Japanese institute launches new particle accelerator with input from Slovenian experts

Searching for “signs of new physics”

26. april 2018 ob 20.57 • Tsukoba - MMC RTV SLO

The experiment is expected to run for at least a few more years. Photo: Jožef Stefan Institute

SuperKEKB, a particle accelerator located at the KEK Institute in Tsukoba, Japan, started smashing its first particles together. The SuperKEKB is the first particle accelerator to be built after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

The latest breakthrough came when the SuperKEKB particle accelerator started smashing together electrons and positrons within a detector called Belle II.

According to the Jožef Stefan Institute (IJS), Slovenia’s top science institution, the SuperKEKB and the Belle II detector are designed to search for “signs of new physics”, i.e. physics beyond the Standard Model. The Standard Model does not explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Substantial input from Slovenian experts
The group of scientists that designed and built the Belle II detector includes physicists from the Jožef Stefan Institute, the Ljubljana Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, the Maribor Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and the Nova Gorica School of Science. These Slovenian physicists, some of whom occupy key positions in the 750-strong team of scientists, will also help run the Belle II experiment over the next few years.