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Home of the Particle and Nuclear Physics groups at Rice University
 

Welcome

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?