REU Site at Nevis Labs, Columbia University

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports the renewal of the Physics REU site at Nevis Labs, the laboratory for high energy physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics at Columbia University. The main focus of the program is student participation in original, cutting-edge physics research, working with a faculty mentor. The students spend 10 weeks during the summer participating in the broad Nevis high energy physics and particle astrophysics research program, which seeks to address the most pressing issues of these fields, including the origin of mass, the question of neutrino oscillations, and the search for Dark Matter. Answers to these questions will have profound implications for our understanding of the fundamental structure and evolution of the universe. The REU program provides the opportunity for undergraduates to join in the excitement of these pursuits, as well as to participate in the development of the technological and computational tools required. Through an extensive series of lectures and lab visits, the students are also exposed to the most exciting problems in many other fields of physics. As the variety of experiments are at different stages in their development, Nevis provides the opportunity for students to gain experience in all aspects of the experiments, from initial detector design, hardware development and construction, to software development and data analysis.