REU in Elementary Particle Physics


    As Experienced by Steve Olson

    Steve Olson and the D0 detector


    This summer my NSF research experience has been with the  Experimental Elementary Particle Physics Group  at the University of Arizona. My project was to write computer software related to the  D0 detector  at  Fermilab.  The purpose of D0 is to detect the particles produced in high energy collisions of protons and antiprotons.

    The D0 detector


    My work can be divided in two parts. First, a computer simulation produced data similar to those gathered by the inner detector of D0. These data form a large set of (x,y,z) points and are a record of the locations of the particles as they move through the detector. Second, a track recognition algorithm is applied to these points so that all points belonging to a single particle are grouped together.



    Tracks of particles in a detector


    Try these D0-related links:

    •  CERN'S home page
    •  The D0 (D zero) Experiment
    •  Lynda Canfield's page