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ANL Research HighlightsThe tremendous flexibility of the Argonne Named Postdoctoral Fellows program gave me the opportunity to make a smooth transition in the focus of my research, from working primarily on the experiments that analyze the collisions produced in high-energy particle accelerators, to working primarily on the accelerators themselves. I believe that it is important for members of my generation of high-energy physicists to be stakeholders both in the science of HEP and in the accelerator technology that sets the pace at which the field can progress. I am not aware of any comparable position that could have offered me such freedom to make this shift of focus on my own terms.As a Fellow at Argonne, I followed through to publication two projects with Fermilab's CDF experiment that I had begun during my time with the University of Chicago . First, I had the honor of presenting the success of CDF's new Silicon Vertex Trigger at the 2003 Elba detector workshop -- a conference sponsored by INFN/Pisa, the institution that pioneered the SVT project. The proceeding can be found at http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0306169 and has been published as NIM A518, issues 1-2, pages 532-536. The SVT project has had a huge impact on the "Run 2" (2002-2009) physics program at Fermilab's Tevatron Collider. In 2003, SVT was a key ingredient in each of the first three Run 2 physics publications, and more recently, SVT enabled CDF's first direct observation of the flavor oscillations of strange B mesons. Second, I completed, in collaboration with Prof. Rob Harr of Wayne State University, one of CDF's early Run 2 physics results, Search for the Flavor-Changing Neutral Current Decay D0 to mu+ mu- in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV, available electronically at http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0308059 and published as Phys Rev D68, 091101 (2003). Once my CDF work was wrapped up, I sought a way to put the electronics experience that I had gained from the SVT project to work in support of Fermilab's accelerator complex -- as I saw that accelerator performance, rather than effort in analysing experimental data, would be the limiting factor in the Run 2 science program. I helped Fermilab scientist Bill Foster to bring to life a set of electronic circuit boards to implement a beam-feedback system for the Main Injector accelerator at Fermilab. Some results of this feedback system, described in Bunch-by-Bunch Digital Dampers for the Fermilab Main Injector and Recycler, can be found electronically at http://epaper.kek.jp/p03/PAPERS/TOPD003.PDF and have been published in the proceedings of the 2003 Particle Accelerator Conference. New EndeavorsMy time as a Compton Fellow with Argonne left me in a solid position to contribute to Fermilab's "Run 2" science program from the accelerator side. After moving to Fermilab in 2004, I spent just over two years working on Fermilab's Antiproton Source. My main contribution was to implement a system of electronics to read out the beam-position monitors in the "AP2" beam line that connects the antiproton production target to the Debuncher ring. These BPMs are now an important part of the feedback system that keeps the 120 GeV proton beam properly steered onto the production target. I also contributed, in collaboration with Fermilab engineers, a digital phase-jump circuit that eliminates the constraint that the Main Injector revolution frequency at flat-top be harmonically related to the Debuncher revolution frequency. Removing this restriction simplifies operations and opens a new degree of freedom for tuning.Since November 2006, I have been working on Superconducting RF cavity R&D in support of the proposed International Linear Collider. I believe that this technology will be an important part of Fermilab's future program, so I'm doing what I can to get involved in its development. I also continue to participate to some degree in the CDF experiment at Fermilab. |
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