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Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
SA-CERN
Annual Report 2013/14
This report covers the period 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014 Some of the results presented in this report are in part preliminary and should not be quoted without the approval of the authors Editors: Siegfried Főrtsch
Jean Cleymans Vincent Spannenberg
Published in 2014 iThemba LABS P O Box 722 Somerset West 7129 South Africa Design and Layout by iThemba LABS Printed in the Republic of South Africa by iThemba LABS, Faure Copyright of this report is the property of the
SA-CERN Programme
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Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
Members of the SA-CERN Programme Board
Chairman
Prof Jean Cleymans
National Research Foundation Executive responsible for the SA-CERN Program
Dr Zeblon Vilakazi until 31 December 2013
Dr Kobus Lawrie since 1 January 2014
Finances
Mr Vincent Spannenberg
Secretary
Dr Siegfried Főrtsch
Projects
ALICE
Dr Thomas Dietel
University of Cape Town
ATLAS
Prof Simon Connell until 31 December 2013
University of Johannesburg
Prof Trevor Vickey since 1 January 2014
University of the Witwatersrand
ISOLDE
Prof Krish Bharuth-Ram
University of Kwazulu Natal
THEORY
Prof Steven Karataglidis
University of Johannesburg
Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
Table of Contents
1 FOREWORD ............................................................................................................................ 4
2 GOVERNANCE AND STRUCTURES ...................................................................................... 5
3 PROGRAMMES ....................................................................................................................... 6
3.1 ALICE .................................................................................................................................. 6 3.1.1 SA Team members: ..................................................................................................... 6 3.1.2 Summary of Research Activities .................................................................................. 7 3.1.3 Training ....................................................................................................................... 8 3.1.4 Research Outputs ........................................................................................................ 8 3.1.5 Visits to CERN ........................................................................................................... 10 3.1.6 Conference / Workshop Attendance and Presentations ............................................. 11 3.1.7 Stakeholder / collaborator engagement ..................................................................... 13 3.1.8 Outreach .................................................................................................................... 13
3.2 ATLAS ............................................................................................................................... 14 3.2.1 SA Team Members: ................................................................................................... 14 3.2.2 Summary of Research Activities ................................................................................ 15 3.2.3 Training ..................................................................................................................... 15 3.2.4 Research Outputs ...................................................................................................... 15 3.2.5 Conference Attendance and Presentations ................................................................ 20 3.2.6 International Funding sources .................................................................................... 25 3.2.7 Positions held in the ATLAS Collaboration ................................................................. 25 3.2.8 Shifts at CERN .......................................................................................................... 27 3.2.9 Honours and Awards ................................................................................................. 28 3.2.10 Highlights ............................................................................................................... 28 3.2.11 Outreach ................................................................................................................ 32
3.3 ISOLDE .............................................................................................................................. 33 3.3.1 SA Team members: ................................................................................................... 33 3.3.2 Research ................................................................................................................... 33 3.3.3 Research and Conference Visits ................................................................................ 35 3.3.4 Training and Human Capacity Development .............................................................. 36 3.3.5 Research Outputs ...................................................................................................... 36 3.3.6 Outreach .................................................................................................................... 37
3.4 THEORY ............................................................................................................................ 38 3.4.1 SA Team members: ................................................................................................... 38 3.4.2 Research ................................................................................................................... 38 3.4.3 Visits .......................................................................................................................... 39 3.4.4 Awards ...................................................................................................................... 40 3.4.5 Training ..................................................................................................................... 40 3.4.6 Research Outputs ...................................................................................................... 40 3.4.7 Conferences .............................................................................................................. 41 3.4.8 Conference Attendance and Presentations ................................................................ 44
4 KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS ......................................................................................... 45
5 FINANCIAL SITUATION ............................................................................................................. 46
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Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
1 Foreword
The national SA-CERN program gives South Africa access to the largest open research facility in the world, CERN, located in Geneva, Switzerland, a central facility for physics research, serving about 7000 scientists, representing 500 institutions and over 90 nationalities. CERN remains at the forefront of developments in nuclear, particle and computational physics.
In the year 2013-2014 the national SA-CERN program continued its expansion with the appointment of two new academic staff members, Prof Bruce Mellado at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in the ATLAS group and Dr Thomas Dietel at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in the ALICE group.
The appointment of Prof Mellado was accompanied by the establishment of a new electronics laboratory at Wits serving experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and potentially also at the Square Kilometre Array and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia. This is an important contribution to the goal of technology transfer from the LHC to South Africa
At the University of the Western Cape, Prof Nico Orce, has been given a substantial amount of beam time at the ISOLDE facility at CERN to run an experiment on the shape of exotic nuclei.
A cooperation agreement was signed between the Theory division of CERN and the Theory group in the SA-CERN program. This facilitates exchanges and contacts between the respective groups.
The total number of M.Sc. and Ph.D. students working in the national SA-CERN program has now increased to just less than fifty.
During the year 2013-2014 detectors and computing facilities at the LHC have been upgraded with contributions from the South African ALICE and ATLAS teams. Results obtained during previous years are still being analysed and bring new knowledge to light about processes in heavy ion collisions, new information about the Higgs boson and limits on physics beyond the standard model.
The national SA-CERN program is having a major impact on the development of physics in South Africa. It strengthens the South African physics community and makes research at the highest level accessible to local scientists. Public interest in results from the Large Hadron Collider remains high as witnessed by numerous newspaper and magazine articles and interest from radio and TV shows.
Prof Jean Cleymans
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Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
2 Governance and Structures
In terms of the Memorandum of Agreements dated October 2010 and July 2013, the South African-CERN (SA-CERN) programme, under the auspices of the National Research Foundation and the Department of Science Technology (DST), are managed by iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences under the direction of the SA-CERN Governing Body.
The SA-CERN Governing Body is constituted of representatives from the various active projects
at CERN including a Theory group. The members of the Governing Body include:
Programme Board Members
Dr Zeblon Vilakazi – iThemba LABS – Host Institution and Responsible NRF Executive until 31 December 2013 Dr Kobus Lawrie – iThemba LABS – Host Institution since 1 January 2014 Prof Jean Cleymans – Chairperson Prof Krish Bharuth-Ram – SA-ISOLDE and UKZN representative Dr Thomas Dietel – SA-ALICE and UCT representative since 1 August 2013
Prof Simon Connell – SA-ATLAS and UJ representative until 31 December 2013 Prof Trevor Vickey – SA-ATLAS and Wits representative since 1 January 2014 Prof Steven Karataglidis – SA-THEORY and UJ representative
Mr V Spannenberg – Head of Finance and Business Dr Siegfried Förtsch – Scientific and Secretarial Services
The Governing Body meets quarterly to discuss performance, budgets, strategic plans and any new items that require deliberation. The Governing Body meetings are followed by open meetings which are attended by all principal investigators and progress on scientific projects are discussed.
The Governing Body is supported by project committees that meet regularly and all discussions
at meetings are recorded. Monthly financial reports are generated and circulated to all members of the Governing Body. Quarterly reports are prepared by the Scientific Secretary with inputs from all project representatives and a consolidated report, signed by the Chairperson, is sent to the NRF and the DST. Quarterly reports include both Performance and Financial information
In 2010 the Governing Body approved a Governance Document together with financial and
operational policies that directs daily operations. These policies are in line with the policies of the NRF and to the Public Finance Management Act, Act 1, 1999 as amended by Act 29, 1999 and the National Treasury Regulations of 2005.
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3 Programmes
3.1 ALICE
3.1.1 SA Team members: Principal Scientists: Dr Thomas Dietel, University of Cape Town, Prof Jean Cleymans, University of Cape Town and iThemba LABS, Dr Zeblon Vilakazi, iThemba LABS, University of the Witwatersrand, Dr Siegfried Förtsch, iThemba LABS, Dr Zinhle Buthelezi, iThemba LABS, Dr Deon Steyn, iThemba LABS,
Post-doctoral fellows: Dr Francesco Bossù joined the iThemba-UCT-ALICE collaboration as a post-doctoral fellow
on 1 August 2012 and has signed a two-year contract with iThemba LABS. Dr Mohd Danish Azmi has joined the iThemba-UCT-ALICE collaboration as a post-doctoral
fellow on 1 July 2012 on an NRF Innovation and Scarce Skills Postdoctoral fellowship with UCT. His contract ended in December 2013.
Postgraduate Students: BSc Hon: Completed:
Mr. M Ahmed, registered at the African Institute of Mathematics (AIMS), Topic: “Muon Detection in ALICE”, June 2013.
MSc: Completed:
Mr. KJ Senosi, “Production of W± bosons in the semi-muonic channel at forward rapidity in ALICE”, University of Cape Town, 12 December 2013.
Mr PWJ Du Toit, “Analysis of W± bosons with ALICE: Effect of alignment on W± bosons analysis”, University of Pretoria, 14 February 2014
Registered: Mr A Whitehead registered at the University of Cape Town in 2012. Topic: “The Tsallis distribution”. He intends to submit his thesis in May 2014.
Ms S Mhlanga, registered at the University of Cape Town, 26 July 2013. Topic: “Study of muon production as a function of multiplicity in PbPb collisions with ALICE at LHC energies”.
