This year’s International Particle Physics Masterclasses were held at the FNSPE CTU in Prague. This annual event, traditionally held during the first four months of the year in many institutions around the world, gives 15- to 19-year-old high school students an opportunity to discover and become familiar with particle physics. Speaking in numbers, approximately 10.000 high school students from 47 countries participate every year, effectively obtaining insight into topics and methods of basic research. The students are not only allowed to spend a whole day outside of school without being considered a truant, but they also receive a chance to choose and carry out an experiment themselves by performing measurements on real data from particle physics experiments at CERN. Almost 200 universities or research centers are involved in this project.
This year, the event took place on March 9, at the faculty’s headquarters with 60 registered and 53 participating high-school students. The Czech part of the project is being organized in cooperation with the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, Prague EPS Young Minds section, and CERN. The students are given a unique opportunity to obtain insight into the day-to-day business of a particle physicist without the necessity of any prior knowledge of the subject.
Also, on February 12th, Masterclasses dedicated to women students exclusively were organized. The principle is the same, aiming to encourage young women to study physics and related fields and also the programme of the event had the same structure as the Masterclasses held in March.
In the morning, the students attended a series of instructive lectures given by scientists working at CERN, whereas in the afternoon, an actual data analysis from two major LHC experiments – LHCb and ATLAS – was carried out. This year, they could either find the Higgs boson at the ATLAS or discover b-physics at the LHCb experiment. The results of the whole group were merged and during a video conference presented to experts at CERN and students from other institutes from all over the world, where International Particle Physics Masterclasses were held on the same day.
At the very end, the organizers thanked the students for participating and the most active ones of them, as well as the speakers who talked to CERN during the conference, were awarded prizes of the organizers’ choosing. During the day, organizers took care of having the lunch delivered as well as the preparation of refreshments, beverages, and coffee for participating students.