A Program in Medium Energy Nuclear Physics
Nuclear Physics Laboratory
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
D. H. Beck*, P. T. Debevec, N. C. R. Makins, A. M. Nathan, J.-C. Peng,
M. Grosse Perdekamp, C. K. Riedl, A. M. Sickles, S. E. Williamson & L. Yang
OVERVIEW
*PI

Summary of Main Points

Our Group

The Physics We Are Doing

Education and Outreach

The Resources Needed
Summary of Major Points

Our vigorous research program is at the forefront of our field

15-20 grad students, reflecting the inviting nature of our projects

We continue to take on leading roles in large-scale projects

Our success depends on…
 Quality, size, and coherence of our group
 Highly experienced research physicists
 Top quality postdocs and students
 Excellent technical support
 Strong funding from NSF and UIUC
2
Current NPL Research Staff
Faculty
Research Physicists
Doug Beck
Paul Debevec (R)
Naomi Makins
Alan Nathan (R)
Jen-Chieh Peng
Matthias Perdekamp
Caroline Riedl
Anne Sickles
Liang Yang
Visiting Scholar
Alan Magnon
~35 on research staff !
Caroline Riedl
Steve Williamson
Postdocs
Markus Diefenthaler
Francesca Giordano
Jiajie Ling
(Michal Tarka)
(Martin Rybar)
(IhnJea Choi)
Technical Support
John Blackburn
Peter Sobel
Eric Thorsland
Graduate Students
Ritoban Basu Thakur (DB)
Brian Dannowitz (NM)
Jason Dove (JCP)
Robert Heitz (CR)
En-Chuan Huang (JCP)
Daniel Jumper (MGP)
Bryan Kerns (NM)
Yakov Kulinich (MGP)
Cameron McKinney (MGP)
Randall McKlellan (JCP)
Pedro Montuenga (MGP)
Shivangi Prasad (JCP)
Thomas Rao (DB)
Sarvagya Sharma (DB)
(Josiah Walton: LY)
(Mathew Coon: LY)
(Akshat Puri: AS)
= Out of town 3
6 Ph.Ds Awarded During the Current Grant
Period
Name
Advisor
Thesis title
Basu Thakur,
Ritoban
(U. Chicago)
The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search Low Ionization Threshold
Beck/Bauer Experiment
Ely, Seth
(Avant
Communications)
Peng
Rate Analysis of the q13 Mixing Angle for the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino
Experiment
Joosten,
Sylvester
(Temple U.)
Makins
Fragmentation and Nucleon Structure in Semi-Inclusive Deep-Inelastic
Scattering in the HERMES Experiment
Leitgab, Martin
(NASA)
Perdekamp
Precision Measurement of Pion and Kaon Multiplicities in e+eAnnihilation at 10.52 GeV
Ngai, Wah Kai
(Bloomberg)
Peng
Measurement of Mixing Angle q13 in the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino
Experiment
Wolin, Scott
(Northrup
Grumman)
Perdekamp
Measuring the Contribution of Low Bjorken-x Gluons to the Proton Spin
with Polarized Proton-Proton Collisions
4
Active Engagement of Undergraduates
Name
Aguirre, Vicente Rojas***
Arenz, Cassandra
Bi, Ran
Blatnik, Marie*
Britto, Vivek
Campbell, Christopher***
Candocia, Max
Carr, Clayton
Cromis, Megan***
Cyuzuzu, Sonia*
Dave, Parth
Galeas Bardales, Luis
Han, Chong
Hjelmstad, David
Li, Hao
Lim, Soo Bin
Lynn, Spencer***
Mallon, James***
Medlock, Lacey***
Monroe, Joshua
McNamee, Kevin
Mullagur, Dyaanesh
Nicholson, Jacob
Oh, Seung Joon
Sachdeva, Natasha
Teo, Mae Hwee**
Wdaru Reddy, Abishek
Witek, Mariusz
Wright, Rojae
Yi, Bin
Yin, Yangqui**
Zhao, Zhangji
Project
COMPASS
Relaxation of polarized 3He in superfluid 4He
PHENIX and COMPASS
DC5 prototype O-ring studies
DC5 ESEC examinations, frame inspection and construction
COMPASS
PHENIX
nEDM
DC5 wiring
DC5 wire breaking tests and DC5 frame construction
DC5 O-ring studies
nEDM superfluid valves, heat flush
ePHENIX
ePHENIX
SeaQuest PMT base upgrade and performance studies
PHENIX and COMPASS
COMPASS
DC5 wiring
DC5 wiring
DC5 wiring at ODU
nEDM mechanical
SeaQuest online monitoring software
nEDM radiation heat load on injection volume
DC5 G10 frame production
Relaxation of polarized 3He in superfluid 4He
SeaQuest Monte Carlo simulation & detector commissioning
DC5 G10 frame production
SeaQuest online monitoring & decoding software
DC5 Prototype B construction
Relativistic effects in collision dynamics
SeaQuest trigger module bench test
SeaQuest
*REU **Academic Hourly ***ACU summer student
5
Guidance from the Nuclear Physics Long
Range Plan – Dec. 2007
•QCD and the Structure of Hadrons
•Phases of Nuclear Matter
•Nuclei: From Structure to Exploding Stars
•In Search of the New Standard Model
Our group has had significant input
in community planning for future
activities
6
Scientific Themes that Guide our Group

Fundamental Symmetries
 Establish standard model parameters of particle physics
 Test sensitively for physics beyond the SM
• These efforts play an important complementary role to the direct
discoveries at the LHC