PhD:
Mr S Murray registered at the University of Cape Town on 1 July 2012. Topic: “The Trigger Optimization of the HLT on ALICE”. Mr M Gumbo registered at the University of Cape Town on 1 August 2013. Since 1 February 2014 Mr Gumbo has the left the program to take up a job offer. Mr KJ Senosi registered at the University of Cape Town on 21 February 2014. Topic: “The production of W in pp, pPb and PbPb collisions with the ALICE Forward Muon Spectrometer”, University of Cape Town, 21 February 2014
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3.1.2 Summary of Research Activities Highlights:
Dr Thomas Dietel, a member of ALICE, joined the Department of Physics, University of Cape Town during July 2013 as a lecturer. He has taken over from Prof Jean Cleymans as team leader of the SA-ALICE group. Dr SV Förtsch will remain deputy team leader. Mr. KJ Senosi was awarded the MSc degree by the University of Cape Town on 12 December 2013. The title of his thesis is “Production of W± bosons in the semi-muonic channel at forward rapidity in ALICE”. Since 1 January 2014 F Bossù has been appointed as convener of the Physics Analysis Group, Heavy Flavour Muon within ALICE. Mr. PJW du Toit was awarded the MSc degree with distinction by the University of Pretoria on 14 February 2014. The title of his thesis is “Analysis of W± bosons with ALICE: Effect of alignment on W± bosons analysis”. On 28 March 2014 the School of Physics of the University of the Witwatersrand entered full membership of ALICE through SA-ALICE in association with the UCT-iThemba LABS collaboration. Physics Study: Status update on W studies: Studies of W± bosons in pPb / Pbp at centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV are ongoing. The pT-integrated production cross section of muons from W decays and the pT-integrated nuclear modification factor, RCP, are being investigated. At the moment the team includes iThemba LABS (KJ Senosi, F Bossù and Z Buthelezi), Subatech (D Stocco), CCNU in China (J Zhu) and Clemont Ferrand, (N Bastide). Preliminary results are being presented on a weekly basis at the Physics Analysis Group - Heavy Flavour Muon (PAG-HFM) and recently at larger audiences such as the Physics Working Group - Heavy Flavour (PWG-HF) on 27 September 2013, the ALICE Preview meeting on 19 September 2013 as well as at the ALICE mini week on 14 October 2013. Approved results were presented in a poster by Mr J Zhu at the Hard Probes 2013 conference on 5 November 2013. Analysis Note: The first draft of the ALICE Analysis Note (ALICE-INT-2013-xxx) on the W study, entitled "Production of muons from W± decays at forward rapidity in p-Pb collisions at √s(NN) = 5.02 TeV" has been submitted to the Physics Working Group - Heavy Flavour for review. Groups involved include iThemba LABS, Subatech (Nantes), Clemont Ferrand and China. The Public Note on Upsilon production in Pb-Pb collisions was completed and was submitted to the ALICE Editorial Board. The first draft of the paper on the same topic is ready and was submitted to the conveners of the Physics Working Group. Dr F Bossù is involved in the consolidation of both these notes.
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3.1.3 Training
Both Mr M Gumbo and Ms S Mhlanga attended relevant classes (Special relativity, Particle Physics, Quantum Field Theory, QGP,etc.) in order to prepare for their projects which will mainly focus on the muon physics in ALICE. The ALICE Masterclass, Looking for Strange Particles, was held at iThemba LABS for the first time on 22 October 2013. It was attended by 12 MANUS / MATSCI postgraduate students from UWC. It consisted of an introductory lecture on particle and heavy-ion physics, explaining concepts like the dynamical evolution of the Quark Gluon Plasma and how ALICE is going about to study its properties. This course was presented by Dr F Bossù, Messrs M Gumbo and KJ Senosi as well as Dr Z Buthelezi. As this was a trial feedback is awaited from the students and the coordinator of the MANUS/MATSCI courses in order to optimize its content and structure. Four of these students who indicated interest in this field, requested a follow-up class on the following day. C++ / ROOT / ALIROOT tutorials were held at iThemba LABS from 11-22 November 2013. The tutorials were divided into two parts. The first part commenced on 11 and ended on 15 Nov and it consisted of the general introduction to C++ / ROOT followed by an introduction into high performance computing using on clusters, e.g. Parallel ROOT Facilities (PROOF). This class was attended by 15 participants, including ALICE students: M Gumbo, KJ Senosi, A Whitehead and M Mohamed and Ms S Mhlanga as well as non-ALICE members. The second part (18 - 22 November 2013) was dedicated to ALICE related analysis tools. This session was attended by ALICE students only. Both these tutorials were given by the ALICE collaborator, Dr Martin Vala (DUBNA / Slovakia), who was invited by Dr Z Buthelezi and Prof J Cleymans under the auspices of the SA-DUBNA collaboration and the NRF Research Grant. Messrs. KJ Senosi and Gumbo as well as Ms Mhlanga attended the School on Bayesian Analysis in Physics and Astronomy 19 -23 November 2013 held at Stellenbosch, South Africa. Ms Mhlanga participated in the Hot and Dense Matter Workshop held at the University of Venda, in Limpopo, South Africa from 25-29 November 2013.
3.1.4 Research Outputs “Net-Charge Fluctuations in Pb-Pb Collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV”, PRL 110, 152301 (2013) “Measurement of electrons from beauty hadron decays in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV”, Phys Lett B 721 (2013) 13–23 “Measurement of the inclusive differential jet cross section in pp collisions at √s = 2.76 TeV”, Phys Lett B 722 (2013) 262–272 “Measurement of inelastic, single- and double-diffraction cross sections in proton–proton collisions at the LHC with ALICE”, Eur. Phys. J. C73 (2013) 2456 “Charge correlations using the balance function in Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV”, Phys Lett B 723 (2013) 267–279 “Mid-rapidity anti-baryon to baryon ratios in pp collisions at √s=0.9, 2.76 and 7 TeV measured by ALICE”, Eur. Phys. J C 73 (2013) 2496
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“Centrality determination of Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV with ALICE”, Phys Rev C 88 (2013) 044909 “Centrality dependence of π, K, and p production in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV”, Phys Rev C 88 (2013) 044910 “Performance of the ALICE VZERO system”, JINST 8 (2013) P10016 “Long-range angular correlations of π, K and p in p–Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV, ALICE collaboration”, Phys Lett B 726 (2013) 164 “J/ψ Elliptic Flow in Pb-Pb Collisions at √sNN =2.76 TeV”, Phys Rev Lett 111 (2013) 162301 “Multiplicity dependence of the average transverse momentum in pp, p–Pb, and Pb–Pb collisions at the LHC”, Phys Lett B 727 (2013) 371 “KS
0 and Λ Production in Pb-Pb Collisions at √sNN =2.76 TeV”, Phys Rev Lett 111 (2013) 222301 “Charmonium and e+ e− pair photoproduction at mid-rapidity in ultra-peripheral Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN =2.76 TeV”, EPJ C 73 (2013) 2617 “Directed Flow of Charged Particles at Midrapidity Relative to the Spectator Plane in Pb-Pb Collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, (2013), 232302 “Energy dependence of the transverse momentum distributions of charged particles in pp collisions measured by ALICE”, European Physical Journal C 73, (2013) 2662 “Multi-strange baryon production at mid-rapidity in Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV”, Phys Lett B728, (2014), 216–227 “Multiplicity dependence of pion, kaon, proton and lambda production in p–Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV”, Phys Lett B728, (2014), 25–38 “Two- and three-pion quantum statistics correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN =2.76 TeV at the CERN Large Hadron Collider”, Phys. Rev. C 89, (2014), 024911 “Measurement of charged jet suppression in Pb-Pb collisions at √sNN =2.76 TeV”, JEP 2014, (2014), 13 “J/ψ production and nuclear effects in p-Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV”, JEP 2014, (2014), 73 S Förtsch is serving on the Internal Review Committee (IRC) to review the paper “K*(892)0 and phi(1020) resonances in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV at ALICE”
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3.1.5 Visits to CERN D Azmi worked at CERN from 11 April to 10 May 2013 and was involved in servicing the CPC of station 2 and with replacing faulty cables. GF Steyn, F Bossù, Z Buthelezi and SV Förtsch visited CERN to perform LS1 maintenance work on the Muon Tracking chambers. Some of the long shutdown (LS1) activities at CERN which were carried out in the cavern during April to June 2013 include the following.
Due to numerous interruptions which were caused by the front-end electronics of the MCH during data taking and through closer inspection of the Low Voltage (LV) bus bar bridges on the various CPC of stations 3 to 5 it was decided to perform modifications to these LV bus bars. At each bus-bar bridge three cables were soldered to the PC board connecting the bus bars for the analog and digital readout as well as ground potential to the corresponding points of the neighboring board. This was followed by standalone test runs to check the stability and the noise levels of the electronic modules. During the present operation all slats on the left-hand side of stations three to five as well as a quarter of the slats on the right-hand side were modified. Soldering busbars between PC boards connecting FRTs of slats on the left-hand side of chambers 7, 8, 9 and 10.
Members of the Team during LS1 activities in the cavern
This was followed by standalone test runs to check the noise levels of the electronic modules. 25 – 28 August 2013 J Cleymans and T Dietel visited CERN to discuss the computational contribution of South Africa to the ALICE program. 19 September 2013 Z Buthelezi and S Förtsch helped with the dismounting of 70 computers which formed part of the HLT cluster of ALICE at P2 and which are ear-marked for SA-ALICE to be set up at iThemba LABS. 23 - 26 September 2013 Z Buthelezi and F Bossù were involved in LS1 activities of the Muon tracking stations 3-5.
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26 September 2013, Z Buthelezi and KJ Senosi met with the co-ordinators of the Muon Tracking Chambers Drs. C Cicalo (Cagliari, Italy) and Hervé Borel (Saclay, France) to discuss about the mandatory ALICE Service Task for PhD students. From 9 to 20 December 2013 and from 18 to 25 January 2014, S Murray visited CERN to work on the HLT, to assist with the preparation of the shipment of the modules of a designated computer cluster to South Africa and to attend two Alice weeks. T Dietel visited CERN and three ALICE groups in Germany between 16 December 2013 and 23 January 2014 to discuss the progress of the photon analysis in p-Pb collisions, to explore a possible South African contribution to the Online-Offline-Upgrade (O2) project, and to participate in the consolidation work for the Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) in preparation for the next LHC run. T Dietel visited CERN from 22 March to 2 April 2014 to attend the ALICE Week. The visit also included work on the high-voltage system for the TRD in preparation for the next LHC run. The online-offline (O2) upgrade of ALICE was also discussed, and in particular the calibration procedures for the TRD and the South African participation in these activities.
