Particle Physics and Particle Astrophysics at SLAC (PPA) Lance Dixon March 27, 2012
Particle Physics and Particle
Astrophysics at SLAC (PPA)
Lance Dixon
March 27, 2012
Stanford + SLAC
• Top-ranked university + facilities of a
national laboratory, only 5 km apart
• Cutting-edge research in
– Particle experiment and theory
– Advanced accelerator concepts
– Particle astrophysics and cosmology (KIPAC)
• Many research projects joint with campus,
especially Physics (talk by Giorgio Gratta)
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 2
Particle Experiment
Investigating fundamental laws of nature
and/or searching for new particles:
at very high energies (ATLAS @ LHC)
in very rare processes (EXO)
in searches for dark matter (CDMS, Fermi)
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 3
ATLAS @ LHC
• Searching for
supersymmetry, other
types of new physics
and particles
• Large group means
broad range of activities
for both physics analysis
and detector work
Faculty: Su Dong,
Ariel Schwartzman 3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 4
Other particle experiments
• Heavy Photon Search (John Jaros)
• B factory (BaBar) data analysis / superB R&D
rotations (David Leith)
• Linear Collider detector design rotation (Marty
Breidenbach, John Jaros)
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 5
Particle theory
• What are the fundamental laws of nature?
• How can we best test them at the LHC?
In cosmology? With AMO probes?
• What mathematical tools (e.g. string
theory) can be applied to other fields
(e.g. condensed matter)
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 6
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 7
Stanford + SLAC Particle theorists
“More Formal”
Sean Hartnoll, Shamit Kachru, Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde,
Steve Shenker, Eva Silverstein, Lenny Susskind
String theory, supergravity, inflation, AdS/CFT and applications to
condensed matter,
“More Phenomenological”
Stan Brodsky, Savas Dimopoulos, Lance Dixon, Peter Graham,
Stefan Höche, JoAnne Hewett, Michael Peskin, Tom Rizzo,
Leonardo Senatore, Jay Wacker
Atom interferometry, new physics models & LHC signatures,
Perturbative QCD and improving simulation tools for LHC
[directly supervising students]
Accelerator Physics
• Unique opportunities
• Brand new FACET facility
for investigating plasma and
dielectric wakefields for very high
acceleration gradients
• Novel RF designs (Tantawi)
• Beam dynamics, other theory (Chao,
Raubenheimer, Ruth)
• FELs (Galayda, see also Photon Science)
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 8
Kavli Institute for Particle
Astrophysics and Cosmology
• Joint between PPA and Physics
• Many faculty are joint too
• See http://kipac-prod.stanford.edu/collab/student_resources
• Some major directions: • Cosmological theory and modeling (Tom Abel,
Risa Wechsler, Roger Blandford)
• Fermi space satellite
• Dark Energy Survey LSST
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 9
Fermi
• g-ray detector in space
• Sees highest energy events in universe
• Searches for dark matter annihilation
products
• Assembled at SLAC/Stanford
(Bloom, Funk, Michelson) 3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 10
DES LSST
• Is dark energy a constant or does it evolve
in time?
• Affects supernova brightness, and growth
of structure (weak gravitational lensing).
• Massive galaxy surveys underway now
(DES) and in future (LSST)
(Allen, Burchat, Burke, Kahn, Roodman,
Schindler, Wechsler)
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 11
In closing
Meet as many people as you can
this week, and good luck with
your decision!
3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 12