The Penn group participates in an experiment called The Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF), which detects the particles produced by colliding protons and anti-protons at the highest energy in the world, that is at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 trillion electron volts. The Penn group has played a major role in the construction, operation, and study of the data from this experiment, which brings together an international collaboration of over 600 physicists. In 1995, CDF, along with the sister experiment D0, discovered the sixth and perhaps final quark, called the top quark. We played a large role in the subsequent upgrade of the CDF detector, by building the read-out electronics for the main charged particle tracking detector, the Central Outer Tracker (COT), and by leading the design and the construction of a particle identification detector, the Time-of-Flight (TOF), that has proven to be vital for the observation of oscillations of the strange B meson into its antiparticle.
In the current CDF data-taking period, from 2001 until 2009, we are collecting and analysing data from the CDF detector. Our job will be to understand that data and address the interesting questions that will surely arise when studying the highest energy collisions in the world. The emphasis of our research at Penn is the study of the properties of the top quark and the bottom quark, and searches for new fundamental particles. More discoveries are hopefully just around the corner!
Recent papers with significant contributions from the Penn group include precision measurement of the top quark mass, tests of the decay properties of the top quark, and the discovery and observation of the mixing frequency of the strange B meson.
