Rice physicists prep for LHC startup

Rice physicists prep for LHC startup
Rice students, faculty help start world’s largest experiment

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

On Sept. 10, scientists in Europe will flip the switch on the largest, most expensive scientific experiment in human history, and a group of Rice physicists and students are among the thousands of scientists who are helping make it happen.

	PAUL PADLEY
	To watch a webcast of the “first beam” activities at the LHC Sept. 10, visit http://webcast.cern.ch/. Karl Ecklund leads the data-acquisition software team for the CMS pixel detector. “It’s like a 66-megapixel camera that snaps a photo 40 million times each second,” Ecklund said. The pixel detector will record the passage of subatomic particles deep inside the collider. Ecklund will spend the next few months readying the recently installed detector for the first particle-beam collisions. Ecklund’s research interests focus on the production of events with two leptons, which may reveal new particles or interactions. Frank Geurts is in charge of online systems for the endcap muon detector of the CMS and also led the effort to commission the electronics used for CMS data acquisition and selection. Geurts’ research interests lie in the creation and measurement of strongly interacting hot matter using the collisions of heavy nuclei such as lead ions, an LHC project that’s slated for 2009.

The massive Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new centerpiece of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. The $8 billion machine, which sits in a 27-kilometer ring of tunnels on the French-Swiss border, was 15 years in the making. Once active, the LHC will smash together beams of protons traveling close to the speed of light to recreate the conditions that existed when the universe was less than one-trillionth of a second old.

Rice’s Paul Padley, associate professor of physics and astronomy, is leading the scientific operations for a $40 million piece of the experiment, the Endcap Muon System (EMU). EMU is part of one of LHC’s largest experiments, the 13,000-ton Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), which was built by more than 2,300 scientists from 159 institutions. Padley recently spoke with the Rice News about Rice’s role at the LHC.

Q: Who from Rice is working at the LHC this summer?

A: On July 1, the Department of Physics and Astronomy added two new faculty, both of whom have been working on the CMS experiment at the LHC for a number of years: Assistant professors Frank Geurts and Karl Ecklund. Geurts has been working on the Endcap Muon System, as have I and (Professor) Jabus Roberts. This summer we had three students — two undergraduates and one graduate — working at CERN to help turn on the experiment. A postdoctoral researcher, Vesna Cuplov, is working with Karl Ecklund on the pixel detector, and another postdoc, Pedram Bargassa, is at CERN working on the higher level trigger. Another researcher, Laria Redjimi, who has been working on CMS for the past year, will also join Rice as a postdoc in time for the turn-on.

Q: How important is the LHC’s scientific potential?

A: Many believe this may turn out to be one of the greatest scientific endeavors of all time. The turn-on of the LHC is to physics what the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope was to astronomy, and one can anticipate that the LHC will produce exciting results at a rate comparable to Hubble.

Q: What do physicists hope to learn from the LHC?

A: The most interesting discoveries will be those we cannot imagine today. The Hubble discovered that the expansion of the universe was accelerating, something nobody anticipated. At a minimum, the LHC and the CMS experiment will throw light on how fundamental particles — such as the electron — acquire mass. It is highly likely that the experiment will lead us to a better understanding of the formation of the universe, what it is made of and the structure of space and time.

Q: What will happen Sept. 10?

A: Turning on the LHC isn’t like flipping a switch. It’s an extremely complex task. For example, turning on the Endcap Muon System involves turning on more than 15,000 electronics boards and making them all work together. This process started in January. Turning on the accelerator is equally complex, but if all goes as planned, Sept. 10 will mark the day that the first beams of protons travel around the entire 27-kilometer ring.

Q: How important are Rice’s contributions at the LHC?

A: Rice has played an important role in building the experiment, and our faculty and students will make important contributions to the understanding of the data and the extraction of physics results from it.

Q: Will your group celebrate when the beams are finally turned on?

A: We will likely be heavily engaged in the process of turning the system on and trying to understand the first data. There will be ceremonies at CERN to mark the occasion, but for the scientists on the project, first beam will not be a time for a party but rather a time for hard work.