The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It is used to collide subatomic particles, with the goal of exploring the fundamental interactions in particle physics by studying the data from the experiments.
This research is the main focus of Abhisek Datta, an assistant professor in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Physics and Astronomy who joined the faculty in August of 2025. Datta is an experimental high energy physicist, working on a large particle physics experiment at the LHC.
“I work on the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS), one of four main experiments ongoing at the LHC. We have several professors here who also work on different aspects of the same experiment,” Datta said.
In his research group at Notre Dame, he works on building muon detectors, which are used to detect particles called muons—the heavier and more unstable relative of the electron. Datta builds and tests the electronics that go on these detectors that read out the signals produced when a muon passes through it.
Because CERN has collaborators from institutes worldwide, after testing Datta sends the electronics to CERN, where they are assembled together with the rest of the components built by the collaborators. The electronics can then be installed.
There are two aspects of the work done at the CMS experiment. One is building the particle detectors, and another is analyzing the data that comes out of the collisions. Datta works on both of these. In addition to building electronics for detectors, he also analyzes the data to look for interesting physics processes.
In the analysis side of his work, Datta mainly works on measuring properties of the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 at the LHC at CERN—with particle physicists at Notre Dame among the collaborators—and is one of the most important physics discoveries of the 21st century. The Higgs is responsible for generating mass for nearly every known particle. Datta measures the properties of the Higgs boson to the highest possible precision using the collision data, making sure that everything agrees with the theory.
He is chasing after one parameter which hasn't directly been measured yet: how the Higgs boson interacts with itself. “This is extremely rare, so scientists haven't observed these processes yet,” Datta said. “With the help of state-of-the-art analysis techniques and machine learning, we hope to refine the measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson as much as possible.”
Outside of his research, Datta enjoys teaching introductory physics to his students, on various topics in electricity and magnetism.
Reflecting on his high school years, Datta recalled how reading popular science books, such as Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, helped steer him toward a career in the sciences. In addition, Datta said that he was inspired by good teachers in high school and an older cousin who motivated him towards physics. The Higgs boson was discovered when he was in his sophomore year of college, which got him excited about particle physics.
When Datta was applying for faculty positions, Notre Dame was one of his top choices. One main reason was that there is a great group of high energy physicists here, and Notre Dame is a very visible and prominent group in CMS.
“Overall, I liked the areas of research at Notre Dame. The people here are involved both in doing hardware and physics analysis, and I wanted to do the same,” Datta said.
Originally published by at science.nd.edu on February 04, 2026.