Studies in Elementary Particle Physics

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests funds to support a program of experimental particle physics research at the world's highest energy hadron colliders. The program involves the continuing collaboration in the CDF experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron and the CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The CDF experiment is currently in a tuning/data-taking phase and is expected to run for a number of years. The CMS experiment is being prepared to begin operation in 2007. The scientific goals of the program are to determine the source of spontaneous symmetry breaking and to make precise heavy quark measurements that constrain physics beyond the Standard Model. Many theoretical mechanisms of spontaneous symmetry breaking include states that preferentially decay into heavy quarks or other "long"-lived states. As the luminosity of the Tevatron increases, the search for new states related to spontaneous symmetry breaking should become feasible and will rely on techniques associated with heavy flavor physics. The technical contributions of the group to both experiments follow this theme. They are contributing to the silicon-based vertex tracking of both experiments. This technology permits the identification of long-lived states by searching for secondary vertices displaced from the primary vertex. They have contributed to the hardware, software, commissioning, and calibration of new silicon strip vertex detectors for CDF and are also contributing to the next upgrade of this system for Run 2b. The group is making contributions to the forward pixel tracking system of CMS, particularly in the areas of sensor development, system design, infrastructure, and software. In the education/outreach area, the impact of the proposed research program reaches beyond the narrow definition of "particle physics". The proposed work on active pixel detector technology has application to instrumentation used at synchrotron light sources to study materials and biological systems. They are discussing the application of their pixel simulation code to infrared pixel sensors with colleagues in astronomy and the code may be useful in the understanding and optimization of infrared detectors for use in satellite-borne telescopes. The proposed work on distributed databases has strong overlap with work being done by JHU colleagues for several large astronomy projects. Distributed databases are another internet-based technology that could have far-reaching application in all sectors of our society. The proposed research has a strong educational component. It provides direct support and training for a number of graduate and undergraduate students and they are the hosts of a QuarkNet center that has already provided summer research experience for two Baltimore City public high school teachers.