Physical Society Colloquium

What have we learned from the LHC?

Brigitte Vachon

Department of Physics
McGill University

More than 50 years of experimentation have led to the development of a theory describing physics phenomena at the smallest distance scales in terms of elementary particles and their interactions. Technological developments over the years have made it possible to build ever more powerful "microsope" to study the properties of these elementary particles. The beginning of operation in 2009 of the largest and highest energy man-made particle accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), promised an exciting and rich physics program for a generation of physicists. Seven years later, it is appropriate to ask “What have we learned from the LHC?”. A selection of physics results, significantly advancing our knowledge of subatomic physics, will be highlighted. Anticipated physics outcomes of the LHC runs to come will also be presented. The last part of the talk will summarize physics prospects from the next generation of collider experiments currently being discussed within the community.