Analysis of Zeus data and future techniques in data acquisition

In collaboration with DESY, Hamburg, the UCL High Energy Physics group is offering a 3-year PhD studentship to start at the end of September 2009. The studentship is to work on the analysis of ZEUS data taken at the HERA electron-proton collider as well as doing technical work in our program of R&D into data acquisition (DAQ) systems suitable for a number of future applications in high energy physics and beyond.

The HERA ep collider finished data taking in 2007 and still has a large physics programme ahead analysing the vast stores of data in order to make precision measurements which will enter text books and not be improved upon for years to come. As part of the ZEUS collaboration, we have been two of the lead institutes in measuring heavy quark production and plan to make the ultimate measurements of their contributions to the structure of the proton. Understanding the structure of matter is one of the primary quests of physics and also has practical applications as the information is needed by the LHC. Initial analysis will involve developing improved algorithms to better detect and reconstruct heavy quarks. The final measurements will then be combined with those from the complementary experiment, H1, and finally included in phenomenological fits to deeper understand the structure of matter. The student would have the opportunity to be involved at all stages of this project.

As part of the technical training in a PhD, the student would also have the opportunity to work on an R&D project in data acquisition systems. UCL is involved in several DAQ projects such as upgrades for the LHC detectors and even areas outside of particle physics. Depending on experience, the student will play a part in all aspects of building DAQ systems: electronics design and testing, firmware and software programming, algorithm development, and integrating the system into beam tests and the final experiment.

The prospective student would be working directly with Dr Matthew Wing at UCL and integrated into the ZEUS-DESY group and ZEUS Collaboration as a whole. They will also join a team of people at UCL working on DAQ projects both in high energy physics and other large-scale projects. It is expected that (s)he will spend roughly half their PhD in UCL and half in DESY, Hamburg.

This position is unfortunately only open to EU nationals. Applications should be submitted according to the instructions on the web page: http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/postgrad/ Informal enquiries can be made to Dr Matthew Wing (mw@hep.ucl.ac.uk)

Deadline: May 2009

Contact: Matthew Wing
Email: mw@hep.ucl.ac.uk
More information: http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/postgrad/