Capital equipment in connection with the Sheffield Particle Physics Group Consolidated Grant 2016 to 2019

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

We live in an amazing time for discoveries in particle physics and particle astrophysics. The equipment proposal made here is designed to support the research we wish to conduct at Sheffield that is at the heart of this endeavour. It is closely associated with our STFC consolidated grant programme request for the period 2015-2019. Foremost amongst our work recently has been involvement in follow-on from the discovery by ATLAS of a Higgs boson particle. Members of the group led and helped to develop the key 4-lepton analysis upon which the discovery was based. This work will continue but, preparing for the future, the equipment we are seeking will be critical to expanding our generic role in the ATLAS upgrade programme to build key components of a new ATLAS tracker. In neutrino physics, bolstered by exciting new results in our understanding of how neutrinos oscillate from one type to another, our capital request is key to allowing us to participate in next generation long baseline neutrino experiments for CP violation, aimed to unravel the mystery of antimatter in the Universe. The DUNE experiment, recently funded in the US to proceed with excavation underground for the first 80 kton liquid argon module, is vital to this as complement to the Hyper-K experiment in Japan. For these our particular focus will be on detector construction and the requested equipment will be critical to underpinning this. For instance, building on our leading work on the precursor SBND experiment at Fermilab, we will now construct the central Anode Plane Array frames for the protoDUNE experiment at CERN. The latter requires, in particular, the new state of the art workshop machine requested. In parallel we need to expand our pioneering liquid argon R&D. The laser system and data acquisition apparatus requested will allow us to produce leading results in this area, specifically on space charge and electron trapping physics that has dogged recent experiments. For particle astrophysics we plan to develop new efforts on detection of dark matter, thought to comprise 90% of the Universe. There is strong motivation here because the US LUX experiment recently produced a new step-change in sensitivity to dark matter particles. Supporting our computing hardware for the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, the next generation device in which we are involved, will allow us to grow leadership in simulations. Our pioneering work on detectors with sensitivity to galactic signatures can also be supported this way. This includes the new CYGNUS-TPC project now backed by 20 institutes to build a global dark matter telescope. Meanwhile, our generic detector R&D and knowledge exchange programme is vital to underpinning the group's expertise and skills-base. The requested equipment can benefit our historic links to the Boulby deep underground science laboratory and our muon tomography projects for climate change, spin-out work on novel motor control electronics and our novel welding technology ideas. Our long-standing efforts to develop liquid argon technology for neutrino physics are also relevant to medical imaging requirements. The data acquisition and laser instrumentation requested can greatly aid this area as well.