The US and LHCb

The LHCb detector. Image courtesy K. Yurkewicz

Approximately 15 scientists from Syracuse University, plus a handful of graduate and undergraduate students, participate in the LHCb experiment. The total LHCb collaboration numbers approximately 750 scientists, including about 170 PhD students, from 15 countries.

The scientists and students in the Syracuse University group are involved with many aspects of the LHCb experiment. For example, one member works on detector and electronics configurations and software for the Vertex Locator, and tests of detector components. The Vertex Locator measures the tracks of charged particles emitted from the collision of protons accelerated by the LHC. The group also designed transport modules to move the Vertex Locator detector components safely from the UK to CERN.

Another member of the Syracuse group works to align the many different pieces of the LHCb detector, critical for correctly analyzing data collected from the detector.

The LHCb trigger is the hardware and software in the detector that quickly decides which collisions should be saved for further analysis. Because of computing constraints, none of the LHC experiments can record all the data that comes from the detector. LHCb keeps 2000 out of approximately 20 million events each second. One part of the Syracuse team creates software that monitors the LHCb trigger.

The group also designed a system to calibrate the sensors of the Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector. The purpose of this LHCb subsystem is to decide if a charged particle produced in a collision of two protons is a pion, kaon, proton or electron.