Professor and Head
School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Minnesota
The NOvA Experiment
The BESIII Experiment
The CLEO Experiment
Postal Address
Research Interests:
Most of my research in experimental elementary particle physics has concentrated on the production and decay of heavy-quark states in electron-positron annihilations. We have used the CLEO detectors at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) to study the properties of particles composed of b quarks and c quarks. Our specific focus has been testing the Standard Model of quarks and leptons, primarily by making precise determinations of its parameters. These studies have moved to the BESIII experiment at the BEPCII storage ring in Beijing, China. Searches for new states outside of the familiar pattern of mesons and baryons and sensitive tests of theories of the strong interaction, notably Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics, are the primary objectives of these studies.
Our investigations of b quarks helped lay the foundation for exploring the phenomenon of CP violation in the Standard Model. High precision measurements by the B-factory experiments BaBar and Belle have demonstrated that the quark sector does not have enough CP violation to explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. The new hope for resolution of this mystery is in the properties of neutrinos, current studies of which are slowly disentangling the pattern of flavor oscillations and masses. The NOvA experiment in northern Minnesota will begin initial data collection during 2013. It seeks to precisely measure electron appearance from an initially pure muon-neutrino beam produces 810 kilometers away at the Fermilab Main Injector accelerator, with the goal of disnetangling the neutrino-mass hierarchy and to begin exploring CP violation in the neutrino sector.
Current and Recent Experiments:
Other Sites of Interest: