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A recent review article in Frontiers in Physics describing the beginning and the first 15 years of the Education and Outreach project of the ATLAS experiment at CERN.

The Impact of an Innovative Education and Outreach Project

R. MICHAEL BARNETT
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley CA 94720
K. ERIK JOHANSSON
Professor Emeritus
Department of Physics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
The article was published in Frontiers in Physics section High-Energy and Astroparticle Physics in October 2024:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2024.1393355/full?journalName=Frontiers_in_Physics&id=1393355

In 1995, the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider embarked on a journey, driven by a passion to ignite curiosity and inspire future scientists. We aspired to create an ambitious education and outreach program that resonated globally, and would reach out to the general public and students. With physicists from more than 40 nations working together we initiated an ambitious project to share the excitement of scientific frontiers with a global audience.

A publication focused on artistic images in scientificamerican.com
Art as a Portal to Science - from Extra Dimensions to the Higgs Boson, on scientificamerican.com
R. Michael Barnett, K. Erik Johansson and Paul Schaffner.


Erik Johansson

Awards

  • EPS First outreach award 2001
  • Best physics website Scientific American.com 2004
  • Webby Award 2005

Education projects

  • Hands on CERN (DELPHI Experiment)
  • Stockholm Science Laboratory and House of Science
  • Learning with the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider
  • Animations of quark and gluon interactions
  • Education publications

The Higgs particle

  • The Higgs (Brout-Englert-Higgs) mechanism
  • The search for the Higgs particle
  • Student project

Positions

  • CERN fellowship and staff member 1977-1984
  • Working on the DELHI and the ATLAS experiments at Stockholm University 1984-2012
  • Director of Stockholm Science Laboratory and House of Science 1995-2006
  • European Particle Physics Outreach Group chairman 2002-2008
  • European Physical Society Education division chairman 2003-2008
  • ATLAS Experiment Education and Outreach co-coordinator 1997-2011

Awards

The hands on CERN education project that I initiated and directed demonstrated a new and innovative way of introducing the physics frontline in the classrooms. Students can interactively explore the building blocks and fundamental forces in nature using experimental data from the DELPHI experiment at CERN.

EPS First outreach award 2001

In 2001 I received the first European Physical Society outreach award together with Christine Sutton from Oxford University.

Best physics website awarded by Scientific American.com 2004

Hands on CERN was selected a winner of the Scientific American Science and Technology Web award in 2004.

Webby Award 2005

In 2005 I received the prestigious Webby Award in the Science category in New York.


June 2005 Webby award on Broadway, New York

Innovative education projects

I have for many years been devoted to promoting science in general and particle physics in particular in schools. The best known education initiatives and innovative projects are:

  • Hands on CERN
  • Stockholm Science Laboratory
  • Stockholm House of Science
  • ATLAS Experiment Education and Outreach project

Hands on CERN

The hands on CERN education project that I initiated and directed demonstrated a new and innovative way of introducing the physics frontline in the classrooms. Students can interactively explore the building blocks and fundamental forces in nature using experimental data from the DELPHI experiment at CERN. When the Hands on CERN project (www.hands-on-cern.fysik.su.se) was implemented in 1995 it was not obvious that particle collision data from a particle physics experiment at CERN could be made available to schools via the web. It was a challenge, but it worked. The education project has now been in use for more than 15 years and exists in 15 languages.


Two particle jets registered by the DELPHI detector at the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP).

European and International Master Classes

In 2005 I was part of the work that led to the creation of the European Master Classes in particle physics (http://physicsmasterclasses.org/) directed by Michael Kobel from Dresden University. This project, which extensively used Hands on CERN to study the Z particle, has continued to grow, and now involves around 10 000 students every year from different parts of the world.

Stockholm Science Laboratory and House of Science

The Stockholm Science Laboratory, devoted to schools, was constructed at the Department of Physics, Stockholm University. School classes were received for up to a whole day making interesting experiments close to the physics frontline. After six years of successful operation, the laboratory became Stockholm House of Science at AlbaNova University centre extending the activities to astronomy and biotechnology in addition to physics.


