At the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, there is extensive research in particle physics and cosmology, both theoretically and experimentally. Niels Bohr, together with Denmark and 11 other countries, helped establish CERN in 1954 - today the world's largest physics experiment, where researchers from all over the world search for the answer to the very big questions about the beginning of everything. The researchers from NBI are also part of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory on the South Pole.

These experimental research groups work with what is called "High Energy Physics" and the term should be taken very literally. Their experiments take place at CERN, the European Laboratory for atom research in Geneva Switzerland, where a 27 km long underground atom accelerator operates at the colossally high temperatures such as existed in the seconds just after the big bang. These high energies are necessary to break up the nucleus' elements into matter's tiniest components such as quarks, gluons, leptons etc. The Danish high energy physics group collaborates with several international research projects.

ALICE Experiment

The ALICE Collaboration has built a dedicated detector to exploit the unique physics potential of nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC energies. Our aim is to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at the highest energy densities reached so far in the laboratory. In such condition, an extreme phase of matter - called the quark-gluon plasma - is formed. Our universe is thought to have been in such a primordial state for the first few millionths of a second after the Big Bang.

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ATLAS Experiment

The ALICE Collaboration has built a dedicated detector to exploit the unique physics potential of nucleus-nucleus collisions at LHC energies. Our aim is to study the physics of strongly interacting matter at the highest energy densities reached so far in the laboratory. In such condition, an extreme phase of matter - called the quark-gluon plasma - is formed. Our universe is thought to have been in such a primordial state for the first few millionths of a second after the Big Bang.

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IceCube Experiment

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, embedded down to 2.5 km deep under the South Pole, is the world's largest and most sensitive ‘telescope' for high energy neutrinos. With a cubic kilometer of instrumented ice it is the largest particle detector in the world.

IceCube is a part of the subatomic group at the Niels Bohr Institute, based in the Discovery Center. The group includes both experimentalists and theorists (from the Niels Bohr International Academy). Indicated are selected topics of responsibility or research interests within neutrino physics and IceCube.

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Particle and Astroparticle Phemonology

The scientific knowledge generally advances in two ways: top-down and bottom-up

"Phenomenological" particle physics is a "bottom-up theoretical research". One starts with what's observed and aims to build a holistic theory of Nature in a bottom-up fashion. In doing so one has to address not only  particle physics challenges, but also the whole structure of the Universe, where particle physics affects cosmological observables in many aspects. In this way physics of micro- and macro-worlds becomes interconnect.

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