3.1.6 Conference / Workshop Attendance and Presentations
Z Buthelezi, GF Steyn, F Bossù and S Förtsch attended the annual Muon Week which was held in Barolo, Italy from 6 to 10 May 2013. During this workshop S Förtsch attended the Muon Institutes Board meeting held on 8 May 2013. On 9 May 2013 F Bossù gave a talk at the Muon week entitled "pp reference for pPb and Pb-Pb analyses". J Cleymans visited ALICE regularly in May and June 2013. He was an institutional referee of the paper on “Multi-strange baryon production at mid-rapidity in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV.” S Mhlanga, M Gumbo, F Bossù, KJ Senosi, J Cleymans and S Förtsch gave the following presentations at the SAIP 2013 conference, University of Zululand, Richards Bay, 8-12 July 2013.
F Bossù and S Förtsch: "Description of the ALICE detector and exciting results" (presented at the Winter school on 8 July 2013) S Mhlanga and M Gumbo: "Quark Gluon Plasma" (poster) F Bossù: "Phenomenological interpolations of quarkonia cross sections" KJ Senosi: "Effect of Parton Distribution Functions in the production of W± bosons" (poster) S Förtsch: “Leptons from J/ψ and heavy-flavour hadron decays in pp and Pb-Pb collisions studied with ALICE at the LHC” F Bossù attended the "CERN-Fermilab Hadron Collider Physics Summer School" in August and September 2013 at CERN. J Senosi attended the “Understanding hot and dense QCD matter conference”, held in September 2 - 6, 2013 in Prague, Czech Republic.
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Presentations at the PAG-HFM weekly meeting: 24 June 2013 by KJ Senosi, title: W simulations for pPb collisions at 5.02 TeV - Test of PDFs in pp at 8 TeV. 2 August 2013 by KJ Senosi, title: Update on MC simulation of W-bosons 8 August 2013 by KJ Senosi, title: Update on MC simulation of W-bosons 14 August 2013 by KJ Senosi, title Update on MC simulation of W-bosons 21 August 2013 by F Bossù, title: Update on MC simulation and signal extraction of W-bosons. At the ALICE Mini week 26-27 August 2013: 27 August 2013 F Bossù gave a talk at the PWG-HF entitled "W production in pPb and PbPb collisions". T Dietel, Z Buthelezi, SV Förtsch, J Cleymans and ZZ Vilakazi served on the Local Organizing Committee for the 6th International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High-Energy Nuclear Collisions (Hard Probes 2013) held at STIAS, Stellenbosch from 4 – 8 November 2013. T Dietel co-organized the Hard Probes summer school with Prof Heribert Weigert from UCT.
T Dietel, one of the lecturers at the Hard Probes 2013 Summer School
F Bossù gave a talk titled “Upsilon production measurements with ALICE at the LHC” at the Hard Probes 2013 conference on 4 November 2013. T Dietel presented a talk on "Computing for the ALICE Experiment at the LHC" at the CHPC Conference in Cape Town, 2-6 December 2013. J Cleymans, T Dietel, GF Steyn and S Förtsch attended a workshop on “High- Performance Signal and Data Processing” held from 27 to 31 January 2014 at WITS. S Förtsch served on the local organizing committee of this workshop. J Cleymans presented a plenary talk "The National SA-CERN Program" at the High-performance Signal and Data Processing Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, 27 January 2014. T Dietel presented a plenary talk on "Data Processing for ALICE at the LHC" at the High-performance Signal and Data Processing Workshop at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, 28 January 2014. S Murray attended the ALICE Tier 1/2 workshop in Tsukuba, Japan, from 4 to 7 March 2014 and delivered a talk “Operations in South Africa”.
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3.1.7 Stakeholder / collaborator engagement
Dr Gines Martinez-Garcia (ALICE collaborator from Subatech, Nantes) visited iThemba LABS on 6 November 2013 and gave a talk entitled “The hadronic matter and heavy-ion collisions at relativistic energies”. Dr Laurent Aphecetche (ALICE collaborator from Subatech, Nantes) visited iThemba LABS from 11 - 12 November 2013 to discuss matters relating to the activities of the ALICE MUON collaboration.
3.1.8 Outreach
On 22 April 2013 S Förtsch addressed visiting Physics and Math students from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, on the South African involvement in the ALICE experiment. On 25 July 2013 Z Buthelezi, F Bossù and J Senosi hosted a Grade 11 student pupil as part of the job shadowing program of iThemba LABS. T Dietel gave a seminar talk on 25 September 2013 at UCT: “Probing the Quark-Gluon Plasma with the ALICE Experiment at LHC”. T Dietel gave three lectures at the HP summer school, 30 October - 3 November: "Introduction to Experimental Heavy-Ion Physics", "Heavy-Ion Physics: Jets" and "Heavy-Ion Physics: Photons". Z Buthelezi was an invited speaker at the National Post-Doctoral forum organized by the NRF which was held from 4 to 6 December 2013 at Spier. T Dietel presented a seminar on "The ALICE Experiment at the LHC" to the Society of Physics Students of the University Cape Town on 5 March 2014.
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3.2 ATLAS
3.2.1 SA Team Members:
UCT - 7.8 people Andrew Hamilton (Faculty; Senior Lecturer; promoted from Lecturer in January) Elizabeth Castaneda (Post Doc): 30% UCT Andrecia Ramnath (MSc registration date Feb. 2012): 50% SA-CERN-Theory Chilufya Mwewa (MSc registration date Jul. 2012) Ferdinand Schenck (MSc registration date Feb. 2013) Lidija Radovanovic (MSc registration date Feb. 2013) Claire Antel (MSc registration date Feb. 2013) Lindifa Ngwenya (MSc registration date Feb. 2013)
Joshua Smith (MSc registration date Feb 2014) Joshua Smith (honours, graduation date Dec 2013) Marija Odjanic (honours, graduation date Dec 2013)
UJ - 7.2 people Simon H Connell (Faculty; Professor) Chris Lee (Staff: Research Officer) S Ballestrero (Staff: Research Officer / PhD) M Aurousseau (Post Doc) E Castaneda (Post Doc): 70% UJ Claire Lee (PhD: registration date Jul. 2009) Phineas Ntsoele (PT-MSc registration date Oct. 2009) 50% Nicolin Govender (UP) (PhD registration date Aug. 2011, Jan 2013)
UKZN - 1 person S Yacoob (Faculty; Lecturer) Wits – 26.5 people Oana Boeriu (Faculty; Senior Lecturer) Bruce Mellado (Faculty; Associate Professor) Trevor Vickey (Faculty; Senior Lecturer) Elias Sideras-Haddad (Faculty; Professor) 50% German Carrillo Montoya (PDoc) Yanping Huang (PDoc) Katharine Leney (PDoc) Xifeng Ruan (PDoc) Luis March (PDoc) Oscar Kureba (PDoc) Gilad Amar (MSc; registration date Feb. 2013) Kieran Bristow (MSc; registration date Feb. 2012) Tim Bristow (MSc; registration date) Warren Carlson (PhD; registration date Jul. 2010) 50% Guillermo Hamity (MSc; registration date Feb. 2013) Catherine Hsu (MSc; registration date Feb. 2013) Robert Reed (PhD; registration date Feb. 2013) Kamela Sekonya (PhD; registration date Feb 2012) 50% Harshna Jivan (MSc; registration date Feb 2014) Mattew Spoor (MSc; registration date Feb 2014) Joseph Asare (PhD; registration date Feb 2013) Mitchel Cox (MSc; registration date Feb 2014) Daniel Ohene-Kwofie (PhD; registration date Feb 2013) Tomiwa Kehinde (PhD; registration date March 2013)
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Vincent Govender (Technician) Charles Sandrock (Technician) Pablo Moreno (Engineer) Gerrard Peter (Technician)
3.2.2 Summary of Research Activities
The SA-ATLAS group is involved in many analyses, in the Higgs sector and beyond the standard model, in software tool development, performance, upgrade related activities in software and instrumentation. The harvest of new results and participation in various scholarly ventures (papers, conferences, meetings) has been rich indeed. We also enter a time of local infrastructure development and technology transfer. The ranks of staff, postdocs and students continue to swell.
3.2.3 Training
23 Post graduate students are now registered and receiving training. The training now includes technology transfer and instrumentation, taking the upgrade activities into account, and this is in addition to the Physics and Computing programs.
3.2.4 Research Outputs
Full list of ATLAS Papers for FY2013/14:
Search for supersymmetry at √s = 8 TeV in final states with jets and two same-sign leptons or three leptons with the ATLAS detector
JHEP06(2014)035 Measurement of the parity violating asymmetry parameter αb and the helicity amplitudes for the decay ΛB → J/ψ Λ0 with the ATLAS detector PhysRevD.89.092009 Measurement of the low mass Drell-Yan differential cross section at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector JHEP 06 (2014) 112 Search for top quark decays t→ qH with H→γγ using the ATLAS detector JHEP06(2014)008 Searches for direct production of charginos, neutralinos and sleptons in final states with two leptons and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s = 8TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP05(2014)071 Measurement of the 4l Cross Section at the Z Resonance and Determination of the Branching Fraction of Z→4l in pp Collisions at √s = 7 and 8 TeV with ATLAS Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 231806 (2014) Search for direct top squark pair production in final states with two leptons in √s = 8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector JHEP06(2014)124
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Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s =8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector JHEP04(2014)169 Measurement of the production of a W boson in association with a charm quark in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP05(2014)068 Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson decay to a photon and a Z boson in pp collisions at √s = 7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Lett. B 732C (2014), pp. 8-27 Search for Invisible Decays of a Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a Z Boson in ATLAS Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 201802 (2014) Measurement of the electroweak production of dijets in association with a Z-boson and distributions sensitive to vector boson fusion in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV using the ATLAS detector JHEP04(2014)031 Measurement of the production cross-section of prompt J/Psi mesons in association with a W boson in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP04(2014)172 Measurement of dijet cross sections in pp collisions at 7 TeV centre-of-mass energy using the ATLAS detector JHEP05(2014)059 Search for a Multi-Higgs Boson Cascade in W+W- bbar events with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at √s = 8 TeV Phys. Rev. D 89, 032002 (2014) Standalone Vertex Finding in the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer JINST 9 (2014) P02001 Measurement of the top quark pair production charge asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector JHEP02(2014)107 Search for Quantum Black-Hole Production in High-Invariant-Mass Lepton+Jet Final States Using Proton-Proton Collisions at √s = 8 TeV and the ATLAS Detector Phys. Rev. Lett 112, 091804 (2014) Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross section in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector using 4.6 fb-1 Phys. Rev. D 89, 052004 (2014) Measurement of the mass difference between top and antitop quarks in pp collisions at √s = 7TeV using the ATLAS detector Physics Letters B 728C (2014), pp. 363-379 Search for long-lived stopped R-hadrons decaying out-of-time with pp collisions using the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. D 88, 112003 (2013)
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Search for charginos nearly mass-degenerate with the lightest neutralino based on a disappearing-track signature in pp collisions at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. D 88, 112006 (2013) Search for dark matter in events with a hadronically decaying W or Z boson and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s =8 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. Lett 112, 041802 (2014) Search for new phenomena in photon + jet events collected in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Lett. B 728C (2014) 562-578 Search for Microscopic Black Holes in a Like-sign Dimuon Final State using large Track Multiplicity with the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. D 88 (2013) 072001 Search for direct third-generation squark pair production in final states with missing transverse momentum and two b-jets in √s =8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector JHEP10(2013)189 Search for new phenomena using final states with large jet multiplicities and missing transverse momentum with ATLAS in 20 fb−1 of √s = 8 TeV proton-proton collisions JHEP10(2013)130 Search for excited electrons and muons with proton-proton collisions at √s =8 TeV with the ATLAS detector New J. Phys. 15 (2013) 093011 Dynamics of isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at√s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector Nucl. Phys, B 875 (2013) 483-535 Measurement of top quark polarization in top-antitop events from proton-proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. Lett 111, 232002 (2013) Measurement of jet shapes in top-quark pair events at √s =7 TeV using the ATLAS detector Eur. Phys. J. C (2013) 73:2676 Measurement of the top quark charge in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP11(2013)031 Measurements of Higgs production and couplings using diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC Phys. Lett. B 726 (2013), pp. 88-119 Evidence for the spin-0 nature of the Higgs boson using ATLAS data Phys. Lett. B 726 (2013), pp. 120-144 Measurement of the differential cross section of B+ meson production in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV at ATLAS JHEP10(2013)042 Measurement of the azimuthal angle dependence of inclusive jet yields in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. Lett 111, 152301 (2013)
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Performance of jet substructure techniques for large-R jets in proton-proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector JHEP09 (2013) 076 Measurement of the high-mass Drell-Yan differential cross-section in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Lett. B 725 (2013) pp. 223-242 Measurement of the distributions of event-by-event flow harmonics in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP11(2013)183 A search for ttbar resonances in the lepton plus jets final state with ATLAS using 4.7 fb-1 of pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV Phys. Rev. D 88, 012004 (2013) Triggers for Displaced Decays of Long-lived Neutral Particles in the ATLAS Detector JINST 8 (2013) P07015 Characterisation and mitigation of beam-induced backgrounds observed in the ATLAS detector during the 2011 proton-proton run JINST 8 (2013) P07004 Search for heavy resonance decaying to WW or WZ in the lvjj and lvJ (boosted) final states. Phys. Rev. D 87, 112006 (2013) Measurement of the production cross section of jets in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP07(2013)032 A study of heavy-flavor quarks produced in association with top-quark pairs at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. D 89, 072012 (2014) Search for non-pointing photons in the diphoton and ETmiss final state in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions using the ATLAS detector Phys. Rev. D 88, 012001 (2013) Measurement of the inclusive jet cross section in pp collisions at √s = 2.76 TeV and comparison to the inclusive jet cross section at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector EPJC (2013) 73 2509 Measurement of multi-particle azimuthal correlations in proton-lead collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector Phys. Lett. B 725 (2013), pp. 60-78 Search for third generation scalar leptoquarks in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP06(2013)033 Search for extra dimensions in diphoton events using proton-proton collisions recorded at √s =7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC New J. Phys. 15 (2013) 043007 Improved luminosity determination in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC Eur. Phys. J. C (2013) 73:2518
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Search for WH production with a light Higgs boson decaying to prompt electron-jets in proton- proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector New J. Phys. 15 (2013) 043009 Search for a light charged Higgs boson in the decay channel H+ → csbar in ttbar events using pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector Eur. Phys. J. C, 73 6 (2013) 2465 Measurement of the cross-section for W boson production in association with b-jets in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JHEP 06 (2013) 084 Measurements of Wgamma and Zgamma production in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC Phys. Rev. D 87, 112003 (2013) Measurement of kt splitting scales in W→lnu events at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector Eur. Phys. J. C, 73 5 (2013) 2432 Measurement of hard double-parton interactions in W (→ lnu) + 2 jet events at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector New J. Phys. 15 (2013) 033038 Search for long-lived, multi-charged particles in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector Phys. Lett. B 722 (2013) 305-323 Search for single b*-quark production with the ATLAS detector at √s = 7 TeV Phys. Lett. B 721 (2013) 171-189
HEP Related Papers and refereed Conference Presentations:
Omega Electroproduction, DA Unwuchola, SH Connell, M Aurousseau, MM Dalton,
University of Johannesburg. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Discovery
Physics at the LHC (Kruger2012), Journal of Physics: Conference Series 455 (2013)
012042.
Higgs to four leptons searches at the LHC : constraints on Abelian Hidden sector
models, M Aurousseau, University of Johannesburg. Proceedings of the International
Workshop on Discovery Physics at the LHC (Kruger2012), Journal of Physics:
Conference Series 455 (2013) 012047.
Operational issues of the ATLAS Semiconductor Tracker, S. Yacoob, "Proceedings for
The 21st International Workshop on Vertex Detectors (PoS(Vertex 2012)005)
published 02 July 2013
B Mellado and T Vickey, Chapter editors of the book: “Handbook of LHC Higgs Cross
Sections: 3. Higgs Properties“ Higgs XS YR3: http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.1347 Report
Number CERN 2013-004
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B Mellado, “Topics in the relationship between the LHeC and the LHC”, 2013 J. Phys.:
Conf. Ser. 455 012019
K Leney, “Searches for new physics with tau leptons at the ATLAS detector”, HCP
conference (2012) but proceedings published 20 May, 2013
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20134915006), EPJ Web of Conferences
Doro, M.; Conrad, J.; Emmanoulopoulos, D.; … SH Connell …. et al. Dark matter and
fundamental physics with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, Astroparticle
Physics Volume: 43 (2013) 189-214.
P. Moreno, T. Masike, R. Reed, C. Sandrock, et al “Design of a Portable Test Facility
for the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter Front-End Electronics Verification”, 2013 IEEE Nuclear
Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, Seoul, Korea, Kor, 26 Oct - 2
Nov 2013, Approved proceedings: https://cds.cern.ch/record/1628746
P. Moreno, R. Reed, C. Sandrock, X. Ruan, “Computing Challenges in the certification
of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter Front-end Electronics During Maintenance Periods”,
CHEP 2013, Amsterdam, October 14th-18th 2013. Approved proceedings:
https://cds.cern.ch/record/1621927
B. Mellado et al, Higgs Working Group of the Snowmass 2013 Community Planning
Study. October 31st 2013, http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1310.8361
B. Mellado, Higgs Physics at the LHeC, PoS DIS2013 (2013) 264 P. Moreno, R. Reed et al. “A new portable test bench for the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter
front-end electronics certification” Approved proceedings ATL-TILECAL-PROC-2013-
005, https://cds.cern.ch/record/1551920/
B. Mellado, P. Moreno, R. Reed et al. “The sROD Module for the ATLAS Tile
Calorimeter Phase-II Upgrade Demonstrator”, JINST 9 (2014)
A. Djouadi, R.M. Godbole, B. Mellado and K. Mohan, “Probing the spin--parity of the
Higgs boson via jet kinematics in vector boson fusion” Phys.Lett. B723 (2013) 307-313
3.2.5 Conference Attendance and Presentations
1. ASP-2014: African School of Physics Int Adv Committee, Senegal, August 3 - 23, 2014. Several SA-CERN members
2. S Yacoob - Organiser of SAIP winter school on HEP 8 July, 2013
3. B Mellado, Member of Organizing Committee of CTEQ School in Pittsburg, USA, Summer 2013.
4. B. Mellado, Member of the Organizing Committee of the CTEQ School in Beijing, China, July 8th-18th 2014.
5. B. Mellado, Co-chair of the Organizing Committee of the International Workshop “High-performance Signal and Data Processing: Challenges in Astro- and Particle Physics and Radio Astronomy Instrumentation”, Wits University, January 27th-31st 2014.
6. B. Mellado, Co-convenor of Physics and Detector session of the LHeC Workshop,
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Chavannes-de-Bogis, January 20th-21st, Switzerland, 2014. 7. B. Mellado, Member of the International Advisory Committee of “Physics at the LHC
and Beyond”, Vietnam, August 2014. 8. B. Mellado, Co-Convener of Higgs session of XLIII International Symposium on
Multiple Dynamics, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, USA, September 15th-20th 2013.
