DOE/INFN Summer Exchange Program for 2024

The US Department of Energy (DoE) and the National Institute for Nuclear Physics – Italy (INFN) announce the 2024 edition of the Summer Exchange Program, dedicated to the exchange of US and Italian students in science and engineering.

Students are offered the possibility to work on projects which will further their experience in the areas of science and technology that are relevant for their academic training.

Research activities in Genoa are pursued in all major INFN areas of interest: Particle Physics, Astroparticle Physics, Nuclear Physics, Theoretical Physics and Detector Physics.
Several groups are participating in experimental programs in collaboration with US institutions.

Candidates must be enrolled as students at a US university and they must have begun, at the time of application, at least the third year of a US University curriculum in physics, engineering or computing science.

They can join a team at Genoa for approximately 8 weeks between June 1st and November 31th, 2023.

Opportunities include partecipation in physics analysis activities of running exsperiments as well as involvement in detector developments.

Announcement n. 26407. Link to apply. Expiry date: 03/03/2024

The avaible positions in Genoa are the following:

  • ATLAS experiment

Title: Pixel Detector for the ATLAS Upgrade at HL-LHC

Description:

The program for LHC foresees an upgrade of the accelerator complex in the next long shutdown in 2026 that will allow to increase the integrated luminosity by a factor of 10 (High Luminosity LHC – HL-LHC). The present detectors of ATLAS have been designed according to the rates and radiation dose expected at the nominal LHC luminosity and the Inner Tracker system will be completely replaced for the HL-LHC by a fully Silicon tracker, with a Pixel detector in the innermost part and Strip detector in the outermost part. After several years of R&D’s to develop a detector able to fit the even more demanding conditions than the actual ones, the Pixel detector collaboration is now stepping into the preproduction: the first parts produced need to be validated with several tests, to be sure that everything is ready before launching the massive production of the 13 mq large detector.

The Genova group has been involved since 20 years in the ATLAS pixel detector, and is now playing a key role in the construction of the new one for the high luminosity program. In particular, the Genova team is responsible for the high precision and large scale loading task of quad-modules (hybrid modules made of ~ 4×4 cm2 planar sensors equipped with 4 2×2 cm2 FE chips of new generation: the ATLAS flavor ITkPixV1 of the RD53b development project) on the composite C-fibre/C-foam, half-ring-shaped supports of the Outer EndCap Section of the ITk Pixel detector, and for the Quality Control of the module loaded Half Ring structures (including large temperature range thermal cycling of the loaded structures). All these activities are performed on a highly internationalized context, with many commonalities with analogous activities performed in US laboratories and universities. The Genova group, in collaboration with US laboratories and universities, is also responsible for the 3D modules, the technology chosen for the innermost layer thanks to its intrinsic higher radiation tolerance.

Activities: The student will have multiple opportunities of participating to key activities in the construction and test of the ITk Pixel detector: from contributing to the quality assessment of the high-precision and large-scale module loading task, which has to match very stringent and challenging goals of high reproducibility and robustness, to being involved in the system test for the qualification of multiple-modules-loaded Outer Endcap support structures, both in standard and in extreme ambient conditions, to participating to the assembly and test of 3D modules for the Inner System section of the detector.

Recommend period: June – July or September – October

Tutor: Stefano Passaggio (cstefano.passaggio@ge.infn.it)

Other information: cheap accomodation is available in town

 

  • Phenomenology and ATLAS

Title: Theoretical and Experimental Studies of Heavy Flavours at the LHC

Description:

Flavour physics studies the relations between different species of particles in the Standard Model. For instance, it aims to find a mechanism that can explain the strong hierarchy between the particles’ masses. It also allows for stringent tests of the theory and, indeed, some of the most intriguing discrepancies between theory and experiment are the so-called flavour anomalies. This project pursues a novel approach for the interrogation of the LHC high-energy collision data that are sensitive to quark flavour differences. We aim to study new algorithms that exploit both theory-inspired observables and novel machine-learning techniques and test them on realistic simulation of the data collected with the ATLAS detector.

Activities: Attività (optional)

 Tutors: Francesco Di Bello (francescoarmando.dibello@unige.it) and Simone Marzani (simone.marzani@ge.infn.it)

 Activity period: 1st June – 31st July 2024

Local Secretariat: Agnese Cresta (agnese.cresta@ge.infn.it)

 

  • JLAB12-BDX

Title: JLAB12-BDX detector prototype test

Description:

Test and assess the Beam Dump eXperiment detector prototype performance.

BDX is a beam-dump,  Light Dark Matter search experiment scheduled to run at Jefferson Lab (VA) in the next few years. The detector, made from a CsI(Tl) electromagnetic calorimeter surrounded by two plastic scintillator veto layers, will be tested using cosmic muons to measure veto layer inefficiency as a function of the energy deposited in the calorimeter crystals.

 Activities:

Commission the detector (test and equalize 46ch sipm channels), use the EEE cosmic muon test facility to measure veto and ECal absolute efficiency, run a cosmic test with the full prototype assembled to determine the veto inefficiency as a function of the energy deposited in the ECal crystals, data analysis and comparison to simulations.

Tutor: Marco Battaglieri e Andrea Celentano

Activity period: June-July 2024

Local Secretariat: Agnese Cresta (agnese.cresta@ge.infn.it)