Nikhef-nieuwsbericht.
Op 17 december heeft het Uitvoerend Bestuur van de Stichting FOM besloten negen aanvragen te honoreren in de FOM-Projectruimte. Nikhef-onderzoekers Thomas Peitzmann, Eric Laenen en Marcel Vreeswijk ontvangen totaal twee FOM-projectruimtesubsidies voor hun voorstellen Solving the direct photon puzzle in heavy-ion reactions with direct photon interferometry (Peitzmann) en Top Spin (Laenen en Vreeswijk)
Over FOM-Projectruimte
De Projectruimte is één van de subsidie-instrumenten die FOM heeft om het uitvoeren van natuurkundig onderzoek te financieren. De Projectruimte maakt kleinschalige projecten mogelijk voor fundamenteel onderzoek in de fysica met een vernieuwend karakter en een aantoonbaar wetenschappelijke, industriële of maatschappelijke urgentie. Meer informatie over de Projectruimte vindt u op de website van FOM.
Beschrijvingen van de programma’s
** Solving the direct photon puzzle in heavy-ion reactions with direct photon interferometry
Prof. Dr. Thomas Peitzmann (Nikhef ALICE group and University of Utrecht): “The measurement of the spectrum of thermal photon radiation is considered to be one of the “holy grails” of heavy-ion physics. From this spectrum one expects to obtain the best estimates for the initial temperature of the hot quark-gluon plasma state studied in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. Measurements at the RHIC accelerator reveal a very high temperature (exceeding 1012 K), however, the results are not fully understood theoretically – this situation is commonly referred to as the “direct photon puzzle”. While there is thus considerable theoretical interest in these measurements, they are extremely challenging. The ALICE experiment has also performed similar measurements at the LHC, where the temperature is expected to be still higher, however the significance of the results is limited. In this project we will apply a new, very different method using the intensity interference of photons to measure the thermal photon spectrum and significantly reduce the current uncertainty.
** Top Spin
Prof. Dr. Eric Laenen (Nikhef theory group and University of Amsterdam) and Dr. Marcel Vreeswijk (Nikhef ATLAS group and and University of Amsterdam): “In this proposal we stress-test the Standard Model to find new physics, using the spin of the top quark. It combines a very accurate measurement of spin-dependent top quark decay patterns using new LHC run 2 data from the ATLAS detector with state-of-the-art theory predictions including higher order corrections due to quantumchromodynamics, to reliably identify small deviations from the Standard Model. We will use the single-top quark production process, which provides a spin-polarised sample of top quarks. We should also be sensitive to new processes that violate the symmetry between matter and antimatter. The outcome of our test, whatever it will be, should be highly interesting.”
Meer informatie
Afdeling Wetenschapscommunicatie – mail – 020 592 5075 / 592 2075