9. S. Yacoob (UKZN) Local organizing committee of the Bayes 2013 workshop in Stellenbosch
10. T. Vickey (Wits), Member of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the, "Fifth International Workshop on Prospects for Charged Higgs Discovery at Colliders" to be held in Uppsala, Sweden 16-18 September 2014.
11. All of the SA-ATLAS PIs (BOERIU, CONNELL, HAMILTON, MELLADO, VICKEY and YACOOB) are on the Local Organizing Committee for Kruger-2014
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Group photo of the international workshop “High-performance Signal and Data Processing: Challenges in Astro- and Particle Physics and Radio Astronomy Instrumentation”, Wits University, January 27
th-31
st
2014.
Student training in high-throughput electronics at the international workshop “High-performance Signal and Data Processing: Challenges in Astro- and Particle Physics and Radio Astronomy
Instrumentation”, Wits University, January 27th-31
st 2014.
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Summer School Attendance and work presentation:
1. E Castaneda-Miranda (UJ), M Aurousseau (UJ) and SH Connell (UJ) lectured at the HDM2013 : International Workshop on Hot and Dense Nuclear and Astrophysical
Matter, 25 - 29 November 2013at the University of Venda, Thohoyandou, Limpopo :
Topics : The Standard Model and Beyond at ATLAS, Detecting particles, including a review of the ATLAS detector, Computational Physics by self-taught tutorials and the Structure of White Dwarves.
2. A. Hamilton (UCT) lectured at the Hard Probes 2013 Summer School, Cape Town, 30-31 Oct 2013
S Yacoob during his plenary talk at the SAIP conference, University of Zululand, 11 July 2013
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Conferences, Workshops and Seminars attendances: 1. C Lee (UJ) delivered the LAr Overview plenary talk during ATLAS Overview Week, 7 -
11 October, Marrakech, Morocco 2. S. Yacoob (UKZN) Local organizing committee of the Bayes 2013 workshop in
Stellenbosch 3. O. Boeriu (Wits) "Searches for resonances decaying to Standard Model third
generation quarks and leptons", 26-31 August 2013, 21st International Conference on Supersymmetry and Unification of Fundamental Interactions (SUSY2013), Trieste, Italy.
4. E Castaneda, M Aurousseau (UJ) Seminar on The Standard Model and beyond, at UJ, 22 Nov 2013
5. B. Mellado (Wits), “Data flow at the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and the future of the Higgs boson”, University of the Cape Town, South Africa, October 15th 2013.
6. Public presentation: Trevor VICKEY presented the public talk, “The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics and the Discovery of the Higgs Boson” to the Sci-Fi club of South Africa on October 19, 2013.
7. G. Carrillo Montoya (Wits), "Constraining Beyond the Standard Model physics with the newly discovered Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector", colloquium, University of Cape Town, November, 2013.
8. G. Carrillo Montoya (Wits), "Constraining Beyond the Standard Model physics with the newly discovered Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector", colloquium, University of the Witwatersrand, November, 2013.
9. B. Mellado (Wits) “Physics of the Higgs boson at the LHeC”, XXI International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects, Marseille, France, April 22th-26th 2013.
10. B. Mellado (Wits) “Roadmap for Collider High Energy Physics in light of Higgs discovery”, Research Infrastructure roadmap workshop, Cape Town, South Africa, June 27th 2013.
11. B. Mellado (Wits) “Higgs in ep at the LHeC”, Snowmass meeting, Seattle, Washington July 2nd 2013.
12. B. Mellado (Wits) “The Discovery of the Higgs Boson at the LHC”, SAIP Annual Conference, University of the Zululand, July 8th, 2013.
13. B. Mellado (Wits) “Higgs Physics at the LHeC”, (Plenary) International Symposium of Higgs Physics, IHEP, Beijing, August 16th 2013.
14. B. Mellado (Wits) “Selected Topics in Higgs Physics at the LHeC”, LHeC Workshop, Chavannes-de-Bogis, Switzerland, 20th-21st January 2014.
15. B. Mellado (Wits) “Higgs Physics in ep Collisions”, (Plenary), EU-Russia Round Table, Dubna, Russia March 3th-5th 2014.
16. B. Mellado (Wits) “Evidence of H->tautau decay with the ATLAS Detector”, Seminar at the Harish-Chandra Institute, December 5th 2013.
17. B.Mellado (Wits) “Evidence for the Higgs decaying into tau leptons with the ATLAS detector and future prospects”, HEP seminar, Delhi University, December 13th 2013.
18. B.Mellado (Wits) “The Massive Affordable Computing Project”, the CHPC, Cape Town, February 21st 2014.
19. B.Mellado (Wits) “Exploration of the Tensor Structure of the Higgs boson to Weak Bosons”, HEP seminar, University of the Witwatersrand, March 25th 2014.
20. T Vickey (Wits) “Evidence for Higgs Boson Decays to Tau Lepton Pairs from the ATLAS Experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider,” HEP Seminar, Northern Illinois University, January 2014
21. T. Vickey (Wits) “Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in Higgs to tau-tau decays at the LHC”, Higgs Days at Santander 2013, Santander, Spain, 2013
22. T. Vickey (Wits) “ATLAS Searches for Higgs Bosons beyond the Standard Model”, (Plenary) International Symposium on Higgs Physics, Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing, China, August 2013.
23. Sahal YACOOB (UKZN) presented the masterclass program to 28 students between Grades 10 and 12.
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24. German CARRILLO MONTOYA (Wits) attended the ATLAS Upgrade Workshop in Freiburg, Germany and presented his work on BSM Higgs searches.
25. Guillermo HAMITY (Wits) attended the ATLAS Higgs Workshop in Rome, Italy and presented his work on the A to Zh analysis.
26. German CARRILLO MONTOYA (Wits) attended the ATLAS Higgs Workshop in Rome, Italy and presented his work on BSM Higgs searches.
27. Guillermo HAMITY (Wits) attended the ATLAS Tau Performance Meeting in Paris, France and presented his work on Hadronic Tau Reconstruction.
28. Phineas NTSOELE (UJ) attended the Dark Interactions: Perspectives from Theory and Experiment Workshop at Brookhaven National Lab, New York, USA.
3.2.6 International Funding sources
1. Co-funding arrangement with Academia Sinica in Taiwan for one (UJ) PhD Student. 2. TWAS Fellowship for partially supporting a working visit for Prof K Assamagan (UJ)
3.2.7 Positions held in the ATLAS Collaboration
1. A. Hamilton (UCT) Chair EdBoard of Minbias Triggers in pA Collisions CONF note 2. A. Hamilton (UCT) Trigger RTT Wrangler June-Aug 3. A. Hamilton (UCT) Ed Board Chair of Conf note on Minbias Triggers in Heavy Ion
Collisions 4. S Yacoob (UKZN) Shift Leader in the ATLAS control room 5. S Yacoob (UKZN) and S Ballestrero (UJ) : group managers for the ATLAS Virtual
Organisation (VO) South Africa group (atlas/za) 6. S Ballestero (UJ) Coordinator of TDAQ SysAdmins and member of the TDAQ Project
Coordination 7. S Connell (UJ) Chair of the SA-ATLAS Group (April 1, 2013 - December 31, 2013) 8. T Vickey (Wits) Chair of the SA-ATLAS Group (January 1, 2014 - present) 9. S Connell (UJ) selected at the ATLAS Overview Week in October 2013, to serve on
the ATLAS Collaboration Board Chair Advisory Group, from 2014-2015. 10. C Lee (UJ) Track MET tool in the HWW analysis code. 11. M Aurousseau (UJ) Responsible for maintaining the MDT DAQ Documentation. 12. S Connell (UJ) National Contact Physicist for South Africa ATLAS (April 1, 2013 -
December 31, 2013) 13. T Vickey (Wits) National Contact Physicist for South Africa ATLAS (January 1, 2014 -
present) 14. C Lee (UJ) Developer for Track MET in the ETmiss group 15. O Boeriu (Wits) co-editor of the paper on 2nd generation Leptoquark searches in 2011
data 16. O Boeriu (Wits) Co-editor of paper on third-generation leptoquarks 17. O Boeru (Wits) Inner Detector Software Release Coordinator, January 1 - April 3, 2013 18. G Carrillo (Wits) Co-editor of CONF note on high-mass Higgs searches 19. K Leney (Wits) Co-editor of paper on third-generation leptoquarks
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S Yacoob at the ATLAS detector during LS1
20. T Bristow (Wits) Tau Performance Grid Disk Space Manager 21. B Mellado (Wits) Co-convener of Jet sub-group of the Higgs cross-section group
(2012-2014) 22. B Mellado (Wits) Member of TileCal speakers and publications committee (2012-2014) 23. B Mellado (Wits) MET Liaison of the ATLAS Higgs Working group (2011-2013) 24. T Vickey (Wits) Co-convener of the MSSM neutral Higgs sub-group of the LHC Higgs
XS Group (2012 - 2014) 25. O. Boeriu (Wits) ATLAS Upgrade Monte Carlo Co-coordinator November 1 - present 26. T Vickey (Wits) ATLAS Speakers Committee (elected member) 27. G Carrillo (Wits) appointed as an editor of the ATLAS combined H->ZZ (lll,llqq and llnu)
high mass limits and 2HDM paper 28. C Lee (UJ), Editor TrackMET CONF note 29. S. Yacoob (UKZN) ATLAS distributed data management group space manager for
South Africa. 30. B. Mellado (Wits), Physics and Detector co-convenor of the LHeC, November 2013-
present 31. German CARRILLO MONTOYA (Wits) is the ATLAS Software Release Coordinator. 32. German CARRILLO MONTOYA (Wits) is the convener of the ATLAS “Beyond the
Standard Model” Higgs working group. 33. Sahal YACOOB (UKZN) is the SA-Cluster representative on the Muon IB and SA
Muon activity coordinator. 34. Sahal YACOOB (UKZN) is the National Contact for the “Beamlines for School” CERN
program.
