Student Research
Recent Projects
During the summer of 2010, two physics students worked on a major
particle physics experiment based in Fermilab. Molly Clairemont and Jack
Brangham both joined Dr. Tagg's research group to work on the MINERvA
experiment.
MINERvA (http://minerva.fnal.gov) is designed to measure what happens
when neutrinos interact in matter. The experiment consists of a 'small'
(1 ton) fine-grained detector that will detect the by-products when the
nearly massless, charge-less neutrinos from the Fermilab NuMI neutrino
beam interact in iron, plastic, and other materials. The particle
by-products form tracks seen by detecting a few photons of light created
by glowing plastic scintillator.
One of the focal points of Dr. Tagg's work at Otterbein has been to
provide a data visualization tool for use by the scientists. (You can
play with this tool yourself, following the links at
http://neutrino.otterbein.edu.) Molly Clairemont worked to help adapt
this tool and the documentation for use by the wider audience of high
school students. Students will be able to look at real particle physics
events to explore the details of particle decay and momentum
conservation on a subatomic scale. Help was given to the group by a
photography student, Erin Cochrin, who lent her artistic eye to develop
the aesthetics of the system.
Jack Brangham, in the meantime, worked to develop a test stand to
measure the fundamental properties of the plastic scintillator that
MINERvA uses, including numerical simulation of the material for
comparison.
Both Jack and Molly also contributed directly, visiting the experimental
site and either consulting scientists there or taking shifts late into
the night to monitor the detector and the neutrino beam.
Dr. Tagg will be continuing to take on students for undergraduate
research this summer and in future, funded by an NSF grant for Research
at Undergraduate Institutions. Please contact him if you are interested
in spending a summer working with him.
Past Research Projects
Senior Conducts Research at CERN
Senior Brandi McVety spent 10 weeks in Geneva in the summer of 2008
working at CERN, the European laboratory for subatomic physics. While
she was there the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC), was coming online. Brandi worked with the LHCb
collaboration on developing online status reporting systems for the
detector, under the direction of Prof. Dirk Wiedner of CERN. The LHC and
its detectors represent the most complex scientific endeavor ever
undertaken and will probe the structure of matter at the deepest levels,
looking for signs of "new physics" such as the Higgs boson or
supersymmetry.
According to Brandi, her time at CERN was "an incredible educational
experience. I have never learned so much so quickly or in such a
hands-on manner. Working with physicists and students from around the
world was very exciting and opened my eyes to how global the physics
community really is." After her work was done she was able to travel
extensively through Italy, France, and Germany.
Student and Faculty Research Novel Technique
In June 2008, sophomore Justin Young travelled to Berkeley, California
with Prof. Brian Sell to collaborate with Prof. Charles Fadley of UC
Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL). They carried
out investigations of the surface interactions between multiple layers
of different magnetic materials at LBL's Advanced Light Source, using a
novel technique of generating x-ray standing waves below the surface and
throughout the material. As the standing wave is located at different
spots on the top surface of the material, its intensity can vary and
from this variation information can be derived about the structure of
the interfaces between the different magnetic materials. The results of
this experiment will lead to a better understanding of the interfaces
between materials that have potentially very useful applications in
next-generation electronics and computing equipment.