“As human beings we have the power to question what’s around us”

Born in Poland and raised in Austria, 25-year-old Mateusz Zarucki is a PhD student at the Institute of High Energy Physics in Vienna, Austria. He was intrigued by the fundamental nature of the universe early on in life, which eventually led him to CMS, where he has been for the last two years.

“I really wanted to understand what interactions take place at the most basic level. I wanted to understand what is going on deep down, at the smallest scales. I did my master’s thesis on neutrinoless double-beta decay, which is particle physics but at a different energy than at the LHC. Since I wanted to try something different, while staying within particle physics, I turned to high-energy physics and I applied for a PhD to work on CMS data analysis.”

Mateusz is no stranger to working in multicultural environments, and he appreciates that CMS gives him the opportunity to continue to work in one.

“I went to an international school in Vienna, followed by studies in London for three years, with an exchange year in Valencia, Spain. The environment within CERN and CMS is very international and it is something I’ve been exposed to most of my life. Meeting people from all across the globe and working together towards a common goal is very important nowadays, so I am glad to be staying in this sort of environment.”

On the analysis side of things, Mateusz works on the search for supersymmetry (or SUSY). But he finds the whole of physics fascinating.

“The most interesting part of studying physics, I think, is unravelling how everything in our universe actually works. There are so many different aspects of science and you end up learning a bit of everything. It’s very nice to find the puzzle pieces one by one and see how it all comes together in the end. Learning the details of how we probe the fundamental theories of nature which we have come up with is very exciting.”

In addition to travelling to CERN to work on analysis, give talks and attend meetings, Mateusz also visits the laboratory to be on shift in the CMS Control Room. Specifically, while on shift, he is in charge of monitoring the “data acquisition” (or DAQ) system of the CMS detector.

“I’m happy to be doing DAQ shifts! The analysis that we do is on the processed data that one gets at the very end, which is the final outcome of all this work that has been put in. I like to think of the data analysers in the same way as the strikers in football — even though we have the potential to ‘score goals’ by making discoveries, one must not forget the whole team behind us. During shifts you get a very nice overview of how the whole process works. It’s not just CMS, but the whole CERN accelerator complex. As a DAQ shifter, you’re the one who selects which subsystems come in and come out of the data-collection stream, and you get to see how many different smaller components comprise these systems. The collaboration has to make all of them work together at the same time to give you good results, so there is a tremendous amount of work put in by thousands of people and you really get to appreciate that.”

Mateusz recalls fondly the first time he saw collisions take place while on shift as one of the memorable moments of working with CMS.

“I recall very clearly the first time I was doing the DAQ shift during stable beams — you see nothing for a while, then the particle beams are directed towards each other and suddenly you see these wonderful collisions on the event displays!”

A young scientist himself, Mateusz is keen for others to take up studies in science, even if they don’t study particle physics.

“I think science in general is extremely worth investing in — if you look around you, it would be easy to attribute most everyday things to advances in science. It’s a matter of taste, because every single field of research is pushing the boundaries of knowledge in all directions. But science is not only useful — there are plenty of applications for it — it is also very interesting. As human beings we have the power to question what’s around us and it’s something that makes us unique. If we have the opportunity to do it, we should question things, we should learn as much as we can and push these boundaries as far as we can. Of course, there are answers that we’ll never know, but why not get as close as possible?”

Mateusz will admit, however, that pursuing a career in physics is not particularly easy, although he does have words of encouragement for any future particle physicists out there.

“Physics in general is not so simple, so of course there were times I spent repeating the same thing over and over again, banging my head, trying to understand what exactly was going on. But in the end one manages and when you understand something once I think you will not forget it. Many people can get discouraged before they even try. It’s most important to do what you like, what you’re interested in and then it comes kind of naturally. This does not necessarily have to refer to physics or science of course — it could be art, sports or anything that you enjoy. Stay interested and never get discouraged!”

As young as CMS…

A handful of CMS members were born around the time the CMS itself came into being. They are as old (or as young!) as the collaboration they are now a part of. To give you a unique point of view of what it means to scientists in the early stages of their careers to be involved in such a long-standing enterprise, we interviewed a few of them. Find out more about what brought them to particle physics, what they work on in CMS and what they look forward to in the years to come.

About

In October 1992, a ‘Letter of Intent’ was submitted to the LHC Experiments Committee (LHCC), offically marking the formation of the CMS Collaboration. This website commemorates the 25th anniversary of CMS, celebrated in 2017.