Terence Watts - professional activities

Related pages

• the directory page of Terence Watts (telephone number, email address, etc.)
• the departmental directory
• high energy experimental group

Research Activities

I collaborate in the construction and operation of CDF (Collider Detector at Fermilab), a $50-million-plus facility which detects the particles resulting from 2-TeV proton-antiproton collisions. In April, 1994, we announced evidence for the existence of a very massive top quark. A new phase of data collection in Summer 1994 confirmed the earlier work and measured the top mass more precisely. The results were published March 1995, both by our CDF experiment and by the D0 experiment at Fermilab.

Precise measurements of the masses of the top quark, the W vector boson and other quantities available to us will yield improved tests of the "standard model" for elementary particles and narrow the search range for the predicted Higgs boson. We are also searching for new W and Z bosons, evidence of compositeness in quarks, gluons, etc., super-symmetric particles, and other new phenomena available in this new collision energy range. These studies use CDF's excellent detection efficiency for jets, photons, leptons, and missing neutral particles. The present run benefits from a threefold increase in luminosity, with upgraded data collection and processing capability, and a new silicon vertex track detector.

Rutgers faculty, postdocs, and students are upgrading major parts of the trigger and data acquisition system for the new runs, in particular extending the multi-processor "computer farm," the third level of the trigger which selects the most interesting events. A new effort is also underway to improve the second level trigger for tau leptons, which due to their mass can be a signature of processes involving the charged and/or neutral Higgs bosons. This trigger employs neural network chips to select calorimeter energy deposits which originate from tau decays to hadrons and electrons, while rejecting the large background from quark and gluon jets.
(with John Conway and Thomas Devlin)

Teaching activities

I work with two graduate students in their Ph.D. research topics:

• Ed Kuns, who is looking for anomalous tau lepton production in hadron collisions at the highest energies by obtaining a measurement of the asymmetry in polar angle of W decays to tau leptons.
• Leslie Groer, who is using tau lepton production to set a limit on the extended Standard Model containing charged Higgs particles.

In addition, this year and in some recent years, I have taught:

• 112 Contemporary Physics
• 174 Relativity and Space-Travel (mini course)
• 123 Analytical Physics I
• 203-204 General Physics
• 205-206 General Physics Lab
• 223-224 Introductory Physics
• 313-314 Modern Physics
• 323-324 Advanced General Physics
• 326 Classical Lab
• 327 Modern Electronics
• 405 Modern Optics
• 506 Modern Experimental Techniques
• 509 Physics Applications of Computers
• 552 Physics in Natural Sciences-Biological Physics
• 613 Particles

Service

I am the representative from the CDF experiment at Fermilab on the Advisory Committee to the Network Resources Council of HEPNET. The main concern of the group at the moment is poor service that the Internet gives to researchers at Universities. Another focus of attention is the development of video conferencing for HEP experimenters.

Along with staff member John Doroshenko, I have introduced video conferencing to the Physics and Astronomy Department.

I have been elected to the Rutgers University Senate and am currently in my second three-year term representing the New Brunswick Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Revised October 16, 1995