How a grad student got LHC data to play nice with quantum interference

New approach is already having an impact on the experiment’s plans for future work.

Jun 23, 2025 - 13:20

How a grad student got LHC data to play nice with quantum interference

Measurements at the Large Hadron Collider have been stymied by one of the most central phenomena of the quantum world. But now, a young researcher has championed a new method to solve the problem using deep neural networks.

The Large Hadron Collider is one of the biggest experiments in history, but it’s also one of the hardest to interpret. Unlike seeing an image of a star in a telescope, saying anything at all about the data that comes out of the LHC requires careful statistical modeling.

“If you gave me a theory [that] the Higgs boson is this way or that way, I think people imagine, 'Hey, you built the experiment, you should be able to tell me what you're going to see under various hypotheses!’” said Daniel Whiteson, a professor at the University of California, Irvine. “But we don't.”

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