Institute
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Laboratoire d'Annecy le Vieux de physique des particules
9 Chemin de Bellevue - BP 110
74941 Annecy-le-Vieux CEDEX
France
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(33) (0) 4 50 09 16 49 |
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Claire Adam Bourdarios
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Research & Teaching
LAPP (Laboratoire d'Annecy-le-vieux de Physique des Particules, UMR5814) is a high energy physics laboratory located in Annecy le vieux, 50kms from Geneva. The lab was founded in 1976 by Marcel Vivargent and is one of the 18 laboratories of IN2P3 (Institut de Physique Nucl�aire et de Physique des Particules), institute of CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). It is also a member of Universit� de Savoie. Close to 150 people are working at LAPP: researchers, professors, support staff, students and visiting scientists. They work in close contact with phenomenologist teams from LAPTH, a theory laboratory hosted in the same building. The location of the laboratory - 50 km from CERN - makes LAPP an ideal place for people willing to contribute to LHC physics.
Elementary particle and astro-particle physics pursue the ambitious goal to explain the innermost building blocks of matter and the fundamental forces acting between them. The masses of particles and the exact strength of the forces played a key role in the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang to its present appearance in terms of galaxies, stars, black holes, chemical elements and biological systems. Discoveries in particle and astro-particle physics thus go to the very core of our existence.
LAPP is very actively involved in several large international collaborations working near accelerators (ATLAS, LHCb at the LHC at CERN, BaBar at SLAC in California) to study matter anti-matter asymmetry, to search for the elusive Higgs boson, to explain the origin of particle mass, investigating the make up of dark matter and the existence of extra dimensions of space. The laboratory also contributes to the search for tau-neutrino appearance in a muon-neutrino beam produced at CERN, with the OPERA experiment at Gran Sasso in Italy.
Other LAPP teams collaborate in experiments studying signals from the cosmos. On the international space station, AMS searches for anti-matter in space and precisely measures the flux and nature of cosmic rays. It might also reveal signs of dark matter in the universe. This information will complement measurements by HESS of high energy gammas emitted by cosmic sources. Detecting gravitational waves is the challenge that the VIRGO experiment near Pisa strives to meet.
Finally, several accelerator or detector R&D, related with the future e+e- linear collider, are under way at LAPP: beam magnets stabilization, electronics for beam position monitors and future detector design. The lab is also involved in CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array), a European project for a new generation high energy gamma rays observatory which will follow the HESS experiment.
The laboratory is part of Savoie University and several of its members are involved in physics teaching there, but also at Grenoble University (M2) and at Ecole Normale sup�rieure de Lyon (M2).
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