Capital Equipment: Computing Cluster Upgrade and Neutrino Detector Laboratory Upgrade
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
The scope of the proposed research lies in five distinct areas: Higgs studies and new phenomena searches at ATLAS; the physics of particles containing the beauty quark at LHCb; the physics of neutrinos with T2K, SuperNEMO and LBNE; accelerator research and development for new high intensity proton, muon and neutrino beams; detector R&D. It also includes Outreach and Knowledge Exchange programmes. In more detail:
o The ATLAS experiment at CERN is a general purpose detector operating at the LHC. Our participation in the experiment is growing with the recent appointment of a new professor in the area, as well as two new postdoctoral fellows. Our proposed effort will be to support the experiment by contributing to its ability to identify interesting events rapidly for recording and further analysis. We will also continue our detailed studies of the properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson, thought to be the particle which couples to all matter, giving it mass. We will do this by helping to optimise the search for its decays to pairs of tau leptons, heavy relatives of the electron.
o We aim to further our research into matter/anti-matter asymmetry (CP Violation) in the decays of Beauty mesons at the LHCb experiment. This is important, because we have shown in past experiments that the leading source of CP violation at the weak scale is consistent with the Standard Model mechanism of CP violation. However, cosmological considerations indicate that there should be other sources of CP violation in Nature, so we aim to make further sensitive tests with beauty mesons, in order to see if any evidence for additional sources of CP violation or other new physics in Nature may appear in such decays.
o The elucidation of the properties of neutrinos. These are very light, neutral particles which are emitted, for example, by the sun, and in radioactive beta decay. These mysterious particles are known to oscillate, ie. transmute from one type to another, while they propagate. We built part of the T2K experiment which studies these phenomena in Japan. Analyses of data taken at the experiment gave early hints of the previously unobserved oscillations of muon to electron type neutrinos, and more recent observations have confirmed this. We aim to continue running this experiment, to study these effects in greater detail. The largeness of the effect offers the chance to go on to look for asymmetries between the oscillations of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. We further plan to contribute to the SuperNEMO experiment, which aims to determine the nature of the neutrino as so called Dirac or Majorana particle. The former has distinct anti-particles, while the latter is its own antiparticle. This question may be resolved by searching for double beta decay accompanied by no neutrinos. We will contribute to the analysis of data obtained by a "demonstrator module" attempting to observe such decays.
o We propose to continue our research and development of high power accelerators for the generation of proton, muon and neutrino beams. We have in mind future neutrino factories, although other machines could benefit from our research. Such neutrino factories, if built, would continue to develop the theme of research into neutrino oscillations and matter-antimatter asymmetry of neutrinos outlined above. Such machines could also bring many benefits to medicine and industry.
o We propose to continue our research and development of position- and energy-sensitive detectors for applications in neutrino experiments and with potential spin-off applications in industry. A particular focus of this effort is the LBNE neutrino oscillation experiment.
o We will continue to develop our outreach programme which includes activities for local schools and articles in popular science publications.
o Supported by a strong University strategy and ethos in KE, we will continue to pursue all avenues for possible knowledge exchange.
o The ATLAS experiment at CERN is a general purpose detector operating at the LHC. Our participation in the experiment is growing with the recent appointment of a new professor in the area, as well as two new postdoctoral fellows. Our proposed effort will be to support the experiment by contributing to its ability to identify interesting events rapidly for recording and further analysis. We will also continue our detailed studies of the properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson, thought to be the particle which couples to all matter, giving it mass. We will do this by helping to optimise the search for its decays to pairs of tau leptons, heavy relatives of the electron.
o We aim to further our research into matter/anti-matter asymmetry (CP Violation) in the decays of Beauty mesons at the LHCb experiment. This is important, because we have shown in past experiments that the leading source of CP violation at the weak scale is consistent with the Standard Model mechanism of CP violation. However, cosmological considerations indicate that there should be other sources of CP violation in Nature, so we aim to make further sensitive tests with beauty mesons, in order to see if any evidence for additional sources of CP violation or other new physics in Nature may appear in such decays.
