SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Showing 1-27 of 27 Results
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Tom Abel
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics and of Physics
BioWhat were the first objects that formed in the Universe? Prof. Abel's group explores the first billion years of cosmic history using ab initio supercomputer calculations. He has shown from first principles that the very first luminous objects are very massive stars and has developed novel numerical algorithms using adaptive-mesh-refinement simulations that capture over 14 orders of magnitude in length and time scales. He currently continues his work on the first stars and first galaxies and their role in chemical enrichment and cosmological reionization. His group studies any of the first objects to form in the universe: first stars, first supernovae, first HII regions, first magnetic fields, first heavy elements, and so on. Most recently he is pioneering novel numerical algorithms to study collisionless fluids such as dark matter which makes up most of the mass in the Universe as well as astrophysical and terrestrial plasmas. He was the director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and Division Director at SLAC 2013-2018.
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Alex Aiken
Alcatel-Lucent Professor of Communications and Networking and Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioAlex Aiken is the Alcatel-Lucent Professor of Computer Science at Stanford. Alex received his Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Music from Bowling Green State University in 1983 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1988. Alex was a Research Staff Member at the IBM Almaden Research Center (1988-1993) and a Professor in the EECS department at UC Berkeley (1993-2003) before joining the Stanford faculty in 2003. His research interest is in areas related to programming languages.
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Daniel Akerib
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics and, by courtesy, of Physics
BioResearch interests:
Dan Akerib joined the department in 2014 with a courtesy appointment, in conjunction with a full-time appointment to the Particle Physics & Astrophysics faculty at SLAC. He has searched for WIMP dark matter particles since the early 1990s, first with the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search and more recently with the LUX and LUX-ZEPLIN projects. His current interests are in extending the sensitivity to dark matter through expanding and improving time projection chambers that use liquid xenon as a target medium. Together with Tom Shutt, he has led the establishment of a Liquid Nobles Test Platform at SLAC. The group specializes in detector development, xenon purification, and simulations, and has a broad range of opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to participate in hardware and software development, as well as data analysis.
Career History:
- AB 1984, University of Chicago
- Ph.D. 1990 Princeton University
- Research Fellow, California Institute of Technology, 1990 - 1992
- Center Fellow, Center for Particle Astrophysics, UC Berkeley 1993 - 1996
- Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University, 1995-2001
- Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve University, 2001-2004
- Professor, Case Western Reserve University, 2004-2014
- Chair, Case Western Reserve University, 2007-2010
- Professor, Particle Physics & Astrophysics, SLAC 2014 - present -
Steven Allen
Professor of Physics and of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsObservational astrophysics and cosmology; galaxies, galaxy clusters, dark matter and dark energy; applications of statistical methods; X-ray astronomy; X-ray detector development; optical astronomy; mm-wave astronomy; radio astronomy; gravitational lensing.
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Lance Dixon
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am interested in novel descriptions of how relativistic particles scattering, and how those insights can be applied to a variety of problems. Applications include precision QCD for the Large Hadron Collider; scattering in "toy models" such as N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory where an all orders solution seems feasible in the planar limit; the ultraviolet structure of quantum gravity; and problems in classical gravity such as gravitational radiation from compact binary inspiral.
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Kent Irwin
Director, Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory (HEPL), Professor of Physics, of Particle Physics and Astrophysics and of Photon Science
BioIrwin Group web page:
https://irwinlab.stanford.edu/ -
Chao-Lin Kuo
Professor of Physics and of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Current Research and Scholarly Interests1. Searching/measuring primordial gravitational waves in the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) through experiments at the South Pole (BICEP and SPT), high plateaus in Tibet (AliCPT) and Atacama (Simons Observatory), as well as in space (LiteBIRD).
2. Development and applications of superconducting detector and readout systems in astrophysics, cosmology, and other areas.
3. Novel detector concepts for axion searches (https://youtu.be/UBscQSFzpLE) -
Agostino Marinelli
Assistant Professor of Photon Science and of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsX-ray free-electron lasers and applications.
