Studies in Experimental Particle Physics

University Of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati OH

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests continuing support for a program of research for the Sokoloff/Meadows group at the University of Cincinnati Main Campus in experimental elementary particle physics based primarily on the BaBar experiment at SLAC and the proposed LSST experiment. The BABAR Collaboration was created in 2004 to design, construct, and operate a detector at an asymmetric B-factory to study the origins of CP-violation in the decays of B mesons. In addition to many discoveries made related to B meson physics, BABAR has discovered new particles (the DSJ and the Y(4260) as examples) and has discovered new phenomena such as the oscillations (mixing) of particles into anti-particles, and vice versa, in the neutral D meson system. During the coming grant period, the group will pursue it studies of D0 − D 0-bar mixing, CP-violation in D meson decays, fundamental properties of D mesons, B meson decays related to measuring the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix angle a, and of decays of the Y(4260). Looking to the future, they have begun working on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project to study the distribution of dark matter in the universe. Both the characteristics of dark matter and its distribution within the universe provide important constraints on any theory of the fundamental forces of nature. Precise measurements of the distribution of dark matter via weak lensing, made in parallel with direct observations of high mass particles produced at the Tevatron and/or the LHC, direct observations of dark matter in the laboratory, and indirect observations of the interactions or decays of dark matter in astrophysics experiments will lead to a fundamental unification of physics at the smallest and largest scales. Now the Standard Model does not include a candidate for the cold dark matter which is so much more abundant than its baryonic cousin. Their work on BABAR constrains theories of physics beyond the Standard Model and may help point the way to new physics. Studying the distribution of dark matter in the universe will connect the particle interactions one observes in the laboratory today with those observed in the universe at the earliest times. On Broader Impacts, the group will continue its work primarily within the QuarkNet program as well as employing undergraduates in the research. In research, they will collaborate closely with astronomers on the LSST. While they have very, very much to learn from them, they also offer new perspectives and experience that should lead to better conventional astronomy, as well as first-rate cosmology. They bring experience working in large collaborations, with tremendously large datasets, where reducing and understanding systematic uncertainties is critical to the science. Integrating the techniques of experimental particle physics with those of astronomy promises the greatest reach for answering fundamental scientific questions related to dark matter and dark energy.