First Lithuanian Particle Physics Meeting

On the 9th of March over 30 Lithuanian scientists with interest in particle physics gathered virtually for the first Lithuanian Particle Physics Meeting (LPPM2021). I was very happy to help organise this one day event, which brought together small, but growing Lithuanian particle physics community.

In the past, there has not been many high energy particle physics opportunities in Lithuania, so not surprisingly many of the young participants have received their education abroad or are currently studying in various foreign universities. However, since 2018 Lithuania has become an associated CERN member and the situation is changing. This prompted us to try and establish a global Lithuanian particle physics network.

During short presentations 17 speakers presented their career path and current research field. It was very exciting to hear Lithuanian scientists working in a diverse range of fields from high energy experiments at CERN to muonic hydrogen in PSI, from B meson factory in Japan to geo-neutrino experiments in Canada. There were also presentation by theoreticians working on cosmology, mathematical physics and precision perturbative QCD calculations.

The day was wrapped up by a constructive discussion about particle physics outreach in Lithuania and ways of contributing to further particle physics development in our homeland. I think the meeting was a great success and I hope it will become a yearly tradition.