AoT Leiden, Monday 24th June @ Grand Café de Burcht

Our next event will take place on Monday 24th of Juneat 20h in Grand Cafe De Burcht (Burgsteeg 14, 2312 JS Leiden). Join us for an evening of informal astronomy and great beer! Jacco de Vries and Silvia Ferreres from CERN will tell us about how understanding the laws of physics at the smallest scales can help us answer questions about the universe

Jacco de Vries is a particle physicist at Nikhef and CERN, and proud member of the LHCb experiment. His drive is to understand the laws of physics at the smallest scales, in order to answer questions about the universe on the largest scales. In this talk he will explain why modern particle physics research is fundamental for astronomy, and how we can help each other out. The focus will be on indirect detection methods of new particles.

Silvia Ferreres Solé is a a PhD student in particle physics at Nikhef and part of the LHCb experiment at CERN.  Her work focuses in understanding the mechanisms ruling the interactions among the fundamental constituents of matter in order to apply this knowledge to larger scales in the Universe. The talk will be about the first observation of one of the rarest particle processes: the Bs meson decaying to two muons. This happens only one out of a billion times, making its discovery in 2016 one of the highlights of particle physics in recent decades.

All ages and backgrounds welcome! The entry is free and no reservation is needed. We start at 20h but recommend you arrive early to save a seat and grab a drink. And of course, beside the talks, we will have fun games where you can win cool science prizes! More info: check out www.astronomyontap.nl!