Particle Physics and Particle

Astrophysics at SLAC (PPA)

Lance Dixon

March 27, 2012

Stanford + SLAC

• Top-ranked university + facilities of a

national laboratory, only 5 km apart

• Cutting-edge research in

– Particle experiment and theory

– Advanced accelerator concepts

– Particle astrophysics and cosmology (KIPAC)

• Many research projects joint with campus,

especially Physics (talk by Giorgio Gratta)

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Particle Experiment

Investigating fundamental laws of nature

and/or searching for new particles:

at very high energies (ATLAS @ LHC)

in very rare processes (EXO)

in searches for dark matter (CDMS, Fermi)

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ATLAS @ LHC

• Searching for

supersymmetry, other

types of new physics

and particles

• Large group means

broad range of activities

for both physics analysis

and detector work

Faculty: Su Dong,

Ariel Schwartzman 3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 4

Other particle experiments

• Heavy Photon Search (John Jaros)

• B factory (BaBar) data analysis / superB R&D

rotations (David Leith)

• Linear Collider detector design rotation (Marty

Breidenbach, John Jaros)

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Particle theory

• What are the fundamental laws of nature?

• How can we best test them at the LHC?

In cosmology? With AMO probes?

• What mathematical tools (e.g. string

theory) can be applied to other fields

(e.g. condensed matter)

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3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 7

Stanford + SLAC Particle theorists

“More Formal”

Sean Hartnoll, Shamit Kachru, Renata Kallosh, Andrei Linde,

Steve Shenker, Eva Silverstein, Lenny Susskind

String theory, supergravity, inflation, AdS/CFT and applications to

condensed matter,

“More Phenomenological”

Stan Brodsky, Savas Dimopoulos, Lance Dixon, Peter Graham,

Stefan Höche, JoAnne Hewett, Michael Peskin, Tom Rizzo,

Leonardo Senatore, Jay Wacker

Atom interferometry, new physics models & LHC signatures,

Perturbative QCD and improving simulation tools for LHC

[directly supervising students]

Accelerator Physics

• Unique opportunities

• Brand new FACET facility

for investigating plasma and

dielectric wakefields for very high

acceleration gradients

• Novel RF designs (Tantawi)

• Beam dynamics, other theory (Chao,

Raubenheimer, Ruth)

• FELs (Galayda, see also Photon Science)

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Kavli Institute for Particle

Astrophysics and Cosmology

• Joint between PPA and Physics

• Many faculty are joint too

• See http://kipac-prod.stanford.edu/collab/student_resources

• Some major directions: • Cosmological theory and modeling (Tom Abel,

Risa Wechsler, Roger Blandford)

• Fermi space satellite

• Dark Energy Survey LSST

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Fermi

• g-ray detector in space

• Sees highest energy events in universe

• Searches for dark matter annihilation

products

• Assembled at SLAC/Stanford

(Bloom, Funk, Michelson) 3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 10

DES LSST

• Is dark energy a constant or does it evolve

in time?

• Affects supernova brightness, and growth

of structure (weak gravitational lensing).

• Massive galaxy surveys underway now

(DES) and in future (LSST)

(Allen, Burchat, Burke, Kahn, Roodman,

Schindler, Wechsler)

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In closing

Meet as many people as you can

this week, and good luck with

your decision!

3/27/2012 L. Dixon PPA 12