Advanced particle accelerators. -
Emilio Alessandro Nanni
Assistant Professor of Photon Science and of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioEmilio received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2007. After graduating he worked for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center developing non-destructive evaluation techniques for applications related to the US space program. He completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013 where he worked on high-frequency high-power THz sources and the development of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometers using Dynamic Nuclear Polarization. His thesis was on the first photonic-band-gap gyrotron travelling wave amplifier which demonstrated record power and gain levels in the THz frequency band.
He completed his postdoc at MIT with a joint appointment in the Nuclear Reactor Lab and the Research Laboratory for Electronics at MIT where he demonstrated the first acceleration of electrons with optically generated THz pulses. He joined the Technology Innovation Directorate at SLAC in August of 2015 where he continues his work on high power, high-frequency vacuum electron devices; optical THz amplifiers; electron-beam dynamics; and advanced accelerator concepts. -
Michael Peskin
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioI am a theoretical physicist interested in elementary particles and the fundamental interactions. My main research interests are:
consequences of the "Standard Model of particle physics"
precision study of the heaviest known elementary particles - the W and Z bosons, the top quark, and the Higgs boson - to search for clues to new fundamental interactions beyond the Standard Model
models of such new interactions, especially models with composite or strongly interacting Higgs bosons
models for the particle that composes the dark matter of the universe
I am the author of a leading textbook in this area, "An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory", with Daniel Schroeder. My new textbook, "Concepts of Elementary Particle Physics", should be appearing soon.
For further information about my research activities, interests, Stanford courses, and related subjects, please see my web page: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~mpeskin/ -
Aaron Roodman
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioAaron Roodman is a professor of Particle Physics & Astrophysics at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Trained in experimental particle physics, he spent two decades studying differences between Matter and antiMatter, before turning his research to astrophysics and cosmology. Roodman’s current research focuses on the study of Dark Energy using images from large optical telescope surveys, such as the Dark Energy Survey and the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time. He is also responsible for the assembly and testing of the world’s largest digital camera, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's LSST Camera.
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Philip Schuster
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioProfessor Schuster is a theoretical physicist focused on identifying dark matter and its properties, developing concepts for new experimental tests of physics beyond the Standard Model, and studying novel theories of long-range forces. He is also directly involved in several experimental efforts as co-spokesperson for APEX, a founding member and physics coordinator for LDMX, and as a founding member of HPS.
Prospective graduate students interested in research rotations should contact Professor Schuster directly. Recent research directions include new ideas to detect axions, milli-charge dark matter, the use of novel accelerator experiments to search for light WIMP-like dark matter, and generalizations of gauge theories that include massless particles with continuous spin. Publications are listed on INSPIRE.
Professor Schuster is also chair of the Particle Physics & Astrophysics department at Stanford’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. -
Hirohisa A. Tanaka
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsParticle physics and astrophysics, neutrino properties, dark matter
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Sami Gamal-Eldin Tantawi
Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics
BioFor over a decade I have advocated for dedicated research efforts on the basic physics of room temperature high gradient structures and new initiatives for the associated RF systems. This required demanding multidisciplinary collaboration to harness limited resources. The basic elements of the research needed to be inclusive to address not only the fundamentals of accelerator structures but also the fundamentals of associated technologies such as RF manipulation and novel microwave power sources. These basic research efforts were not bundled with specific developments for an application or a general program. The emerging technologies promise a broad, transformational impact.
With this underlying philosophy in mind, in 2006 the US High Gradient Research Collaboration for which I am the spokesman was formed. SLAC is the host of this collaboration, which comprises MIT, ANL, University of Maryland and University of Colorado, NRL and a host of SBIR companies. This led to the revitalization of this research area worldwide. The international collaborative effort grew to include KEK in Japan, INFN, Frascati in Italy, the Cockcroft Institute in the UK, and the CLIC team at CERN.
This effort led to a new understanding of the geometrical effects affecting high gradient operations. The collaborative work led to new advances in understanding the gradient limits of photonic band gap structures. Now we have a new optimization methodology for accelerator structure geometries and ongoing research on alternate and novel materials. These efforts doubled the usable gradient in normal conducting high gradient linacs to more than 100 MV/m, thus revitalizing the spread of the technology to other applications including compact Inverse Compton Scattering gamma-ray sources for national security applications, and compact proton linacs for cancer therapy.