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3.2.8 Shifts at CERN
Visits/Shifts 1.C Lee (UJ) attended the ATLAS Overview Week, 7 - 11 October, Marrakech, Morocco
SH Connell (UJ) attended the ATLAS Overview Week, 7 - 11 October, Marrakech, Morocco and conducted a working visit to CERN of one week.
2. N Govender : Oct – Dec, Development of the Muon DB GUI 3. E Castaneda and M Aurousseau visited South Africa (normally FT at CERN) to hold
seminars and deliver lectures, participate in meetings. 4. M Aurousseau (UJ): work on MDT DAQ 5. F. Schenck (UCT) 16 Sept – 20 Dec 2013 6. B. Mellado (Wits): CERN visit November 2013-January 2014. 7. O. Boeriu (Wits): CERN visit December 2013 - January 2014 8. T Vickey (Wits): CERN visit December 2013 - January 2014 9. G. Hamity (Wits): Tau Identification Performance Validation April 2013 - present 10. G. Carrillo Montoya (Wits): ATLAS SemiConductor Tracker DAQ work April 2013 -
present 11. Sahal Yacoob (UKZN) attended the ATLAS Upgrade Workshop in Freiburg, Germany. 12. S. Yacoob (UKZN) trainee ATLAS Distributed Computing Operations shifter 13. S. Yacoob (UKZN) visited CERN From February 3rd till March 8th 2014, including
ATLAS week, Muon Week, and Computing and Software week and installation of new hardware
14. X. Ruan (Wits), TileCal DQ leader April 2013 15. P. Moreno (Wits) TileCal maintenance in the pit, January-February 2014 16. P. Moreno (Wits) TileCal electronics demonstrator expert weeks 2013-2014 17. X. Ruan (Wits) Deployment in Prometeo system at CERN, 2013-2014 18. C. Sandrock (Wits) Refurbishment of MBTS counters, Sept-Oct 2013. 19. Sahal Yacoob (UKZN) attended the IPPOG Meeting at DESY Zeuthen, Germany. 20. Oana Boeriu (Wits) attended the ATLAS Collaboration Meeting in Sibiu, Romania. 21. Elizabeth Castaneda (UJ / UCT) attended the ATLAS Collaboration Meeting in Sibiu,
Romania. 22. Simon Connell (UJ) attended the ATLAS Collaboration Meeting in Sibiu, Romania. 23. Trevor Vickey (Wits) attended the ATLAS Collaboration Meeting in Sibiu, Romania.
Chief technician of the Wits School of Physics, Charles Sandrock (left) at CERN working on the refurbishment of the MBTS counters for installation in the detector.
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3.2.9 Honours and Awards 1. A Hamilton (UCT) was award UCT College of Fellows Young Researcher Award 2. Bruce Mellado (Wits): Awarded NRF Rating of, “Internationally Acclaimed Researcher”
November 2013. 3. Sahal Yacoob (UKZN): Awarded NRF Rating of, “Young Researcher with Potential to
Establish Himself” November 2013.
3.2.10 Highlights
1. N Govender (UJ) completed the development of the Moun DB GUI and this has now been installed on point 1.
2. ATLAS recently (28 November) released a result showing direct evidence of the decay of the Higgs boson to fermions. The observation of H tautau with a significance of 4.1 sigma is greater than the 3 sigma required for an “observation” and it is the first such observation for a single fermionic channel at the LHC. Together with the H mm result presented at the same seminar, this indicates that the Higgs is not universally coupled to fermions. Several SA-ATLAS members were directly involved.
3. S. Yacoob (UKZN) is the first South African representative on the International Particle Physics Outreach group which supports particle physics outreach internationally.
4. B. Mellado (Wits) and his TileCal team delivered few electronics boards for the Mobidick and Prometeo systems that check the readout electronics of the Tile Calorimeter. These devices were manufactured and tested in South Africa and are now used by physicists, engineers and technicians at CERN. All prototypes and models have been produced in the Gauteng region.
5. X. Ruan (Wits) designed and delivered the first prototype of the mechanical enclosure of the Prometeo system for the Tile Calorimeter. The mechanical enclosure was manufactured in the workshop at the School of Physics of Wits.
6. P. Moreno (Wits) leads the development of the firmware for the development of a 16-layer FGPA system for the transmission of hundreds of Gb/s. These requirements are very similar to those defined for the analogous card for the MeerKat experiment. This card is called the Super Read Out Driver (sROD) and it is developed for the upgrade of the Tile Calorimeter electronics and it is based on state-of-the-art FPGA chips. The production of the first functional prototype will take place in South Africa and will be deployed to CERN by the second half of 2014.
7. R. Reed (Wits) leads the installation and integration of a state-of-the-art ATCA system at Wits. This system is the first of its kind in South Africa and it will host the sROD and the core of the off-detector electronics of the upgraded Tile Calorimeter.
8. H. Jivan (Wits) and a team of senior scientists and technicians have launched a progam for the certification of radiation hardness of plastic scintillators for the upgrade of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter and future detectors. In collaboration with material sciences an understanding of the effects of radiation in polymers is being developed for the first time. We are also working with SASOL to develop a plastic scintillators in South Africa. .
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LED board for the Mobidick and Prometeo systems. This board generates narrow pulses to test the functionality of the Photo-multipliers in the Tile Calorimeter
PCB of the ADC board for the Prometeo system. The PCB was produced
in South Africa, in the Gauteng region
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1.
Mechanical enclosure of the Prometeo system for the Tile Calorimeter. The design and manufacturing took place at Wits.
Layout of the Super Readout Driver fo the upgrade of the electronics of the Tile Calorimter. This card will sustain hundreds of Gb/s and it is based on state-of-the-art FGPA chips
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A state-of-the-art ATCA system at the electronics lab at Wits. This is the first of its kind in South Africa and will
host the off-detector electronics of the Tile Calorimter of the ATLAS detector
Steve Arnold, senior scientist at SASOL visits our lab at Wits to inspect the handling of plastic scintillators
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3.2.11 Outreach
1. S. Yacoob (UKZN) presented a lecture on ‘Deconstructing the Universe’ to a school group of approximately 36 students
2. S. Yacoob (UKZN) presented ‘THE HIGGS MECHANISM IN OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE’ as the keynote lecture at the UKZN CAES postgraduate research day to approximately 200 students
3. SH Connell (UJ) Physics Lead Discussant for the NRF/DST Research Infrastructure roadmap project (2 Workshops in 2013
4. SH Connell (UJ) Talk : Discoveries at the LHC ....and a new platform using TEDxCERN to promote science for survival, at UJ, 16 October 2013 AT 13:00 – 14:00
5. SH Connell (UJ) Talk : A Higgs Boson - 17 Nov at the Johannesburg Theosophical Society.
6. C Lee (UJ): conducted various ATLAS underground guided tours. 7. South African now a member of the ‘International Particle Physics Outreach Group’ with
S. Yacoob (UKZN) as the first South African representative 25 March 2014 8. C Lee (UJ): ATLAS Virtual Visit (live) with Steven Goldfarb and ~100 Schoolgirls from
Edinburgh – now able to do this for Schools in SA. 9. A. Hamilton (UCT) presented public lecture “Cornerstones of Physical Reality” at
iThemba LABS 16 Oct 2013 10. Nobel Prize Press Release : by SH Connell (UJ) used in
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/company-annoucementsthe-noble-prize-for-physics-goes-to-the-pursuance-of-science--2013-10-09 and http://www.saip.org.za/index.php/news-and-events/other-events/254-2013-noble-prize-for-physics and http://www.nithep.ac.za/4ds.htm
11. http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global%5B_id%5D=107942 12. http://www.uj.ac.za/EN/Newsroom/News/Pages/The-Noble-Prize-for-Physics-goes-
to….aspx 13. http://www.timeslive.co.za/scitech/2013/09/05/wits-makes-first-hardware-contribution-to-
cern-atlas-experiment 14. http://www.pddnet.com/news/2013/09/first-hardware-south-africa-delivered-atlas-
detector-cern 15. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/sa-hardware-for-large-hadron-collider-
experiment-2013-09-05/article_comments:1 16. http://pressoffice.mg.co.za/witsuniversity/PressRelease.php?StoryID=242625 17. http://www.wits.ac.za/newsroom/newsitems/201312/22094/news_item_22094.html 18. http://www.wits.ac.za/newsroom/newsitems/201310/21689/news_item_21689.html 19. http://witsvuvuzela.com/2013/10/08/witsies-celebrate-2013-nobel-prize/ 20. http://www.link2media.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22114&Ite
mid=12
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3.3 ISOLDE
3.3.1 SA Team members: Principal Scientists: Professor Krish Bharuth-Ram (KBR), (UKZN and Durban University of Technology), Dr Deena Naidoo ((DN) School of Physics, University of the Witwatersrand, Dr Mathew Moodley (MW), (UKZN), Dr Mathis Wiedeking (iThemba LABS), Prof Nico Orce (UWC), Prof S. Triambak (UWC). Post-doctoral fellows: Dr D Negi (iThemba LABS)
Students: PhD: H. Masenda (HM) (WITS),
M. Ncube (MN) (WITS), B.V. Kheswa (UWC), N. Erasmus (UWC), N.A. Khumalo (UWC), C. Mehl (UWC), B. Singh (UWC) MSc: V. Adoons (staff at UniZul) registered at UKZN
3.3.2 Research
The ISOLDE INTC approved two further projects submitted by the Mössbauer Collaboration within the Solid State Physics program at its meeting in October 2013. The list of approved solid state physics projects for the period 2014-2016 are
IS501: Emission Mössbauer spectroscopy of advanced materials for opto- and nano-
electronics IS576: Magnetic and structural properties of manganese doped (Al,Ga)N studied with
Emission Mössbauer spectroscopy IS578: Atomic scale properties of magnetic Mn-based alloys probed by Emission Mössbauer
spectroscopy
Beam time for some of the experiments within these projects have been allocated during the period 01 – 14 September 2014, during which on-line emission Mössbauer Spectroscopy data will be collected, following the implantation of radioactive 57Mn ions.
