Virtual Special Issue on LHC results

Foreword by Gian Giudice, Editor Physics Letters B
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been the dream come true of a generation of particle physicists. The first feasibility studies for a CERN hadron collider that could fully explore the multi-TeV energy domain started in the early 1980s. The final approval of the project from the CERN Council came only in 1994 and the civil-engineering work moved into full swing in 2000, after the dismantling of LEP. The epic construction and commissioning period ended on 30 March 2010, when proton beams collided at the record high centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. That moment marked the beginning of the most exciting part of the project, when physicists could finally see the fruit of their colossal effort: physics data.
During the so-called Run 1, experiments at the LHC collected about 25 fb^-1 of proton collision data at √s = 7 and 8 TeV, which was promptly translated by challenging physics analyses into a wealth of information about the particle world. The discovery of the Higgs boson, announced on 4 July 2012, was an epochal result, which completed the experimental confirmation of the Standard Model and gave new insight on how the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking is realised in nature. Although the Higgs boson discovery will be remembered as the real climax of Run 1, much else was also learned from LHC data. Our knowledge of QCD, electroweak interactions, b physics, and heavy ions have much progressed thanks to Run 1 LHC, and the severe limits set on new particles beyond the Standard Model have forced theoreticians to reconsider many of their ideas about weak-scale physics.
This Virtual Special Issue on LHC Results wants to celebrate the Run 1 phase of the LHC by collecting some of the most memorable physics results published by the experimental collaborations in Elsevier journals. This collection of papers is a legacy of the success of what is probably the most complex and daring scientific project ever completed by humanity — the LHC.
The publication of this Virtual Special Issue is especially timely now that we are on the eve of the Run 2 phase of the LHC, in which proton beams will collide at the unprecedented centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The transition from Run 1 to Run 2 is probably the biggest jump in energy that many of us will witness during the rest of our professional life. This is a unique opportunity to unveil the secrets of nature at the smallest distances. Both our ideas in theoretical physics and the strategical planning of experimental physics fully depend on Run 2 LHC results: the future of our field is at stake. The wish is that a future Virtual Special Issue — collecting the best Run 2 LHC papers in Elsevier Journals — will contain so many revolutionary results to make even the extraordinary papers presented here pale in comparison.
CMS
Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC (OA)
Physics Letters B, Volume 716, Issue 1, 17 September 2012, Pages 30–61
Search for supersymmetry in pp collisions at 7 TeV in events with jets and missing transverse energy
Physics Letters B, Volume 698, Issue 3, 11 April 2011, Pages 196–218
Search for resonances in the dijet mass spectrum from 7 TeV pp collisions at CMS
Physics Letters B, Volume 704, Issue 3, 13 October 2011, Pages 123–142
Erratum-ibid. B728 (2014) 526-528, Determination of the top-quark pole mass and strong coupling constant from the t t-bar production cross section in pp collisions at s√ = 7 TeV
Physics Letters B, Volume 738, 10 November 2014, Pages 526–528
Observation of long-range near-side angular correlations in proton-lead collisions at the LHC 
Physics Letters B, Volume 718, Issue 3, 8 January 2013, Pages 795–814
ALICE
Suppression of Charged Particle Production at Large Transverse Momentum in Central Pb--Pb Collisions at sNN‾‾‾‾√=2.76 TeV
Physics Letters B, Volume 696, Issues 1–2, 24 January 2011, Pages 30–39
Centrality Dependence of Charged Particle Production at Large Transverse Momentum in Pb--Pb Collisions at sNN‾‾‾‾√=2.76 TeV
Physics Letters B, Volume 720, Issues 1–3, 13 March 2013, Pages 52–62
Long-range angular correlations on the near and away side in p-Pb collisions at sNN‾‾‾‾√=5.02 TeV
Physics Letters B, Volume 719, Issues 1–3, 12 February 2013, Pages 29–4
Erratum-ibid. B718 (2012) 692-698, Rapidity and transverse momentum dependence of inclusive J/psi production in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV
Physics Letters B, Volume 704, Issue 5, 25 October 2011, Pages 442–455
ATLAS
Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Physics Letters B, Volume 716, Issue 1, 17 September 2012, Pages 1–29
Combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson using up to 4.9 fb−1 of pp   collision data at s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
Physics Letters B, Volume 710, Issue 1, 29 March 2012, Pages 49–66
Measurement of the total cross section from elastic scattering in pp collisions at s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
Nuclear Physics B, Volume 889, December 2014, Pages 486-548
Measurement of the differential cross-sections of inclusive, prompt and non-prompt J/ψJ/ψ production in proton–proton collisions at s=7 TeV
Nuclear Physics B, Volume 850, Issue 3, 21 September 2011, Pages 387-444
LHCb
Measurement of CP violation and constraints on the CKM angle γ   in B±→DK±B±→DK± with D→KS0π+π− decays
Nuclear Physics B, Volume 888, November 2014, Pages 169-193
Measurement of the ratio of branching fractions B(B0→K⁎0γ)/B(Bs0→ϕγ) and the direct CP   asymmetry in B0→K⁎0γB0→K⁎0γ
Nuclear Physics B, Volume 867, Issue 1, 1 February 2013, Pages 1-18

Evidence for the decay X(3872)->Psi(2s)gamma
Nuclear Physics B, Volume 886, September 2014, Pages 665-680

‹ Return to Virtual Special Iss