A TEAM of Irish scientists are presenting their exciting rediscovery of sub-atomic particles to an international conference in Paris today.

The rediscovery brings scientists at the European centre for nuclear research (CERN) one step closer to locating the so-called ‘god particle’, which holds the secrets to the creation of the universe, reports the Irish Times.

The Irish team working on the Franco-Swiss border is from University College Dublin and led by Dr Ronan McNulty. Three weeks ago one of the team, PhD student James Keaveney, discovered the team had found what they were searching for: the sub-atomic particles named the Z boson and W boson.

CERN officials then examined the team’s findings before confirming that they had correctly identified the particles.

McNulty will address the 35th International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP2010) today with the team’s findings.

CERN contains the 27km-long Large Hadron Collider, which smashes atomic particles at incredible speeds in the hope of allowing scientists to examine the results. The purpose of these experiments is to discover how the universe was created.

Scientists believe that the particle accelerator will help to locate the Higgs boson, the so-called “god particle”, which will unfold the secrets of creation of the universe billions of years ago – but first they have to find it.

Keaveney, who hopes to complete his PhD next year, explained his reaction to his discovery after years of preparing for the collider’s start up: “When you spend a few years looking at simulations and then see the real thing, it is fairly exciting,” he said.

The particles were discovered for the first time by Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer, which earned the scientists a Nobel Prize.

The Irish team that rediscovered the particles used Irish-designed software which enabled them to assemble a picture of the collisions.