In addition to our on-going collaboration on emission Mössbauer Spectroscopy (eMS) following implantation of radioactive ion beams from the ISOLDE/CERN facility, two new SA led projects have been approved by the HIE-ISOLDE INTC. The first is the project co-led by Mathis Wiedeking (IThemba LABS) on “Statistical properties of warm nuclei: Investigating the low-energy enhancement in the gamma strength function of neutron-rich nuclei”; the second is led by Professor Nico Orce of UWC on “Solving the shape conundrum in 70Se”. The two HIE-ISOLDE proposals bring at least six new students into research programs at ISOLDE/CERN. 30 shifts of beam time have been allocated to the experiments which will be scheduled when HIE-ISOLDE comes online in 2015. This, however, requires South Africa formally joining the ISOLDE Collaboration and signing a Memorandum of Understanding with ISOLDE/CERN.
During the ISOLDE/CERN shut down for refurbishment in the past year, our focus has been on data analysis and manuscript preparation for publication and presentations at conferences. Local research review meetings took place where our graduate students reported on their data analyses and progress with their PhD projects.
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K. Bharuth-Ram, D. Naidoo and H. Masenda attended the Research Review meeting of the Mössbauer collaboration held at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 27 August – 31 August 2013, and participated in the overview discussions on the status of data analysis and publications and planning of future experiments and proposals to the INTC.
D. Naidoo presented data analysis reports on Emission Mössbauer Spectrosocpy and Emission Channeling measurements on Mn/Fe implanted Si, and led the discussion of the results.
H. Masenda presented analysis reports on lattice sites and spin lattice relaxation of Fe in the group III-nitrides, GaN, AlN and InN, determined from emission Mössbauer spectroscopy following the implantation of radioactive 57Mn.
K. Bharuth-Ram chaired the session and led discussions on experimental enhancements, detector development and funding opportunities. Current and Future Developments
Upgrades to the ISOLDE Mössbauer implantation chamber were undertaken at iThemba LABS. Dr T. Mølholt, of the University of Iceland spent two months (February and March 2014) at iThemba LABS working under the supervision of K. Bharuth-Ram, on the detailed design of upgrades to the implantation chamber, multi-target mounting systems and sample heating and temperature control systems. The construction work was undertaken in the MRD workshop.
K. Bharuth-Ram and H. Masenda were central to the development of a new parallel plate avalanche counter (PPAC) for collection of the eMS spectra. The detector utilizes special electroplated FeAl on Be electrodes, with the Fe > 90% enriched in the Mössbauer probe nuclei 57Fe. The new PPAC offers superior resolution and efficiency and its operational parameters are currently being optimized by H. Masenda at the University of the Witwatersrand. The narrow line-width of the detector is expected to result in better resolved spectral features and hence yield more information on the hyperfine interaction parameters of Fe in the systems under investigation. This new generation detector will be utilized in the forthcoming experiments at ISOLDE in September 2014.
Upgrades of local infrastructure include the infrastructural changes to the Mössbauer Laboratory at the University of the Witwatersand. This is now complete and is being used to carry out measurements complementary to our ISOLDE programme.
The Mössbauer laboratory at iThemba LABS has functioned well in the past year, due to good support from the MRD division. A continuing source of frustration has been the inability to get reliable low temperature magnetization data due to the poor functioning of the Cryogenics PPMS system – a problem that has persisted ever since the purchase of the equipment four years ago.
The South African projects in the Mössbauer Collaboration at ISOLDE/CERN are part of a
larger research programme on the search for dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS) with
Curie temperatures above 300 K, i.e. normal semiconductors embedded with low
concentrations of magnetic ions. The international search for DMS is driven by theoretical
predictions of room temperature ferromagnetism in GaN and ZnO doped with 5% transition
metal (TM) ions. Our ISOLDE/CERN projects have focussed at the ultra-low dilution (10-4 – 10-
3 at. %) limit; investigations in the 1 – 8 at % regime are being undertaken in collaboration with
Prof C. Ronning of Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Jena. The latter projects on
the formation and shaping of nanoclusters embedded in substrates of interest involve ion
implantation, SEM and HRTEM studies at the University of Jena, and Mössbauer
Spectroscopy and magnetization measurements at iThemba LABS. A new development in our
ion beam modifications armoury is the setting up of a Swift Heavy Ion (SHI) irradiation facility
at iThemba LABS. This facility involves the extraction of a beam 13+ 86Kr ions from the ion
source, accelerating it to energies between 16 – 36 MeV in the injector cyclotron SPC2 and
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then directing the beam onto samples held in an irradiation chamber which allowed the
simultaneous mounting of 4 samples and irradiation at 45o and normal to the sample surface.
3.3.3 Research and Conference Visits
H. Masenda presented a talk on “Magnetic Properties of Fe implanted ZnO” at the 58th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics, 8-12 July 2013, University of Zululand. H. Masenda visited CERN from 21 July to 27 August 2013 to carry out analyses of eMS data on 57Mn implanted GaN, AlN, InN and ZnO.
D. Naidoo and H. Masenda attended the the International Conference on the Application of the Mössbauer Effect (ICAME 2013) 01-06 August 2013 in Opatija, Croatia and presented the following papers: D. Naidoo: i) - an overview of emission Mössbauer spectroscopy investigations of Fe
impurities in Si. ii) Effect of Fe on the structural and magnetic properties of BiFe1+xHoxO3.
H. Masenda: Emission Mössbauer Spectrosocopy study of Mn/Fe implanted III-nitrides. K. Bharuth-Ram attended the International Conference on Nano-scale Magnetism (ICNM 2013) in Istanbul, Turkey, 1-5 September 2013, and presented a paper on “Magnetic nanoclusters in Fe implanted ZnO”. Members of the ISOLDE Collaboration had a strong presence at the First International African Symposium on Exotic Nuclei (IASEN), 01-06 December 2013, organised by iThemba LABS. K. Bharuth-Ram gave an invited talk on “Hyperfine interactions in condensed matter research” and also chaired a session. D. Naidoo gave an oral presentation on “An overview of emission 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy investigations in metal oxides”, and Hilary Masenda presented a paper on “Emission Mössbauer spectroscopy of Mn/Fe implanted III-nitrides”.
In a preliminary study, LiNbO3 substrates were implanted with Ag ions to fluences up to 1∙1017 ions/cm2. The formation of embedded clusters was tracked initially as a function of annealing temperature. Thereafter, in order to study the shaping of the clusters, the samples were irradiated with the Kr ions with the sample surface held at 45O to the beam direction. STEM scans of LNO irradiated with 18, 22 and 32 MeV Kr ions at different fluences are presented in the adjacent figure. Elongation of the embedded clusters on irradiation with fluences ≥ 1▪ 1014/cm2 is clearly evident.
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In addition, our international collaborators, Drs Karl Johnston (ISOLDE/CERN), Manfred Deicher (U. des Saarlandes) and Ulli Wahl (IST/ITN, U. Lisbon, Portugal) also presented Invited talks at the symposium on research work undertaken at ISOLDE/CERN.
3.3.4 Training and Human Capacity Development
H. Masenda has completed his PhD studies and graduated on 31 March 2014. The title of his thesis was: “Are Fe and Co implanted ZnO and III-nitride semiconductors magnetic?”
H. Masenda has been appointed as an Associate Lecturer on a sessional contract at the University of the Witwatersrand.
M. Ncube has made good progress on the analysis of eMS and Emission Channeling data on Mn/Fe implanted n- and p-type Si. Another set of data to be collected during beam time in September 2014 should be sufficient for MN’s PhD project.
Mr V. Adoons (Associate Lecturer at the University of Zululand) has joined our research team. He is currently completing his MSc through the University of KwaZulu-Natal, under the supervision of Prof Bharuth-Ram.
3.3.5 Research Outputs
1. XRD and Mössbauer spectroscopy study of Ho doped BiFeO3,
M. Ncube, D. Naidoo, K. Bharuth-Ram, D. Billing, H. Masenda, D. Sahu, B. Roul, R. Erasmus, Hyperfine Interactions 219 (2013) 83–88.
2. Possible cage motion of interstitial Fe in α-Al2O3,
H. P. Gunnlaugsson, K. Johnston, H. Masenda, R. Mantovan, T. E. Mølholt, K. Bharuth-Ram, H. P. Gíslason, G. Langouche, M. B. Madsen, D. Naidoo, S. Ólafsson, G. Weyer, and the ISOLDE Collaboration, Hyperfine Interactions 219 (2013) 33–40.
3. Stability of the Fe3+ state in ZnO,
D. Naidoo , H. P. Gunnlaugsson, T. E. Mølholt, R. Mantovan, H. Masenda, K. Bharuth-Ram, K. Johnston, H. P. Gislason, G. Langouche, S. Ólafsson, G. Weyer, R. Sielemann, and the ISOLDE Collaboration, Hyperfine Interactions 221 (2013) 45–51.
4. Defect annealing in Mn/Fe implanted TiO2 (rutile),
H. P. Gunnlaugsson, R. Mantovan, H. Masenda, T. E. Mølholt, K. Johnston, K. Bharuth-Ram, H. Gíslason, G. Langouche, D. Naidoo, S. Ólafsson, A. Svane, G. Weyer, and the ISOLDE collaboration, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 47 (2014) 065501.
