1 / 8

Particle Physics at Caltech A Grad Student Perspective

Particle Physics at Caltech A Grad Student Perspective. David Doll. Introducing the Elephant – an Overview of Particle Physics*. *In one slide. The particles represent our current theory of fundamental physics Many outstanding questions: “Gravity?”, “Neutrino Mass?”, “Matter vs. Anti Matter?”

jean
Télécharger la présentation

Particle Physics at Caltech A Grad Student Perspective

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Particle Physics at CaltechA Grad Student Perspective David Doll

  2. Introducing the Elephant – an Overview of Particle Physics* *In one slide • The particles represent our current theory of fundamental physics • Many outstanding questions: “Gravity?”, “Neutrino Mass?”, “Matter vs. Anti Matter?” • My experiment dealt with answering the latter question

  3. What can cause the imbalance? • Our theory does allow for a small amount (~1 Billion times too small) of asymmetry through the decay of heavy particles to light particles. B0 Y(4S) • We reconstruct the B mesons (one is matter, the other anti-matter) to look for differences. e+ e- B0 bb

  4. What we do n’t know • All measurements are consistent with our theory • All except Matter/Anti matter asymmetry of course • The theorists who gave us this theory won half of the Nobel prize in physics last year. • Where do we go from here? • Many new theories, “Beyond the Standard Model”-theories, try to come up with new sources of matter/anti matter differences • All must reproduce what has already been shown • Searches with Babar’s data can already place limits on the parameters of these new theories (my thesis deals with this)

  5. My Thesis – Quickly!! γ • We look at a b quark turning into an s quark and emitting a photon. • Very sensitive to the effects of New Physics (NP) models • The rate is around 1 in 10,000 B mesons decays in a mode we care about An example “Feynman diagram”: “Weak Force”-carriers (from first slide). Could be replaced by new particles in NP theories

  6. Beyond my Thesis • Chance to go to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress on behalf of particle physics • Only graduate student from my experiment (~500 collaborators) ~1/2 the group (it was 8AM!!)

  7. Life at Caltech • Involved in the Caltech Grad Student Council • This year’s Advocacy Committee chair • Working to increase graduate student exposure to potential donors as a way of increasing graduate student fellowships • Involvement in teaching/tutoring programs • RISE program – Only Math/Science focused tutor program in Pasadena Unified School District • YESS program – targets gifted under-represented minority students in physics and biology.

  8. My Grad Experience Summary • Getting to do ground breaking particle physics research • Did I mention my advisor (David Hitlin) was my experiment’s first spokesman? • With a great name comes great opportunities • Chance to participate in a variety of activities here at Caltech Thank you!!

More Related