Cosmic radiation and a glimpse of special relativity

The concept of House of Science (www.houseofscience.se) is built on the successful concept of Science Laboratory. The laboratories were enlarged and extended to include astronomy, biotechnology, chemistry and physics. As initiator of Stockholm House of Science and its first Director, I created the platform for interesting and advanced experiments in a university environment, entirely dedicated to schoosl. Each year between 10 000 and 15 000 students and teachers make experiments in astronomy, biotechnology, chemistry and physics.


DNA sequencing in House of Science.

Learning with the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

For 15 years I have coordinated the Education and Outreach project of the ATLAS world-wide collaboration and particle physics experiment (atlas.ch) with Michael Barnett from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. A large amount of innovative information material like films, animations and brochures has been produced for teachers, schools and the general public. Experimental data from the ATLAS Experiment have been made available for students and teachers participating in the International Masterclasses in particle physics.

The ATLAS Experiment with its Education and Outreach project has consistently involved students and teachers at many levels – from high school to university, but the main aim of the ATLAS Experiment is to explore high-energy particle collisions and search for new phenomena and new particles produced in the head-on collisions of protons of extraordinarily high energy.

Animations of quark and gluon interactions


Proton with two u quarks, one d quark and many gluons.

When two high energy protons collide at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, it is the constituents of the protons – the quarks and gluons – that interact. The interaction occurs inside the two overlapping protons. The five animations focus on the production of particles like top quarks and the Z and the Higgs bosons. After the interaction the disturbed proton remains often give rise to additional jets of particles. Link to the animations.

Publications

22 physics education publications since 2001 and a total of 797 scientific publications since 1972.

The Higgs (Brout-Englert-Higgs) mechanism

The Higgs mechanism or the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism can solve the shortcoming of the Standard Model and provide an explanation why the fundamental particles have mass. According to this mechanism there should exist a neutral spin zero particle, the Higgs boson. The detection of this particle would confirm the Higgs (Brout-Englert-Higgs) mass mechanism.

At the beginning of time the Higgs field was thought to be zero and all particles had zero mass. As the universe cooled the potential energy of the universe decreased and the Higgs field became non-zero. This breaking of the original symmetry resulted in a nonzero Higgs field everywhere in space interacting with all the particles making them acquire mass.

The search for the Higgs particle

The Higgs particle is the missing ingredient of the Standard Model of particle physics. Before starting the Large Hadron Collider at CERN the mass of the Higgs particle was known to exceed 114 GeV, otherwise it would have been detected at the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP). The precision results from LEP and other accelerators also showed that the Higgs mass should be smaller than around 190 GeV to be consistent with the Standard Model.

On 4th July 2012 the discovery of a new particle with a mass of 125-126 GeV observed by both the ATLAS and the CMS experiments and consistent with the Higgs boson was announced at CERN. The properties of the particle agree with those expected for the Higgs particle.


A Higgs boson candidate observed in an 8 TeV proton-proton collision in the ATLAS detector. The Higgs boson decays to four high energy leptons, the electron and the positron indicated in green, and the muon and antimuon, indicated in red.

Student project

With the animations of how the gluons in the colliding protons interact to produce a Higgs particle instantly decaying to two photons or to two Z particles, and with event displays of real Higgs candidate events from the ATLAS experiment, an interested student will have a good start for a school project at the physics frontline. The supporting publications below provide additional information.

Animations of how the Higgs particle is created in proton-proton collisions due to gluon interactions http://www.kejohansson.se/animations/
Event displays of real particle collisions registered with the ATLAS detector: http://www.atlas.ch/multimedia
Exploring quarks, gluons and the Higgs boson, K E Johansson, Physics Education 48 (2013) 96-104.
Exploring the standard model of particles, K E Johansson and P M Watkins, Physics Education 48 (2013) 105-114.
A Particle Consistent with the Higgs Boson Observed with the ATLAS Detector at the Large Hadron Collider, the ATLAS Collaboration, Science vol. 338, 2012, page 1576-1582.
  The original publication: Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, the ATLAS Collaboration, Physics Letters B (2012) 716, p 1-29.

