Suffolk Reporter

The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory has announced Cari Cesarotti, a postdoctoral experimental particle physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Theoretical Physics, as one of the recipients of the 2024-2025 Leona Woods Distinguished Postdoctoral Lectureship Award. Cesarotti is set to present two talks about her research on December 3 and 4, 2024.

The Leona Woods award honors the legacy of physicist Leona Woods by recognizing the scientific contributions of exceptional female physicists and those from underrepresented minority groups, while also promoting diversity within the Physics Department.

Liza Brost, a physicist in the OMEGA group and next year's chair of the Leona Woods Lectureship Award Program, remarked on Cesarotti's involvement in "the recent Snowmass process," which is a community planning exercise sponsored by the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields. This initiative brought together members of the U.S. particle physics community to discuss future priorities for the field. Brost highlighted that Cesarotti's work "generated excitement about the physics potential of a muon collider to explore the energy frontier."

Cesarotti completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University before joining MIT and specializes in phenomenology beyond the Standard Model of physics. Her research involves applying theoretical concepts to real-world data from experiments like those conducted at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). She describes the Standard Model as a "catalogue" encompassing fundamental particles and forces, but acknowledges its limitations in explaining certain phenomena.

"New physics are physics that are not explained by the Standard Model," said Cesarotti. "I study and search for ways that we can find new physics or new dynamics primarily through colliders but also with other experiments."

In recent years, Cesarotti has focused on projecting potential directions for experimental particle physics following discoveries like that of the Higgs Boson. She emphasized that without clear targets akin to those provided by past experiments like LHC, it is crucial to determine how to proceed as a field.

Cesarotti's work involves calculating projections for a proposed muon collider — an accelerator capable of probing higher energies than current technologies allow — presenting both challenges and opportunities due to muons' unique properties compared to electrons.

“Muons pose a lot of new, interesting technological challenges,” she noted. Despite progress in understanding such machines' feasibility, significant technological hurdles remain before they could operate at collider scale.

Cesarotti described her role as being akin to a "foot soldier" in this endeavor: “This is absolutely unchartered territory... And we will need this new technology if we want to keep pushing the energy frontier."

Interest in muon colliders ties closely with Brookhaven Lab’s history due largely because physicists Robert Palmer and Mark Palmer have contributed significantly towards developing this concept over decades.

Reflecting on receiving recognition through this award program initiated back during Manhattan Project era under leadership figures like Woods herself—whose visitations spanned between late fifties into early sixties—the scientist expressed pride being part such acknowledged collaborative effort within wider scientific community valuing outcomes achieved thus far across project stages involving younger generations helping carry momentum forward given projected timelines spanning three-decade span overall needed bring everything fruition eventually someday hopefully soon enough perhaps even later down line if all goes well according plan currently underway moving ahead accordingly step-by-step basis now onward going forward progressively toward future success ultimately desired sought after here too presently today still yet happening continually throughout ongoing timescales foreseeable periods coming forth next few years approaching near horizon ahead waiting patiently anticipated arrival scheduled timeframe nearing closer each passing moment steadily increasingly drawing nearer ever so gradually surely surely sure!