Research Interests
Senior Scientists and Senior Research Associates
Kelby J. Anderson, Senior Scientist
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is under construction at CERN (The European Center for Nuclear Research) outside Geneva, Switzerland. It will collide protons at 14 TeV center of mass energy with a turn on date in 2007. The LHC is intended to probe the structure of matter beyond the standard model, our current understanding of the fundamental particles and interactions. In particular, the LHC should probe the Higgs sector and supersymmetry. I am involved with the Chicago effort on the ATLAS detector. In particular, with the construction of the Hadron Calorimeter. Chicago is responsible for mechanical construction of calorimeter elements and for a large portion of the front-end fast electronics.
Thanasis Economou, Senior Scientist
I am involved in experiments designed to obtain in situ chemical analyses of planetary bodies. At present my main interests are divided among the following:
- The analysis of data obtained by the Alpha-Proton-X ray experiment on NASA's Pathfinder missions to Mars. The APXS has analyzed a total of seven soil and nine rock samples on the surface of Mars. Our latest analyses of the data from the alpha/proton modes of the APXS show a few unexpected results on the chemical composition of rocks and soil samples at the Mars Pathfinder landing site.
- Developing miniaturized and improved versions of the APXS for future planetary missions. Among the most interesting missions that currently are being considered are a mission to an asteroid and follow up missions to Mars.
- Next lander mission to Mars in 2003. I am a co-investigator on the Athena Science Team for the Mars Rover Exploration mission in 2003.
- I am also a co-investigator on the European Space Agency's Mars Express Beagle2 lander X-ray Spectrometer Team. This lander is also scheduled to land on Mars in 2003.
Oscar H. Kapp, Senior Research Associate
Present interests include the following: Protein structure function relationships; chemistry of the invertebrate extra cellular hemoglobins; scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) of complex biological macro-molecules; development of image processing algorithms including methods of classification of object orientation and 3D reconstruction techniques; molecular modeling of G-protein-linked receptors and drug design to identify new pharmaceuticals for diagnostic use in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), development of a low voltage electron microscope using novel dipole and monopole lenses. Protein structure function relationships; chemistry of the invertebrate extra cellular.
Richard Kessler, Senior Research Associate
I am involved with the KTeV experiment at Fermilab, with the main goal of measuring the tiny decay asymmetry (direct CP violation) between kaons and anti-kaons. After analyzing less than 15% of our total data sample, we have observed clear evidence for this effect; the difference between the two decay amplitudes is a few parts per million.
Further analysis of our large data set (50 million K->2pi signal events plus almost a billion other Kaon decays for calibrations) will hopefully help to further reduce the systematic uncertainties.
Together with several colleagues, I have been separating and studying isotopically unusual materials found in the least altered classes of meteorites. We have identified several types of presolar grains of stardust including: diamonds, silicon carbide, spinel, corundum, SiN, (Ti, Zr, Mo) carbides, and graphite. As relatively pure and unaltered samples of other stars, they provide tests of astronomical theories: nucleosynthesis, stellar mixing, condensation in stellar atmospheres, and survival of condensed solids in interstellar space. Their simple survival in some meteorites, absence in others, must be due to the various physical and chemical conditions that were present in various parts of the solar system during its formation and afterwards, which we hope to decipher. As well as continuing to better characterize these materials, we are searching for additional kinds of surviving presolar grains.
Carla Grosso-Pilcher, Senior Scientist
The CDF Collaboration at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider is now collecting data with an upgraded detector and a large increase in luminosity with respect to previous operation. The last year was spent, from my part, in commissioning the level 1 trigger, part of the responsibilities of the CDF Chicago group. The new data should open exciting new possibilities of searches for new phenomena, as well as more precise measurements of physics parameters, like the top quark mass.
Harold Sanders, Senior Research Associate
The construction of over ten thousand electronic data acquisition channels for the Tile Calorimeter of the Atlas detector at CERN is underway. We are on schedule in construction I testing of these precise front-end circuits that of deliver a 16-bit binary resolution signal at 40 mega samples per second.
We have all but completed the construction of the level one trigger system of CDF at Fermilab. This is a highly flexible system that has can be reprogrammed to achieve changing experimental goals. Its performance rivals processing arrays equivalent to thousands of high-speed processors. These achievements have been achieved with the intensive use of field programmable gate arrays (FPGA). Many of these chips have the equivalence of over one million logic gates and operate at just under one hundred megacycles per second. We are still working on some special purpose systems for this project such as a 500MHZ analog digitizer to capture the analog signals of a central gas drift chamber. The output will be synchronized to the data acquisition signal collection so that the experimenters may determine which parameters of this key detector should be adjusted. We will continue to build any special hardware and support the electronics that we have supplied for the duration of that experiment, maybe for as long as ten years.
Having seen the power of FPGA devices to solve tough electronic problems effectively, we are continuing to learn and be acquainted with the latest tools and architectures for these devices. Today's FPGAs can operate at over two hundred megahertz and soon will be able to input serial data streams at gigabit rate.
We feel it is now possible to use these circuits as time encoders for drift chambers in which one nanosecond resolution is expected. At this time, a few circuits can be operated close to that rate. We are trying to design a system with no dead time. There have been a few systems that have almost achieved such a goal, but they require the fabrication of custom chips that are not available soon after a manufacturing run because the silicon foundries improve and change their production lines. Commercial FPGA systems will have commonly available chips that should be around for over five years and will be superceded by other chips with the equal or better specifications. Use of these high performance huge chips, have a price in the difficulty in designing with the attending software. A great deal of resources and effort are being supplied in our facility to assure continuous success in applying these chips.
The Electronic development group continues to upgrade all the areas of EDA software to support the wide range of electronic needs that the physics community may require. We have received an annual award for the best printed circuit board design among all competing universities and we still are evaluating newer tools to further enhance our capabilities.