During a three-day event, organized by the CERN and SESAME research group and the Department of Physics of Isfahan University of Technology, the IUT students had the opportunity to virtually visit three of the main experiments of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN. The event also hosted a group of students from the university of Yazd.

There are four main experiments at the LHC, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and ALICE with ATLAS and CMS being the biggest, using general-purpose detectors to investigate the largest range of physics possible. These two experiments observed the Higgs boson independently in 2012, leading to the Nobel Prize in physics the year after. ALICE detector is specialized to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities, where a phase of matter called quark-gluon plasma forms. The LHCb investigates the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the "beauty quark", or "b quark".

These four detectors sit underground in huge caverns on the LHC ring. It is not possible to go down and visit the experiment during data taking, where LHC collides with protons at the speed of light. The reason is the large 8T magnetic field of the LHC as well as those of the detectors, together with possible radiation hazards. During winters, however, the LHC machine is switched off to reduce energy consumption, providing the opportunity to see the detectors closely.

The IUT visit of ATLAS, ALICE, and CMS experiments was a live webinar, including an expert explaining the detector concept as well as its physics target and design. At the same time, the students were able to see different parts of the detector with a moving camera and ask questions. This unique opportunity is one of the outcomes of IUT’s collaboration with the CMS experiment at CERN. IUT became a member of the CMS collaboration in 2019 and has continued impactful contributions in the area of physics and detector upgrades.

Useful links:

Event agenda including recorded videos: https://events.iut.ac.ir/event/223/