Guided by Dr. Xu ZhenCheng, eight students from high school AP/IB Physics classes were honored to attend the 6th Annual Shanghai Particle Physics Master class at the Concordia International School of Shanghai.

On March 11th, students learned some basic knowledge of particle and accelerator physics, solving the quark puzzle (baryons and mesons) and calculating the invariant mass of a Z boson from events at the CMS and ATLAS detectors. They also analyzed data of over 3000 events from the latest run of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), the large particle accelerator at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), and looked for double Z particle decays and diphoton events.

They also had the opportunity to visit the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, China’s largest synchrotron research facility to date. It is one of the most advanced third generation light sources in the world, and it supports and pushes the cutting-edge scientific research and innovation in China.

On March 19th, they will establish a video conference with other schools around the world and with physicists at Fermilab and CERN to share their data and analysis of the data from CERN.

(Written by 12(9) Lawrence Picture by XU ZhenCheng)