Our research interests focus on outstanding questions in our understanding of electromagnetic phenomena of nucleons and few body systems. Topics being investigated include:
- Electroproduction of strangeness
- Meson electroproduction
- Short range correlations
- Meson exchange currents
- Internal structure of hadrons including elastic and inelastic form factors
- Hadron spectroscopy in photoproduction, including cascade physics, hyperon physics, and baryon-antibaryon physics
We conduct experiments at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in Newport News, Virginia. We serve as spokespeople on a number of experiments that use Jefferson Lab's electron and photon beams to study the internal structure of nuclei and nucleons.
We are involved in a variety of research activities, from the physics of economic systems to particle, nuclear and astrophysics. Our topics include the physics of economics, Lattice Gauge Field Theory, Computational Physics, the physics of neutron stars, astrophysical neutrino emissions, Baryon models, Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics, Quantum Chromodynamics, short range correlations in nuclei, and cold dense matter.
Our High Energy Particle Physics group conducts research at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and belongs to the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration, one of the LHC's four main experiments.
We are currently conducting research on standard model processes at LHC energies of 7.0 TeV. We're also involved in a variety of activities related to the maintenance and operation of the detector. In particular, our group has responsibilities in maintaining and operating the Detector Control System and the Laser Calibration system for the Hadron Calorimeter.
We also have a group that works on distributed and GRID computing for CMS. We are a member of CHEPREO, an NSF-supported grant that funds both the HEP and the Physics Education Research groups. The latter focuses on improving education from high school through the graduate level.
Projects
Our group is currently analyzing first run data collected with CMS 7.0 TeV. The current focus of the group is on standard model physics; Electroweak and Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). In particular, we are working on the production of Vector Bosons plus jets and direct photon production at 7.0 TeV. These studies will help us understand standard model processes in the underlying event, QCD and other standard model backgrounds that are essential in unraveling physics processes beyond the standard model. In addition, our studies will help us better understand QCD phenomena at high momentum transfers.
The group is also involved in detector maintenance and operations. Our group has primary responsibility over the Detector Control System (DCS) and Laser Calibration system of the Hadronic Calorimeter for CMS. In addition, we have a group working on distributed and GRID computing and are currently collaborating with Caltech, UF, FSU and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center on a new distributed storage solution for CMS based on the Lustre cluster filesystem. In addition our group has recently deployed the CMS Center at FIU where local researchers will be able to operate the CMS detector and its distributed computing system from right here in Miami. Also, the group is now deploying a CMS Tier3 Center at FIU. Our Tier3 Center will provide our local and national and international partners and collaborators with additional computational resources. The compute cluster will be joined to the Open Science Grid, our national GRID infrastructure developed for specifically for scientific computing.