Education publications

  1. Astronomy and particle physics research classes for secondary school students, K.E. Johansson, Ch. Nilsson, J. Engstedt and Aa. Sandqvist, American Journal of Physics. Vol. 69, No. 5, May 2001, p. 577
  2. Quarks, Leptons and Galaxies for Students, Erik Johansson, Proceedings of the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Budapest, Hungary, 12-18 July 2001; Journal of High Energy Physics, PRHEP-hep2001/282
  3. School Projects at the Physics Frontline, invited talk at the European Conference on Trends in Physics, EPS-12, Budapest, Hungary, 25-30 August 2002.
  4. House of Science: a university laboratory for schools, K. Erik Johansson, Physics Education 39, No 4 (2004) 342-345, July 2004
  5. Hands on CERN - a well-used physics education project, K.E. Johansson, Physics Education 41 (2006) 250-254.
  6. Einstein for schools and the general public, K.E. Johansson, C. Kozma and Ch. Nilsson, Physics Education 41 (2006) 328-333.
  7. The Education and Outreach Project of ATLAS – a new participant in physics education, R.M. Barnett and K.E. Johansson, SN-ATLAS-2006-055, Physics Education 41 (2006) 432-436
  8. Particle physics goes to school, K. E. Johansson. Proceedings of the Hands on Science International Conference in Braga, Portugal, 4-9 September 2006, page 254.
  9. Observing the Solar Spectrum at House of Science, K.E. Johansson, C. Kozma and Ch. Nilsson, Physics Education 42 (2007) 41-44
  10. The reality and Virtual reality of an International Frontline Physics Experiment, K.E .Johansson (presenter) and R.M. Barnett. Contribution to the Advanced Technologies in Education Symposium, Athens, Greece, 26-27 January 2007.
  11. An educational PET camera model, K.E. Johansson, Ch. Nilsson and P. E. Tegner, Physics Education 41 (2006) 437-439
  12. Hands on Physics and Biology in House of Science, L. Gumaelius and K. E. Johansson (presenter). Proceedings of the Hands on Science International Conference in Braga, Portugal, 4-9 September 2006, page 11.
  13. Measuring radon in air, soil and water - an introduction to nuclear physics for schools K.E. Johansson, Ch. Nilsson and S. Wachtmeister, Physics Education 42 (2007) 281-288. This article is among the 3% most popular of all IoP publications.
  14. European Particle Physics Masterclasses make Students Scientists for a Day, K.E. Johansson, M. Kobel, D. Hillebrandt, K. Engeln, and M. Euler, Physics Education 42(2007) 636-644.
  15. Uncertainty in the Classroom - Teaching Quantum Physics, K.E.Johansson and D.Milstead, Physics Education 43(2008) 173-179
  16. A University laboratory for schools – a new meeting place for students and teachers K.E. Johansson, Physics Education, 43 (2008.) 530-535
  17. Physics Education with the ATLAS Frontline Experiment, Contribution and presentation at the ICALT2008 conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Santander, Spain, 30 June - 4 July, 2008, K.E. Johansson.
  18. Marjorie G. Bardeen, K. Erik Johansson, and M. Jean Young, Particle Physics Outreach to Secondary Education, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 61 (2011) 149-170, November 2011
  19. Learning with the ATLAS experiment, R.M. Barnett, K.E. Johansson. C.Kourkoumelis, L. Long, J. Pequenao, C. Reimers and P. Watkins, Physics Education 47 (2012) 28-37.
  20. Exploring quarks, gluons and the Higgs boson, K E Johansson Physics Education 48 (2013) 96-104.
  21. Exploring the standard model of particles, K E Johansson and P M Watkins, Physics Education 48 (2013) 105-114.
  22. Art as a Portal to Science – from Extra Dimensions to the Higgs Boson, R. Michael Barnett, K. Erik Johansson and Paul Schaffner, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/large-hadron-collider-lhc-art-physics/
  23. ATLAS Art Film - Art as a Portal to Science, R. Michael Barnett, K. Erik Johansson and Paul Schaffner, https://vimeo.com/120659912
  24. The Impact of an Innovative Education and Outreach Project, R. Michael Barnett and K. Erik Johansson. Frontiers in Physics section High-Energy and Astroparticle Physics, October 2024. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2024.1393355/full?journalName=Frontiers_in_Physics&id=1393355