About HEP

The particle physics group at the University of Victoria does research into the nature of the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions. Addressing these questions requires collaboration with researchers around the world; to build the instruments capable of addressing these questions, to analyse the data they produce and to understand the consequences of these data for our theory of nature.

Our experimental physicists are involved in the construction and operation of large detectors at several leading laboratories. We participate in the ATLAS and OPAL experiments at the European Centre for Particle Physics (CERN) and in the BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the U.S.A. We are also involved with detector development for a future Linear Collider and are starting an effort in neutrino physics at the Japan Hadron Facility.

Members of our group have served and are serving in important leadership roles in these experiments and in particle physics in Canada.

Expertise in and access to high performance computing is needed for these large particle physics projects. We exploit significant computing resources at the University of Victoria, and are involved in research into computing grids in order to meet the data analysis needs of future experiments. Victoria is also the home of HEPNET/HEPGRID, a project intended to create a Canada-wide Computing Grid for particle physics research.

UVic is one of the founding members of the TRIUMF laboratory in Vancouver. TRIUMF plays a vital role in Canadian particle physics by providing facilities for the development and construction of sophisticated detectors and by allowing the Canadian community to contribute to the construction of particle physics accelerators around the world. Several TRIUMF staff are sited at the University of Victoria.

Our theoretical physicists are involved in a wide variety of studies, from phenomenology and model building to more esoteric pursuits. More information on our theory group can be found on the Theoretical Physics page.