Suffolk Reporter

Particle physicists continue to explore fundamental questions about the universe, including its origins and composition. The Standard Model serves as the framework for understanding basic particles and their interactions. A crucial component of this model is the Higgs boson, which explains how particles acquire mass.

Discovered in 2012, the Higgs boson still leaves many questions unanswered over a decade later. Viviana Cavaliere from the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory will address these topics in the upcoming 538th Brookhaven Lecture on Wednesday, October 30.

Cavaliere's lecture, "The Higgs Boson and the Fate of Our Universe," is scheduled for 4 p.m. It will be accessible both in person at the Physics Large Seminar Room (Building 510) and virtually via Zoom.

In her presentation, Cavaliere will provide an overview of the Standard Model and delve into experimental methods used to detect the Higgs boson through the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. She will also outline future plans for studying this particle.

Cavaliere joined Brookhaven Lab's Physics Department in 2017 and was recognized by DOE’s Office of Science with an Early Career Research award in 2019. Her previous experience includes postdoctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2011 to 2017, during which she was stationed at CERN from 2012 to 2017. She earned her Ph.D. in physics from Italy's University of Siena in 2010 after completing her master's degree at the University of Rome in 2007.

The Brookhaven Lecture Series began in 1960 with a mission articulated by physicist Gertrude Scharff-Goldhaber: "The Brookhaven Lectures...are meant to provide an intellectual meeting ground for all scientists of the Laboratory." This tradition continues today, fostering scientific dialogue across various fields.