Krieger serves as the spokesperson for the ATLAS-Canada collaboration, which comprises 39
faculty-level investigators at ten Canadian institutions (McGill University, Universite de Montreal,
Carleton University, University of Toronto, York University, University of Alberta, UBC, Simon Fraser University,
TRIUMF and the University of Victoria) as well as about 30 postdoctoral researchers, 80 graduate
students, and technical and computing staff. Canada is a founding member of the ATLAS Collaboration.
Canadian researchers built significant parts of the ATLAS detector, as well as one of the ten “Tier-1”
computing centres needed to process and analyze the data. The group plays key roles in the management
and operation of the experiment, as well as in the science it produces, including the 2012 discovery of the
Higgs boson.
The $10M to be provided by the federal government, combined with a $2M in-kind contribution from
TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for subatomic physics and accelerator science, which will
manage the project, will be used for the construction of cryo-modules to house the “crab cavities”
that are at the heart of the luminosity upgrade of the collider, which will see the rate of proton-proton
collisions increase by a factor of up to 7.5 times the original design value. Over about a ten-year period
starting in 2026, this will enable ATLAS to accumulate a data sample ten times the one that will be
collected by the end of 2023, which will mark the completion of the originally envisaged LHC experimental
program. This large data sample will enable more precise studies of the Higgs boson and provide improved
sensitivity for ongoing searches for physics beyond the Standard Model, for example Dark Matter.
The upgrade of the collider will also require upgrades to the experiments, and Canadian groups across the
country, including at U of T, are already contributing to both Phase-1 (2019-2020) and Phase-2 (2024-2026)
detector upgrades via funding provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation in the 2015 and 2017
Innovation Fund competitions.
For more information on the recent announcement, see:
https://www.utoronto.ca/news/canada-gives-12-million-boost-power-large-hadron-collider
From left to right:
Prof. Michael J. Roney, University of Victoria, Director IPP
Prof. Peter Krieger, U of T, ATLAS-Canada spokesperson
Prof. Arthur B. McDonald, Queens University, 2015 Nobel Laureate
Joyce Murray, MP for Vancouver Quadra
The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science
Anne Louise Aboud, COO and Deputy Director of Operations, TRIUMF