This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This CAREER proposal describes a detailed research plan that will allow precision measurements with the CMS experiment to be carried out in the challenging environment of very high luminosity proton-proton collisions. The proposal integrates the analysis of CMS data, the validation of detector performance models and the design of upgraded tracking detector and trigger hardware with the development of new pixel detector sensors that is already being carried out at Purdue University. It extends the excellent sensor development and detector fabrication facilities to include electronics development for data acquisition systems and will provide training for undergraduate physics and engineering students through the development of hardware that will significantly reduce the cost of equipment needed for the national QuarkNet program. Finally, this proposal builds on an existing Service-Learning course that provides assistance to high school teachers through the involvement of undergraduates which has been shown to significantly increase teacher and student participation on outreach efforts. It is planned for the Service-Learning concept to be presented to other QuarkNet centers with assistance to these centers in setting up programs that follow this model.
