Particle Physics Research at Hadron Colliders

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The D0 Experiment consists of a worldwide collaboration of scientists conducting research on the fundamental nature of matter. The experiment is located at the world's premier high-energy accelerator, the Tevatron Collider, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, USA. The research is focused on precise studies of interactions of protons and antiprotons at the highest available energies. It involves an intense search for subatomic clues that reveal the character of the building blocks of the universe.CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) is a general purpose detector designed to run at the highest luminosity at the LHC. The CMS detector has been optimized for the search of the SM Higgs boson over a mass range from 90 GeV to 1 TeV, but it also allows detection of a wide range of possible signatures from alternative electro-weak symmetry breaking mechanisms. CMS is also well adapted for the study of top, beauty and tau physics at lower luminosities and will cover several important aspects of the heavy ion physics program. The program of this group at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is centered on the D0 experiment currently running at the Fermilab Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, and is evolving to the CMS experiment that is scheduled to start operations in 2007 at the proton-proton Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.The broader impacts of the proposed activities are multiple and diverse. The technological advances of high energy frontier experiments help all sciences and engineering. The challenges that must be overcome to build and commission complicated trigger and silicon systems enhance the disciplinary knowledge in the relevant engineering fields. The physics analyses and hardware projects, that UIC HEP students and postdocs are engaged in, allow them to gain valuable experience and knowledge and pursue successful careers in the academia or private sector. Besides the general benefits of experimental HEP research to society, this group is engaged in active outreach efforts through QuarkNet and a collection of cosmic ray detectors located around the city of Chicago. They also serve and train a large urban population with a significant component of underrepresented minorities in Chicago High Schools.