From the frontier of new particle search at the large hadron collider to the fundamental physics principles

We present an example of a simple special relativity technique that professional high-energy particle physicists use in their searches for new particles. Modern particle detectors are designed to measure the momentum and energy of particles that result from proton-proton collisions. Researchers then use this kinematic information to identify properties of the short-lived heavy particles created during the proton–proton collisions. The most famous recent example is the measurement of the invariant mass of the Higgs Boson. One problem these researchers face is that not all particles created during the collisions are detectable. Neutrinos, sometimes called “ghost particles,” are essentially invisible to modern particle detectors, and therefore seemingly make it impossible to recover the complete information about the underlying collision. In this article, we will show how researchers use other information about the collisions to identify the momentum and energy of these invisible particles, and then use that information to search for new particles, including those predicted in supersymmetric models. This technique is simple enough for students in a modern physics course that covers special relativity and basic particle physics, yet powerful enough to aid physicists searching for the newest and highest energy particles.