PIRE: Collaborative research with the Paul Scherrer Institute and Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule on Advanced Pixel Silicon Detectors for the CMS detector

University Of Kansas Center For Research Inc, Lawrence KS

Investigators

Abstract

0730173 Bean This award is to fund a proposal submitted to the 2007 OISE Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) competition. It involves a collaboration on the US side between the University of Kansas, the University of Illinois-Chicago, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez with the Paul Scherrer Institute and Eidgenoessiche Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. Intellectual Merit. The US participants propose to build on their existing collaborative experience in the US collaboration responsible for the CMS tracking detector for the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC collider. They are particularly interested in helping to develop a tracking system for the "super LHC," a program of high intensity running of the accelerator with its detectors. The Swiss collaborators have played the lead role in designing and building many key components of the existing Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) pixel detector experiment. The SLHC will permit nearly compete delineation of the properties of most of the proposed models of electro2weak symmetry breaking in nature. Robust and efficient charged particle tracking in the extraordinarily high event rate and radiation environment of the SLHC collision region will be essential for this physics. Broader Impacts. The proposal includes extensive international training opportunities for the US graduate and undergraduate students, built on the well-established KU study abroad program. Two of the participating US institutions are from EPSCoR states and a third is a primarily minority institution in Puerto Rico, all of which will involve an important diversity of students in this activity. This project has the potential to be a model for a new mode of internationalized education that would undoubtedly benefit US science students. The project will contribute to a globally engaged and internationally trained workforce, increase minority participation in science and engineering, and develop lasting connections between the participants and their counterparts at foreign institutions. The ability to involve undergraduates is innovative, because in contrast to most high energy physics collaborations, these exchanges will occur with foreign collaborators at the universities, rather than in the laboratory.