Speaker Name: Dist. Univer. Prof. Raman Sundrum and Dr. David Curtin
Speaker Institution: UMD
Title: “Recreating the Big Bang …. Again and Again and Again”
Abstract: Where did all the Matter in the Universe come from, all the atoms making up people, planets and stars, as well as the more mysterious non-atomic Dark Matter? The answer hinges on the “war” of annihilation between Matter and Antimatter soon after the Big Bang, but the precise story at first seems lost in the ancient past. Fortunately, modern particle physics experiments, such as the CERN Laboratory’s Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, are able to recreate some of the extreme conditions of the very early Universe. We will introduce you to some of the latest theoretical ideas and experimental innovations, developed at the University of Maryland and elsewhere, that might allow us to replay the first key instants of creation to find out just what happened.