Berkeley Lab has a long record of leadership and innovation in particle physics and cosmology. The Physics Division designs, builds, and operates cutting-edge detectors for high energy physics experiments, develops cosmological observatories to characterize dark energy, and designs and installs sensitive low background detectors in deep underground caverns to search for signals for dark matter.
The Division’s research program includes experiments at the Energy Frontier, the Intensity Frontier, and the Cosmic Frontier of particle physics, and is well aligned with the vision laid out in the 2014 P5 Strategic Plan for U.S. Particle Physics. The program involves major participation in the ATLAS experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Large Hadron Collider, the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) experiments, the muon-to-electron-conversion experiment (Mu2e) experiment at Fermilab, and the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) and LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) liquid xenon dark matter experiments at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. The program also includes a variety of cosmological surveys studying type Ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the cosmic microwave background. Berkeley Lab is the lead Department of Energy laboratory for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) dark energy survey and LZ dark matter experiments.
The Division’s core research program is enabled and enhanced by a research and development program in advanced detectors and by a vibrant theoretical physics group.