Confronting QCD at a fundamental level
 Determine the role of quarks, antiquarks & gluons to the internal
structure and properties of hadrons including nuclear effects
 Understand the origin of hadron spin

Quark and gluon spin and orbital angular momentum contributions
 Hot QCD
• Size dependence of quark-gluon fluid
• Jet quenching and structure
7
Our Program: QCD

Recently completed experiments
 JLab transversity, neutron polarizability, HERMES, Belle, “E866”

Ongoing experiments
 PHENIX: recently completed W physics run—antiquark spin
 SeaQuest/E906: proof of principle, start production—sea dist’n
 COMPASS: commissioning incl. “DC5” wire chamber—TMD

Future
 SeaQuest
 COMPASS
 Heavy Ion/pA collisions at (s)PHENIX and ATLAS—QGP size
dependence, jet quenching
8
Belle Fragmentation Functions
M. Leitgab, et al. (Belle Collaboration) Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 (2013) 062002
Thesis: M. Leitgab
9
First W Physics Results: PHENIX
SPIN 2014 Conference Presentation
F. Giordano for PHENIX
10
Antiquark Sea
K. F. Liu, W. C. Chang, H. Y. Cheng & J. C. Peng, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 (2012) 252002
11
Our Program: Fundamental Symmetries

Daya Bay
 Precision measurement of q13, |Dmee|2: new combined 6 and 8 AD
result
 Sterile neutrino limits: 10-3 eV2 < |Dm41|2 < 0.3 eV2 (Ling)
 FUTURE: development of JUNO experiment to determine mass
hierarchy

nEDM
 Dec. 2013: successful review of critical R&D phase
 launch of “Critical Component Demonstration” phase (4 yr)
• Prototype and test iteration  main internal components of
apparatus
 UIUC: 3He system including dilution refrigerator

Muon g-2
 Beamline design
12
Sterile Neutrino Limits
F. P. An, et al. (Daya Bay Collaboration), Phys. Rev. Lett. 113 (2014) 141802
Jiajie Ling
13
Our Program: Timeline

We have what we believe is a good balance of development,
construction, running and analysis activities in our group’s activities in
important experiments
14
Our Experiments are Located Remotely
FNAL
Chicago
Instrumentation development
and analysis at Illinois
Harvard
Boston
Brookhaven
Long Island
TUM
Munich
KEK
Japan
Jiangmen
China
Daya Bay
China
SNS, Oak Ridge
CERN, Switzerland
15
Senior Research Physicists

Steve Williamson: Principal Research Physicist
 nEDM: Subsystem manager 3He services, Chair of internal HV &
“PULSTAR” review committees, Internal Technical Committee, Design Task
Force
 Prior: was G0: Experiment Coordinator, Run Coordinator, and Magnet
Subsystem Manager

Caroline Riedl: Research Assistant Professor
 COMPASS: DC5 design/fabrication/commissioning manager
 Now resident at CERN: lead role in our COMPASS involvement
Senior Research Physicists critical for us to be
able to take on major projects
16
Answering Fundamental Questions Requires
Custom Equipment—Built Here
17
Technical Staff

John Blackburn
 Inventor design; scintillator specialist, NC programming/machining
 PHENIX RPCs
 DC5 wire chambers
 EDM 3He system design, test apparatus

Peter Sobel
 New member: B. Mech. Eng., Rutgers University
 Machining, leak-checking
 LabView, SolidWorks

Eric Thorsland
 design, machining, welding, vacuum, assembly, testing
 glass blowing, laser expert
 DC5 wire chambers
 EDM apparatus/testing
18
Leadership and Scientific Service by an
Active Staff

Many leadership roles in experiments (spokespersons, executive
committees, subsystem managers, analysis coordinators, publications
chairs, etc.)

~ 90 invited talks by group members in last 3 years

Chairs, co-chairs, or organizing committees for workshops and
conferences

Service work for DNP, NSF, DOE, NSAC-LRP, NSAC and
subcommittees, PACs at LUND, J-PARC, BNL (chair), JLAB (chair)

Reviewers and editorial service for several journals

Beck—chair of Chancellor (UIUC) and co-chair of Presidential (UI)
searches
19
We Invest in a Range of “Broader Impacts”
Activities

Research  classroom
 Undergraduates and research
 Continued support of developments in
teaching large classes in physics and
math (SmartPhysics)
 Modern physics experimental lab redevelopment with new “near research”
experiments
 On-line offering of standard course

Outreach efforts
 Saturday Physics for
Everyone
 Physics of Baseball
 Physics at the Market

Underrepresented populations
 (Midwest) Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics
20
Overview of Budget – Year 1
Equipment
Non-Personnel
4%
17%
Travel
9%
Operating
4%
Faculty
10%
Research Physicists
16%
Technical Support
12%
Postdocs
17%
Grad/UG Students
28%
Details in budget presentation later …
21
Management Plan – no major changes

Major issues involve whole group; monthly meetings
 Evaluation of current and future research directions
 Hiring postdocs, grant issues, tech time requests (bi-weekly)

Each project runs its own budget
 Equipment, travel, supplies allocated annually in accordance with approved
proposal
 Travel, purchases over $250 approved individually by PI
22
Reiteration of Major Points

Our research program is at the forefront of our field

15 - 20 grad students, reflecting the inviting nature of our
projects

We continue to take on leading roles in large-scale projects

Our success depends on…
 Quality, size, and coherence of our group
 Highly experienced research physicists
 Top quality postdocs and students
 Excellent technical support
 Strong funding from NSF and UIUC
Now, here comes the science program !!!
23