Download ( ) New Faculty Bruce Knuteson

New Faculty
(
SEPTEMBER 2003
)
Bruce Knuteson
Assistant Professor of Physics, Experimental High Energy Physics
research interests
Experiments performed over the past two decades confirm the Standard Model
of particle physics as the correct theory of fundamental interactions down to a
distance scale of 10 −18 meters. Despite this remarkable success, inadequacies
inherent in the theory suggest that a qualitatively new description is required at
energies soon to be probed by our accelerators. Lacking strong experimental
guidance, predictions for what this new description might be are all over the map.
How can we possibly look for something in an enormous data set when we do
not really know what we are looking for? Is it possible to somehow perform an
unbiased yet data-driven search? Humans are notoriously good at finding patterns
in data, even when there are none to be found; can we rigorously quantify, in an
unbiased way, the “interestingness” of apparent anomalies after looking at the data?
Knuteson’s research directly confronts these issues in the context of frontier energy
physics, with general application to other fields of science.
Once an anomaly is discovered, how should it be interpreted in terms of an
underlying physical theory? How can we easily and efficiently test candidate
theories against our data? Can we publish particle physics data in a manner that
facilitates this testing? Ultimately, can we algorithmatize the development of the
underlying physical theory from experimental results? Knuteson’s scheme for
addressing these issues has led to the first public release of high energy collider
data and a method that promises to facilitate the analysis and interpretation of
data in particle physics, with potential application to other fields.
biographical sketch
Bruce Knuteson graduated summa cum laude from Rice University with a B.A.
in Physics and Mathematics in 1997. He received the Physics Ph.D. from the
University of California, Berkeley, in 2000 for research performed on the DØ
experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where he was supported
as a Berkeley Department of Physics Fellow and a Department of Defense
National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow. He has been a
Fermi/McCormick Postdoctoral Fellow at the Enrico Fermi Institute, University
of Chicago, working on the CDF experiment, and an NSF International Research
Fellow at the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in Geneva, Switzerland. Knuteson has been recognized with the American Physical Society’s
Mitsuyoshi Tanaka Dissertation Award in Experimental Particle Physics, and
election to Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Pi Sigma, and Sigma Xi.
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mit physics annual 2003
selected
publications
→
“α PDE: A New Multivariate Technique for Parameter Estimation,” B. Knuteson, H. Miettinen,
and L. Holmström, Computer Physics Communications, 145 (3) (2002) pp. 351–356;
physics/0108002.
“Search for New Physics Using quaero: A General Interface to DØ Event Data,”
DØ collaboration, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 231801 (2001); hep-ex/0106039.
“A Quasi-Model-Independent Search for New High Physics at DØ,” DØ collaboration,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 3712 (2001); hep-ex/0011071.
“A Quasi-Model-Independent Search for New Physics at High Transverse Momentum,”
DØ collaboration, Phys. Rev. D 64, 012004 (2001); hep-ex/0011067.
“Search for New Physics in eµX Data at DØ using sleuth: A Quasi-Model-Independent Search
Strategy for New Physics,” DØ collaboration, Phys. Rev. D 62, 92004 (2000); hep-ex/0006011.
Gabriella Sciolla
Assistant Professor of Physics, Experimental High Energy Physics
research interests
Sciolla’s main goal is to study the physics that rules the interactions between
elementary particles and to understand its cosmological implications. As an experimentalist, she studies the exotic and unstable particles produced in high energy
collisions between electrons and positrons, and measures the tiny asymmetry
between matter and anti-matter in the final state. This asymmetry, known as
“CP violation,” plays an important role in our understanding of why the Universe
is made of matter instead of anti-matter.
She is actively involved in the study of CP violation in the decays of B mesons.
The experiment, called BaBar, reconstructs the decays of millions of B mesons
produced at the SLAC asymmetric B factory, PEP-II. The study of the decays of
B mesons in final states containing charmonium and neutral kaons provided one
of the first unambiguous observations of CP violation in the B system, and the first
quantitative test of the CP sector of the Standard Model of particle physics. The
current goal is to extend the CP violation measurements to new channels that will
allow researchers to probe for physics beyond the Standard Model.
biographical sketch
Sciolla received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Torino, Italy, in 1996,
with a thesis on the measurement of beauty baryon lifetime in the DELPHI experiment at LEP (CERN). She pursued her interest in B physics by joining the BaBar
Collaboration as a SLAC Research Associate at Stanford University. Sciolla came to
MIT in 2000, as a Research Scientist first, and then as Pappalardo Fellow in Physics.
She joins the MIT faculty in the fall of 2003 as an Assistant Professor of Physics.
selected publications
“Measurement of the CP-violating amplitude sin(2),” BaBar Collaboration (B. Aubert et al.),
Phys. Rev. Lett. 89:201802 (2002).
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“Observation of CP violation in the B meson system, BaBar Collaboration (B. Aubert et al.),
Phys. Rev. Lett. 87:091801 (2001).
“The BaBar Drift Chamber,” G. Sciolla et al., Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 419:310–314 (1998).
“Determination of the average lifetime of B baryons,” DELPHI Collaboration (P. Abreu et al.),
Z. Phys.C 71:199–210 (1996).
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“Lifetime and production rate of beauty baryons from Z decays,” DELPHI Collaboration
(P. Abreu et al.), Z. Phys. C 68:375–390 (1995).
Vladan Vuletic
Assistant Professor of Physics, Experimental Atomic Physics
research interests
Vuletic’s research focuses on laser cooling and quantum manipulation of ultra
cold atoms. He and his group are currently concentrating on two experiments:
the first is concerned with a new laser cooling method that can be applied to
particles with an arbitrary internal level structure and may provide a way to cool
certain molecules or even nanometer scale particles with large polarizability in the
optical domain. The second experiment uses a Bose-Einstein condensate prepared
in a microtrap above a silicon chip to explore the realm of lower-dimensional
quantum gases, fundamental atom-surface interactions, and, hopefully, guided
high-sensitivity matterwave interferometers.
The long-term goal of their work is to develop new methods to manipulate
particles in a regime where the quantum mechanical aspects dominate both the
internal and the external degrees of freedom. On the one hand, this should lead
to new tools for probing physical laws and for measuring fundamental constants
with ever-increasing accuracy. On the other hand, the interplay between theoretical concepts and experimental realizations promises to be very fertile in fields
such as quantum control, quantum feedback, and many-particle entanglement
(quantum computing).
biographical sketch
Vuletic received his Ph.D. in 1997 at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of
Munich, Germany, in the group of Ted Hänsch. From 1997 to 2000, he was a
postdoc with Steven Chu at Stanford University. Since September 2000 he has
been an Assistant Professor of Physics at Stanford.
selected publications
“Observation of Low-Field Feshbach Resonances in Collisions of Cesium Atoms,” V. Vuletic,
A. J. Kerman, C. Chin, and S. Chu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1406–1409 (1999).
“Beyond Optical Molasses: 3D Raman Sideband Cooling of Atomic Cesium to High Phase Space
Density,”A. J. Kerman, V. Vuletic, C. Chin, and S. Chu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 439–442 (2000).
“Laser Cooling of Atoms, Ions and Molecules by Coherent Scattering,” V. Vuletic and S. Chu,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3787–3790 (2000).
“Observation of Collective-Emission-Induced Cooling of Atoms in an Optical Cavity,”
H.W. Chan, A. T. Black, and V. Vuletic, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 063003 (1–4) (2003).
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mit physics annual 2003