o The elucidation of the properties of neutrinos. These are very light, neutral particles which are emitted, for example, by the sun, and in radioactive beta decay. These mysterious particles are known to oscillate, ie. transmute from one type to another, while they propagate. We built part of the T2K experiment which studies these phenomena in Japan. Analyses of data taken at the experiment gave early hints of the previously unobserved oscillations of muon to electron type neutrinos, and more recent observations have confirmed this. We aim to continue running this experiment, to study these effects in greater detail. The largeness of the effect offers the chance to go on to look for asymmetries between the oscillations of neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. We further plan to contribute to the SuperNEMO experiment, which aims to determine the nature of the neutrino as so called Dirac or Majorana particle. The former has distinct anti-particles, while the latter is its own antiparticle. This question may be resolved by searching for double beta decay accompanied by no neutrinos. We will contribute to the analysis of data obtained by a "demonstrator module" attempting to observe such decays.
o We propose to continue our research and development of high power accelerators for the generation of proton, muon and neutrino beams. We have in mind future neutrino factories, although other machines could benefit from our research. Such neutrino factories, if built, would continue to develop the theme of research into neutrino oscillations and matter-antimatter asymmetry of neutrinos outlined above. Such machines could also bring many benefits to medicine and industry.
o We propose to continue our research and development of position- and energy-sensitive detectors for applications in neutrino experiments and with potential spin-off applications in industry. A particular focus of this effort is the LBNE neutrino oscillation experiment.
o We will continue to develop our outreach programme which includes activities for local schools and articles in popular science publications.
o Supported by a strong University strategy and ethos in KE, we will continue to pursue all avenues for possible knowledge exchange.
Planned Impact
Beneficiaries of the proposed research will include:
o UK industry and academic partners from outside particle physics may benefit from the possibility of technological spin-off from hardware and/or software which we will develop as part of the research programme, especially in respect of the neutrino detector development laboratory. As a by-product of our research on future neutrino detectors, we plan to continue our spin-off R&D in the area of photo-voltaic technology. Another commercial opportunity more directly aimed at UK industry might soon be realised for another development from the detector R&D group, enabling very cost-effective large area or volume radiation sensors. These initiatives will all be supervised by Warwick Ventures - the university's professional subsidiary for commercial advancement and support. Furthermore, our planned work in developing innovative reconstruction methods for large-scale neutrino detectors has potential beneficiaries in a range of subjects, including computer science, biological and medical science. Local contacts with the Warwick Computer Science Department exist as well as a collaboration with the Statistics Department in Durham.
o Local school children and the general public through our outreach programme will learn about cutting-edge research carried out on the building blocks of matter and their fundamental interactions, using state-of the art instrumentation. One of the most effective means of engagement in terms of audience size comes through media coverage. For results of our planned research which we feel the public could particularly engage with, we will work with the University's Communications Office to issue press releases. This has in the past been successful in generating some rather high profile news coverage e.g. BBC Midlands Today coverage, BBC website items, local radio exposure, as well as university video content organised by the Communications Office. Members of our group will continue to regularly publicise our science through such activities and via engagements such as public lectures and talks to local clubs and societies. We will also continue to foster and develop close ties with local schools through: our annual Masterclass initiative, hosting local students as part of the Aimhigher initiative, supervising students for summer holiday placements (e.g. as part of the Gold Crest scheme).
