Starting February 24, New Physics at Korea Institute (NPKI) held a workshop for six days in Yeong Bin Gwan at The Shilla Seoul. Professor Kiwoon Choi from the Department of Physics, along with Professor Pyungwon Ko and Eung Chun from Korea Institute for Advanced Study participated as the local organizing committee. In addition, world-renowned physicists such as Professor Csaba Csaki from Cornell University, Christophe Grojean from the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) and Erez Etzion of Tel Aviv University attended as part of the international advisory.
NPKI is an e-Institute established by physicists all over the world to encourage the exchange of information between foreign and Korean particle physicists, offer various programs for future physicists in Korea and introduce the world of particle physics to the public through series of lectures and talks.
The workshop, titled “Top Physics and Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Era,” began with Professor Choi’s opening speech and heated discussions on topics related to the EWSB such as model-building, collider physics, flavor physics and QCD. It aimed to bring together experimentalists and theorists to discuss recent developments and future research directions.
The LHC is a massive particle accelerator located underground near Geneva, Switzerland. It is designed to allow testing of theories from particle physics and high-energy physics. One of the experiments currently taking place is the effort to discover the Higgs boson, a hypothetical elementary particle often referred to as the God particle.
On the third day of the workshop, the Seeds Program invited 20 middle and high school students to sit in at a discussion session, giving them an opportunity to get a grasp of a physicist’s daily life. During this program, Doctor Gilad Perez from CERN delivered a speech and the students were allowed to ask questions.
The Shilla Seoul, BK21 KAIST Physics, KAIST Physics Department, Open KIAS, Seoul National University Physics Department and CQUEST sponsored the workshop.