2012 starting my Post-Doc with Syracuse University working on MicroBooNE
I thought I would have my first blog entry in 2012 be a bit of news about myself and “let the cat out of the bag” so to speak about my new job.
I’ve finished up my graduate work and have decided to join the Intensity Frontier here at Fermilab! I have taken a Post-Doc position with Syracuse University working on a new experiment, MicroBooNE (Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment).
This project is the next step in research for using Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPC) on the massive kilo-ton scale for use in such expeiments like the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE). This LArTPC will be the largest ever built in the U.S. and help achieve important technology achievements.
However, R&D isn’t the only reason this experiment is being built. This ~170 ton Liquid Argon Time Projection chamber experiment will follow up on an important anomalous result seen in the MiniBooNE (a water Cherenkov detector) experiment. The main handle that MicroBooNE will have that MiniBooNE didn’t is the ability to separate electrons and photons through reconstruction utilizing the advantages of Argon Detectors.
Additionally, MicroBooNE will measure a series of cross-sections that have never been measured before as well as perform short-baseline oscillation measurements and contribute to searches for exotic physics (sterile neutrinos, backgrounds for proton decay, etc…)
If all of this sounds a little confusing…its because I am the one writing this 🙁
Basically I have spent the last few years of my graduate work becoming an expert in collider physics and searches for new physics at the Tevatron. Having to learn all the software, acronyms, technical tricks of the trade, and mathematics. Now, I am leaving this part of physics and starting at the bottom of the totem poll all over!
But I think this is a good thing! Not only am I getting to start on an experiment where I’ll actually get to build and see come to life (unlike CDF where I was allowed to stand on the shoulders of many others hard work) but I will also get to participate in this growing field on the Intensity Frontier and hopefully see the growth of the US High Energy Physics in this field!
I hope to have much more to say about these things and my new adventures in the wild world of neutrinos in the coming days!
