RUI: Studies of Relativistic Heavy Ions Collisions in ALICE at the LHC

Chicago State University, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Recruiting, retaining, and educating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students and teachers has been identified as the cornerstone to improving scientific literacy, maintaining economic growth, and providing the platform for relevant scientific discoveries. This award addresses these issues by supporting CSU's high-energy experimental nuclear physics program. This project is centered on a research program to study heavy ion collisions at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the ALICE experiment. It also includes a component on detector R&D for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), and thereby provides opportunities for the involvement of undergraduate students in hardware projects. The project aligns with what other undergraduate institutions have identified for successful research projects for similar disciplines. Because of the make-up of the CSU student population, the location of the university, and the current outreach programs of the department, this program has the potential to promote underrepresented inner-city students into STEM fields. This award is centered on a research program to study heavy ion collisions at CERN with the ALICE experiment in three areas of interest: the jet physics capabilities of ALICE, an R&D component to contribute to the integration of the Fast Interaction Trigger (FIT), and the Forward Calorimeter (FoCal). It also includes an R&D component to advance the high-resolution Zero Degree Calorimeter (ZDC) for the EIC. The focus of the heavy ion program at CERN is to understand the behavior of matter at very high density, corresponding to conditions a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, when a hot, dense medium of quarks and gluons existed. The goal is to recreate these conditions via colliding nuclei at very high energies. Chicago State University will contribute to this effort by working on the physics analysis of J/psi jets. A program includes measurements to investigate the production mechanism of quarkonia in proton-proton collisions and the response of the quark-gluon medium to jet energy deposition in lead-lead collisions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.