Experimental Particle Physics: the Next Ten Years

Over the next ten years a number of new accelerator facilities for frontier research will be become operational. Within weeks the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is scheduled to produce first collisions. The world's most powerful accelerator is designed to become a 'discovery machine'. Around 2013/2014 we expect first beams at BELLE-II at KEK, Japan. This Beauty-Factory will build on the very successful BELLE program with ten times higher luminosity and a discovery reach beyond the Standard Model. Later in the decade, an array of facilities of the FAIR project at GSI, Darmstadt will commence operation. This broad accelerator-based program is complemented with ultra-precision particle physics experiments, both in university laboratories and facilities, such as ILL, Grenoble and a strong astroparticle physics program with ground- and satellite-based facilities. These should be truly exciting years for particle physics. Austria is strongly involved in all these research programs and well positioned in the race for major discoveries. (author)