o We will continue to develop schools liaison, with more emphasis on interactions with teachers, and supported by our Ogden Teaching Fellow in the Warwick Physics Department. Last year, we were part of a successful bid to STFC for a Science in Society Small Award to purchase a mobile dome, which is being be used as a resource to publicise our research. We will work to develop particle physics content for the dome for use on public occasions such as university open days, but also to expand our outreach activities e.g. into primary schools. Additionally, the requested scintillator paddles will be used (when they can be spared from the detector development lab) to upgrade the MULE (Muon Lifetime Experiment) display which we use at Departmental open days. Always a favourite with school students and parents alike, this real-time demonstration of muon lifetime measurements on cosmic rays in situ in the Physics Department will continue to amaze our visitors for the foreseeable future.
o Our post-graduate students currently enjoy access to a diverse range of key-skills training courses given within the University. We propose to further exploit the existing opportunities for joint studentships with industrial partners, where the results of research would find an immediate commercial application and would provide students with first-hand industrial/commercial experience. This will benefit industry, giving them access to well-trained people who can help them with tasks such as data mining and modelling, which are of increasing importance.
o UK industry and academic partners from outside particle physics may benefit from the possibility of technological spin-off from hardware and/or software which we will develop as part of the research programme, especially in respect of the neutrino detector development laboratory. As a by-product of our research on future neutrino detectors, we plan to continue our spin-off R&D in the area of photo-voltaic technology. Another commercial opportunity more directly aimed at UK industry might soon be realised for another development from the detector R&D group, enabling very cost-effective large area or volume radiation sensors. These initiatives will all be supervised by Warwick Ventures - the university's professional subsidiary for commercial advancement and support. Furthermore, our planned work in developing innovative reconstruction methods for large-scale neutrino detectors has potential beneficiaries in a range of subjects, including computer science, biological and medical science. Local contacts with the Warwick Computer Science Department exist as well as a collaboration with the Statistics Department in Durham.
o Local school children and the general public through our outreach programme will learn about cutting-edge research carried out on the building blocks of matter and their fundamental interactions, using state-of the art instrumentation. One of the most effective means of engagement in terms of audience size comes through media coverage. For results of our planned research which we feel the public could particularly engage with, we will work with the University's Communications Office to issue press releases. This has in the past been successful in generating some rather high profile news coverage e.g. BBC Midlands Today coverage, BBC website items, local radio exposure, as well as university video content organised by the Communications Office. Members of our group will continue to regularly publicise our science through such activities and via engagements such as public lectures and talks to local clubs and societies. We will also continue to foster and develop close ties with local schools through: our annual Masterclass initiative, hosting local students as part of the Aimhigher initiative, supervising students for summer holiday placements (e.g. as part of the Gold Crest scheme).
o We will continue to develop schools liaison, with more emphasis on interactions with teachers, and supported by our Ogden Teaching Fellow in the Warwick Physics Department. Last year, we were part of a successful bid to STFC for a Science in Society Small Award to purchase a mobile dome, which is being be used as a resource to publicise our research. We will work to develop particle physics content for the dome for use on public occasions such as university open days, but also to expand our outreach activities e.g. into primary schools. Additionally, the requested scintillator paddles will be used (when they can be spared from the detector development lab) to upgrade the MULE (Muon Lifetime Experiment) display which we use at Departmental open days. Always a favourite with school students and parents alike, this real-time demonstration of muon lifetime measurements on cosmic rays in situ in the Physics Department will continue to amaze our visitors for the foreseeable future.
o Our post-graduate students currently enjoy access to a diverse range of key-skills training courses given within the University. We propose to further exploit the existing opportunities for joint studentships with industrial partners, where the results of research would find an immediate commercial application and would provide students with first-hand industrial/commercial experience. This will benefit industry, giving them access to well-trained people who can help them with tasks such as data mining and modelling, which are of increasing importance.
