This award provides continuing support for a program of research for the High Energy Physics group at Vanderbilt University. This group proposes to exploit the rich particle physics program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as members of the CMS experiment. Since joining CMS in 2005, its established expertise in electronics and silicon detectors, along with a long term interest in computing and information technology, has enabled the members to make significant contributions on the pixel tracker project and in Software and Computing, respectively. They have also recently begun to contribute to Super-LHC design studies as well as developing a physics analysis effort. On the pixel tracker, they provide leadership in the operations and development of the Front End Digitizer (FED), and have recently assumed a leadership role for the pixel slow controls. For the software and computing project on CMS, their efforts are to develop computing resources and grid infrastructure. Their successful establishment of the ACCRE computing center at Vanderbilt and the NSF funded REDDnet project are directly applicable to this effort. Finally, they are contributing to design studies for the SLHC, studying the effectiveness of various proposals to incorporate the pixel tracker into the first level of the CMS trigger. In terms of broader impact, their collaborative efforts with computer scientists are breaking new ground in the area of data logistics. REDDnet is serving researchers from a wide variety of application domains, including the geospatial imaging community, digital archive projects in the Library of Congress, the fusion community, and high energy physics. Emphasis is placed on involving undergraduate students in their research program and reaching out to the community through the QuarkNet project.
As members of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration, the Vanderbilt High Energy Physics (HEP) group is exploiting the rich particle physics program at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC and CMS are nearing the completion of a very productive three years of data taking. Analysis of this data has resulted in many publications with more to follow, to which the Vanderbilt High Energy Physics group has been a significant contributor. On July 4, 2012 both ATLAS and CMS announced the discovery of a "Higgs-like" resonance. Much more work is required to understand this particle's properties and place in nature. This is an exciting time with great expectations for discovery. As the scope of experimental observation and data expand to new realms of inquiry and ever higher energy scales, physicists have begun to challenge the current understanding of the fundamental laws of physics. Several mysteries have arisen. What is dark matter made of? What is the mechanism responsible for the origin of mass? What is the source of the matter--anti-matter imbalance of the universe? The LHC is expected to produce new physics signatures of great societal interest that would shed light on these and other mysteries and on the fundamental properties of our universe and its evolution since the Big Bang. Although the range and scope of possible physics signatures is vast, the Vanderbilt HEP group has carefully designed a science roadmap that tackles promising and physically well motivated models/theories, while maintaining sensitivity to more general exotic signatures. This program capitalizes on their established expertise in tau-lepton reconstruction and identification and their growing expertise in top-quark physics. They have parlayed this focused toolset to perform searches for new physics, targeting signatures such as the Higgs boson, new high mass resonances, Supersymmetry, grand unification of the fundamental forces, and dark matter. This program of utilizing tau and top expertise to search for new physics also provides the backbone for a more extensive long term vision aimed at providing precision measurements that will help the physics community distinguish between the vast range of physics models. The Vanderbilt HEP group's collaborative efforts with computer scientists are breaking new ground in the area of data logistics through two projects funded by separate NSF awards: REDDnet and DYNES. REDDnet is designed to provide a large distributed storage facility for data intensive collaboration among the nation’s researchers and educators in a wide variety of application areas. Its mission is to provide "working storage" to help manage the logistics of moving and staging large amounts of data in the wide area network. REDDnet is serving researchers from a wide variety of application domains, including a digital archive project in the Library of Congress, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project, and HEP. DYNES is a nationwide cyber-instrument spanning about 40 US universities and 11 Internet2 connectors. A collaborative team including Internet2, Caltech, the University of Michigan, and Vanderbilt University is working to support large, long-distance scientific data flows from the LHC and other leading programs in data intensive science. The Vanderbilt HEP group has also led a Vanderbilt-wide effort to develop a researcher-driven campus computing center. All of this work has directly benefited the program funded by this award, but it also serves a broader mission. To quote from a National Research Council report on how such efforts benefit: "The exploding technology of computers and networks promises profound changes ... As seekers of knowledge, researchers will be among those whose lives change the most ... Researchers themselves will build this New World largely from the bottom up, by following their curiosity down the various paths of investigation that the new tools have opened. It is unexplored territory." In the past, the Vanderbilt HEP group has benefited greatly from the participation of undergraduates in their program. During the period covered by their current award, roughly half a dozen undergraduates have made significant contributions to their program. This level of activity will continue for the foreseeable future. Finally, this group is operating a local Quarknet center. This center is involving several high school teachers in high energy physics research and assisting them with the development of curriculum and experiments for their classes.
