ATLAS in the Italian Alps for the Rencontres de Moriond 2013

27 February 2013 | By

From March 2nd to March 16th 2013 the mythic "Rencontres de Moriond" is taking place in the Italian Alps at the La Tuile ski resort. For the 48th edition of this famous event, more than 420 physicists, theorists and experimentalists, young and more experienced, coming from the four corners of the planet get together in this pleasant environment to share their most recent results and ideas on particle physics. Twenty-two ATLAS physicists were invited to divulge the latest findings of the ATLAS Experiment.

The father of the Rencontres de Moriond, Jean Tran Thanh Van used the expression "Rencontres" (in contrast to "conferences", "meetings" or "colloquiums") to stress the spirit of it: gathering experimentalists and theorists in a very convivial, friendly ambiance, leaving the door wide open to young scientists.

Forty-eight years later, the Rencontres have evolved significantly from the first ones, held in 1966. They are not located in Moriond anymore, they became enormously trendy in the scientific community (physicists are especially preparing results for the occasion!), and they grew in attendance and organization (far from the original 20 participants!). Nevertheless, they keep the original spirit of it: an agreeable and exciting platform to exchange ideas about science, where many hot topics are presented by young researchers and where, every afternoon, you have time to improve your skiing skills in the Alps, before meeting again in the evening.

The ATLAS physicists are excited to show results which, for the first time in many cases, include the whole 2012 dataset. This represents a remarkable increase of 60% to the number of 2012 collisions scrutinized when compared to the results presented at the most recent meeting of the CERN council in December. This could only be achieved because of the great work of the LHC accelerator team, the efficient operation of the ATLAS detector and the determination of the analysis teams.

The speakers will cover a very broad spectrum of the ATLAS physics program: Standard Model, B-Physics, Top, QCD, Heavy Ions, SUSY, Higgs and Exotic searches. The ATLAS collaboration looks forward to give you fresh news about the Higgs-like boson discovered last July and all its other areas of research, which bring us closer and closer to an understanding of our Universe.

Don’t forget to follow the ATLAS blog and social networks: Twitter (#moriond), Facebook, and Google+ to get the latest news about ATLAS at the Rencontres de Moriond 2013! Keep also a close eye on the ATLAS conference notes and ATLAS physics papers pages, as they are continuously updated with the new results.