Fellowships Aim to Stimulate Young Theoretical Physicists LHC Theory Initiative Awards First-Ever Grants

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Theory Initiative, a U.S.- basedconsortium of theoretical physicists aiming to stimulate and cultivatenew young talent in anticipation of the opening of the Large HadronCollider later this year, announces its 2007 LHC Theory GraduateFellowship Awards. Administered by The Johns Hopkins University and funded by the NationalScience Foundation, the $40,000 awards — being distributed for the firsttime this year — will provide selected young theorists with funds tounderwrite the costs of their research, including travel and computingneeds.

Recipients of the 2007 LHC Theory Initiative Graduate Fellowship Awardsare Randall Kelly (University of California, San Diego) and Jonathan

Walsh (University of Washington). Their research interests includecalculations of higher- order corrections both within and beyond theStandard Model, as well as the development of new, improved, simulationtools to confront with data theoretical models. In addition, LHC Theory Initiative Travel Awards, which provide $3,000for LHC- related travel, were presented to Dai De Chang (Case WesternReserve University), Wei Gong (University of Oregon), David Khron(Princeton University) and Keith Rehermann (Johns Hopkins University). All six winners are graduate students selected through a nationalcompetition. The chair of the selection committee was Fred Olness fromSouthern Methodist University.*The goal of these fellowships and awards is to stimulate the work oftheoretical physicists who will help interpret the treasure trove ofdata that will emerge from the Large Hadron Collider,* said JonathanBagger, a member of the LHC Theory Initiative and chair of theDepartment of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins. *Our initiativewill help the high- energy physics community take full advantage of theLHC.*

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European laboratory for particlephysics in Geneva, Switzerland, is expected to begin operation late thisyear. With its unprecedented energy and luminosity, the LHC promises torevolutionize particle physics and our understanding of the universe. Itis expected to create new forms of matter as scientists search for theelusive Higgs boson and a host of new particles, as well as help answersome of the most fundamental questions of physics.

*How do particles acquire mass? Can dark matter be created in alaboratory environment? Do new symmetries of nature link matter, energy,space and time? How did matter behave a fraction of a second after theBig Bang? Those are just some of the questions that we believe will beanswered through the LHC,* says LHC Theory Initiative member Lynne Orrof the University of Rochester. *The ultimate goal of particle physicsis to identify the fundamental principles that govern matter, energy,space and time. The LHC will allow us to explore this new terrain.*Bagger and Orr are joined as principal investigators on the LHC TheoryInitiative by R. Sekhar Chivukula of Michigan State University andUlrich Baur of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

*In the coming years, we will not only continue to award the GraduateFellowship and Travel Awards, but will also award $150,000 grants topostdoctoral fellows,* Baur said. *The money will allow these youngresearchers to pursue their research and to build a network ofLHC- related theorists. We want to create a strong community of youngphysicists.*

For more information on the LHC Theory Initiative see:

http://www.lhc- ti.org