Research in the Tom W. Bonner Nuclear Laboratory addresses a variety of questions fundamental to our understanding of the universe and what it is made of. A series of breakthroughs in the field of nuclear and particle physics combined to produce one of the great scientific triumphs of the 20th century: the Standard Model of particle physics. New data, however, reveals that less than five percent of the universe is made by the visible matter that this model describes.

A number of interrelated questions have been identified:

T.W. Bonner Lab — glass door entry at Herman Brown Hall

• Are there undiscovered principles of nature: new symmetries, new physical laws?
• Are there extra dimensions of space?
• Do all forces become one at an earlier time?
• Why are there so many kinds of particles?
• What is dark matter, and how can we make it or detect it in the laboratory?
• How did the universe come to be? And, what happened to antimatter
• Taking a closer look at the visible matter, we still have many unanswered questions: How did visible matter come into being, and how does it evolve?
• How does subatomic matter organize itself and what phenomena emerge?
• Are the fundamental interactions that are basic to the structure of matter fully understood?