ATLAS at SMU
I am one of five SMU faculty members who together form the SMU ATLAS Research Group. For information about the activities of the other faculty members, please see
our main group research page.
The ATLAS Experiment is operated by a collaboration of about 5000 scientists from 180 institutions in 38 countries. Together, we are working at the highest-energy collision frontier ever explored by
humanity
in an attempt to answer fundamental questions about the universe. What are the building blocks of nature? What was the universe like when it was just a billionth of a second old? Are there extra dimensions of space or time that can be
reached
at high energies? What is the origin of mass in the universe? What is dark matter?
The SMU ATLAS group is involved in both technical and physics analysis contributions to the ATLAS experiment. My own effort is focused on two areas: the coupling of the Higgs bosons to heavy quark flavors, with emphasis on the bottom quark, and technical contributions related to that physics in b-jet triggers, flavor tagging, and hardware-based tracking.
If you are interested in any of these areas, please consider applying to our PhD program and pursuing your research with me on the ATLAS Experiment, or if you've already completed or are soon-to-complete your PhD you should consider applying for any open post-doctoral positions within the SMU ATLAS group.
SMU is home to a world-class optoelectronics research laboratory that currently supports R&D work for ATLAS upgrades. In addition, we are home to an ATLAS Tier 3 high-performance computing cluster, called "ManeFrame", that provides priority computing access to local users. The SMU Physics Department focuses only on particle physics and astroparticle physics, providing a deep concentration on areas that would be of most interest to LHC physicists.