a black hole.
Cosmic rays are so small and travel so fast, they are unaltered by the time they reach Earth, making them perfect specimens in studies of deep space matter.
"The first elementary particles discovered on Earth were found in cosmic ray events (also known as particle collisions) observed in nature," says James Pinfold, a member of the ATLAS experiment and leader of the ACME initiative that will have high school students from around the world participating in cosmic ray research.
"You could say that cosmic ray physics was the mother of the whole field of high energy particle physics," he adds.
COSMIC 100 debuts on Thursday, September 27, with Alan Watson (University of Leeds), a pioneer of modern cosmic ray research. In a talk tailored for general audiences, Dr. Watson will cover the history of research into the highest energy particles, from cosmic ray studies to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Dr. Watson's visit is sponsored by the University of Alberta's Faculty of Science and Department of Physics.
In November 2012, James Pinfold (University of Alberta) will talk about the search for the Higgs boson. In spring 2013, Eilam Gross (Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel), convener of the Higgs physics group at ATLAS, will focus on the future of Higgs research.