Organisations
Publications
Aad G
(2014)
Search for long-lived neutral particles decaying into lepton jets in proton-proton collisions at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Search for heavy lepton resonances decaying to a Z boson and a lepton in pp collisions at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2013)
Dynamics of isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Nuclear Physics B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for pair-produced massive coloured scalars in four-jet final states with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7\ \mbox{TeV}$
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2015)
Measurement of charged-particle spectra in Pb+Pb collisions at s N N = 2.76 $$ \sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Search for a CP-odd Higgs boson decaying to Zh in pp collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Search for top squark pair production in final states with one isolated lepton, jets, and missing transverse momentum in s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2016)
Search for new phenomena in dijet mass and angular distributions from pp collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Search for WZ resonances in the fully leptonic channel using pp collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Search for scalar diphoton resonances in the mass range 65-600 GeV with the ATLAS detector in pp collision data at vs=8 TeV.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2014)
Search for the lepton flavor violating decay Z ? e µ in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Searches for Higgs boson pair production in the h h ? b b t t , ? ? W W * , ? ? b b , b b b b channels with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Search for displaced muonic lepton jets from light Higgs boson decay in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Light-quark and gluon jet discrimination in [Formula: see text] collisions at [Formula: see text] with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2013)
Search for resonant diboson production in the W W / W Z ? l ? j j decay channels with the ATLAS detector at s = 7 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Measurements of the top quark branching ratios into channels with leptons and quarks with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Search for type-III seesaw heavy leptons in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Search for microscopic black holes and string balls in final states with leptons and jets with the ATLAS detector at s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of differential production cross-sections for a Z boson in association with b-jets in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Search for pair and single production of new heavy quarks that decay to a Z boson and a third-generation quark in pp collisions at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the production cross-section of ?(2S) ? J/?(?µ + µ - )p + p - in pp collisions at s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 TeV at ATLAS
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Search for supersymmetry at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV in final states with jets and two same-sign leptons or three leptons with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2013)
Measurement of the azimuthal angle dependence of inclusive jet yields in Pb+Pb collisions at v(sNN)=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2014)
Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in $ \sqrt{s} $ = 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of inclusive jet charged-particle fragmentation functions in Pb+Pb collisions at s NN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Measurement with the ATLAS detector of multi-particle azimuthal correlations in p + Pb collisions at s NN = 5.02 TeV
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2015)
A search for t t ¯ $$ t\overline{t} $$ resonances using lepton-plus-jets events in proton-proton collisions at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Flavor tagged time-dependent angular analysis of the B s 0 ? J / ? ? decay and extraction of ? G s and the weak phase ? s in ATLAS
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Search for New Phenomena in Dijet Angular Distributions in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=8 TeV Measured with the ATLAS Detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2015)
Summary of the searches for squarks and gluinos using s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Determination of the Ratio of b-Quark Fragmentation Fractions f(s)/f(d) in pp Collisions at vs=7 TeV with the ATLAS Detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2014)
Search for new resonances in W? and Z? final states in pp collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Search for a multi-Higgs-boson cascade in W + W - b b ¯ events with the ATLAS detector in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV proton-proton collision data
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of dijet cross-sections in pp collisions at 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy using the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2016)
Measurement of the production cross-section of a single top quark in association with a W boson at 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2013)
Search for long-lived, multi-charged particles in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Comprehensive measurements of t -channel single top-quark production cross sections at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2016)
Search for the electroweak production of supersymmetric particles in s = 8 TeV p p collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2016)
Search for flavour-changing neutral current top-quark decays to [Formula: see text] in [Formula: see text] collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at [Formula: see text] TeV.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2014)
Search for supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in s = 8 TeV p p collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Search for Invisible Decays of a Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a Z Boson in ATLAS
in Physical Review Letters
| Title | Review of Particle Properties |
| Description | This is a globally-accessible database of all particle physics results. Many results of this research have entered into this database and several members of my team have directly contributed to this database. |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2009 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This database is the research Bible for particle physics. It is universally used and accepted within the particle physics community and is without peer. |
| URL | http://pdg.lbl.gov |
| Title | LAURA++ Package |
| Description | C++ Package for Dalitz plot generation and fitting |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | Use in other particle physics experiments |
| URL | https://laura.hepforge.org |