Notre Dame high-energy physicists (L to R) Mitch Wayne, Kevin Lannon, Colin Jessop, Randy Ruchti, Mike Hildreth and Nancy Marinelli (not pictured) worked with a number of international collaborators on the search for the Higgs boson
University of Notre Dame have received a $2.4 million, three-year award from the National Science Foundation to continue their work on the (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment on campus and at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The group鈥檚 work includes physics analysis central to the recent Higgs boson discovery.
The award is an increase of more than 10 percent above the group鈥檚 previous award, at a time when the NSF鈥檚 overall particle physics budget has been reduced by about 12 percent. 鈥淭his grant renewal recognizes the accomplishments we鈥檝e already made in CMS and will enable us to do even more,鈥� said , a principal investigator in the group. Other principal investigators are , and . is a senior member of the group.
鈥淭he Notre Dame group has significant leadership roles in a number of key areas on the CMS experiment,鈥� Wayne said, including building part of the detector, helping operate the detector while data was collected, developing software, analyzing data and working on upgrades to improve the detector鈥檚 performance.
In addition to the principal investigators, the grant helps support research faculty on campus and at CERN, as well as recent hire , 10 to 12 graduate students, several undergraduate physics majors, two engineers, three technicians and travel costs.
鈥淭his award funds our base program, and adding in our other external awards for CMS, the group is bringing in well over $1 million per year in support of our CMS efforts,鈥� Wayne said.
Contact: Mitch Wayne, 574-631-8475, mwayne@nd.edu