5. Interstitial Fe in MgO,
T. E. Mølholt, R. Mantovan, H. P. Gunnlaugsson, A. Svane, H. Masenda, D. Naidoo, K. Bharuth-Ram, M. Fanciulli, H. P. Gislason, K. Johnston, G. Langouche, S. Olafsson, R. Sielemann, G. Weyer, and the ISOLDE Collaboration, J. Appl. Phys. 115 (2014) 023508.
6. Characterization of Fe states in dilute 57Mn implanted SnO2 films,
H.P. Gunnlaugsson, K. Nomura, T.E. Mølholt, S. Shayestehaminzadeh, K. Johnston, R. Mantovan, H. Masenda, M. Ncube, K. Bharuth-Ram, H. Gislason, G. Langouche, D. Naidoo, S. Ólafsson, G. Weyer and the ISOLDE Collaboration, Hyperfine Interactions 226:389–396 (2014).
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3.3.6 Outreach
D. Naidoo gave two talks at WITS on “Mössbauer at ISOLDE, CERN” as part of the Honours project presentations. D. Naidoo presented a lecture on “Materials Science and Career Opportunities” to approximately 300 grade 11 learners during the WITS Focus Day, 11 April 2013. D. Naidoo co-ordinated the Materials Science Poster Competition for Grade 10 Learners during the period May-October 2013.
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3.4 THEORY
3.4.1 SA Team members: Principal Scientists: Prof Steven Karataglidis, UJ, Prof Jean Cleymans, UCT, Prof Andre
Peshier, UCT, Prof Azwinndini Muronga, UJ, Prof Heribert Weigert, UCT, Prof Alan Cornell, Wits, Dr Will Horowitz, UCT.
Students:
PhD: Warren Carlson, Wits, co-supervised by Prof Cornell. Ammar Abdalgabar, Wits, supervised by Prof Cornell. D Giovannoni, UCT, supervised by Prof Peshier.
MSc: Benjamin Meiring, UCT, supervised by Dr Horowitz. Thendo Nemakhavhani, UJ, supervised by Prof Muronga. Rotondwa Mudau, UJ, supervised by Prof Muronga. Jason Meyers*, UCT, supervised by Prof Weigert. Andrecia Ramnath*, UCT, supervised by Prof Weigert. Judtih Zeilinger, UCT, supervised by Prof Weigert. Charlotte Hillebrand, UCT, supervised by Prof Weigert. Andile Whitehead*, UCT, supervised by Prof Cleymans. B Vilijoen, UCT, supervised by Prof Peshier.
* indicates submitted during reporting period.
3.4.2 Research
Research within the Theory Division encompasses a wide range of CERN-related research: low-energy nuclear physics (Karataglidis), relativistic heavy-ion physics (Cleymans, Weigert, Peshier, Muronga), high-energy nuclear physics (Horowitz), and particle physics (Cornell). These are of relevance to all the experimental groups within the SA-CERN Program. Low-energy nuclear physics
The structures of exotic nuclei present an interesting poser: at what level can an exotic nucleus, be it halo or skin, be considered a system of interacting clusters, or a many-body system of nucleons, as with normal nuclei? Reactions of exotic nuclei with heavy nuclei tend to elicit cluster behavior, as the collisions tend to be peripheral with little momentum transfer. Hence the interior of the nucleus cannot be probed under such circumstances and the surface features, where cluster phenomena tend to be pronounced, are probed. When one scatters exotic nuclei from hydrogen, the scattering is protons from the exotic nucleus in the inverse kinematics. That scattering does probe the entire nucleus, and can reveal features of the core. In that respect, one finds the depletion of the nuclear density at the centre of a halo nucleus, which cannot be observed in heavy-ion reactions.
The interaction of a nucleon with a nucleus is sensitive to all aspects of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. It is dominated by the central force component, which mainly affects the differential cross section. The analyzing power is sensitive, however, to aspects of the spin-orbit and tensor forces. New data on the analyzing power for the scattering, at 71A MeV, of 6He and 8He ions from hydrogen were obtained at RIKEN, and were analysed using the Melbourne g-folding model of nucleon-nucleus scattering. That model uses the G matrix for the nucleon-nucleon interaction in medium and folds it with the density matrix elements as
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obtained from the shell model. With appropriate choices for single particle wave functions, predicated on the nucleon separation energies of the nucleus, the model has full predictive power for the scattering observables, with no fitting of parameters. The analyzing power data were well described by the results of the model, although there were discrepancies at large angles. However, the data were combined in 10-degree bins, with the average over each bin quoted. This led to an overall systematic problem in the reduction of the true magnitude of the analyzing power, and one requires more data, with much less binning, in order to provide a proper understanding of the interaction. This is crucial in other analyses where the analyzing power data are used to determine the spin-orbit potential phenomenologically; when using data that is binned over too wide an angular domain the resulting spin-orbit potential would be in error.
Particle Physics
The study of LHC-related particle physics phenomenology relating to the renormalization group flow of various model parameters in models such as UED was undertaken. By testing the renormalization group evolution equations of different models for the flavour parameters of quarks and leptons, a review on the minimal UED model (with one extra dimension, and various 2 extra-dimension scenarios, extending to include cases of brane localized matter fields) was completed. Also considered were supersymmetric extensions and model building opportunities, such as warped extra-dimensions, in light of new LHC experimental results. These also included studies of black-hole physics, as part of the BlackMax collaboration, a simulator for collider-produced black holes. That research can be divided into two parts: one related to spherically-symmetric black holes, and the other to rotating ones. For spherically-symmetric black holes the physics of fermionic test fields and the “asymptotic iteration method” to black-hole perturbation problems were considered. For rotating black holes both singly- and doubly-rotating black holes were studied.
3.4.3 Visits
Members of the Theory Group have been busy visiting various places during the course of 2013. In particular, travel to CERN itself has increased, with visits by Prof Karataglidis, Prof Cleymans, Prof Cornell, and Dr Horowitz. This has been facilitated also by a new agreement reached between Prof Karataglidis, Head of SA-CERN/Theory, and Prof Ignatios Antoniadis, Head of the CERN Theory Division, whereby members of SA-CERN/Theory may become Users of CERN, with all benefits that that entails, directly upon visiting CERN. This is beyond a normal visit to Theory at CERN, where members of SA-CERN/Theory would make use of the CERN/Theory Visitors Programme.
Prof Karataglidis also visited The University of Melbourne to continue the collaboration with Prof Ken Amos, of the School of Physics. Prof Cornell also visited The University of Melbourne, where he collaborated with Prof Girish Joshi, as well as Japan (Universities of Kyoto and Osaka), and France (University of Lyon). Prof Muronga and his students visited the Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, Wigner Research Centre, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary, and the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Frankfurt, Germany. Prof Muronga also visited the University of Minnesota, USA, where he gave a colloquium.
Prof Cleymans undertook visits of ALICE, May 26—28, 2013, June 3—7, 2013, June 18—21, 2013.
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3.4.4 Awards Prof Muronga received the Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals from the
University of Minnesota, USA, his alma mater. His visit to the University of Minnesota was to receive this award and present a colloquium. Prof Muronga is also a finalist in the 2013/14 NSTF-BHP Billiton Awards in the category, “To an individual or a team for an outstanding contribution to SETI through communication for outreach and creating awareness over the last 5 years – sponsored by the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA)”.
3.4.5 Training The number of students in Theory has grown in this period, and several students have
submitted their theses. Those students are: Jason Meyers and Andrecia Ramnath, both MSc students of Prof Weigert; Andile Whitehead, MSc student of Prof Cleymans; and, Y Zhang, a PhD student of Prof Peshier.
3.4.6 Research Outputs
Spin observables in 71A MeV 6,8He-hydrogen scattering, S. Karataglidis and K. Amos, Physical Review C 87, (2013) 054623. Analysis of a coupled-channel continuum approach for spectra of mass-17 compound systems, K. Amos, L. Canton, P. R. Fraser, S. Karataglidis, J. P. Svenne, and D. van der Knijff, Nuclear Physics A912, (2013) 7-17. Systematic properties of the Tsallis Distribution: energy dependence of parameters in high-energy p-p collisions, J. Cleymans, G. I. Lykasov, A. S. Parvan, A. S. Soring, O. V. Teryaev, and D. Worku, Physics Letters B723, (2013) 351-354. Nonequilibrium distribution functions of nucleons in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions, D. Anchiskin, V. Nabuko, and J. Cleymans, Condensed Matter Physics 16, (2013) 13201. Chemical freeze-out of strange particles and possible root of strangeness suppression, K. A. Bugaev, D. R. Oliinychenko, J. Cleymans, A. I. Ivanytskyi, I. N. Mishustin, E. G. Nikonov, and V. V. Sagun, Europhysics Letters 104, (2013) 22002. Systematic properties of the Tsallis Distribution: energy dependence of parameters, J. Cleymans, Journal of Physics Conference Series 455, (2013) 012049. Heavy quark binary scattering in the quark-gluon plasma, A. Peshier, Journal of Physics Conference Series 455, (2013) 012054. Collisional energy loss of heavy quarks, A. Meistrenko, J. Uphoff, C. Greiner, and A. Peshier, Nuclear Physics A901, (2013) 51-64. Heavy quark production and energy loss, W. A. Horowitz, Nuclear Physics A904-905, (2013) 186c-193c.
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Weakness or strength in the golden years of the LHC, W. A. Horowitz, Nuclear Physics A910-911, (2013) 239.
Is it hard yet? The qualitative agreement of pQCD energy loss with RHIC and LHC data, W. A. Horowitz, Journal of Physics Conference Series 455, (2013) 012052.
Renormalisation running of masses and mixings in UED models, A. S. Cornell, Aldo Deandrea, Lu-Xin Liu, and Ahmad Tarhini, Modern Physics Letters A28, (2013) 11.
The evolution of neutrino masses and mixings in the 5D MSSM, A. S. Cornell, Aldo Deandrea, Lu-Xin Liu, and Ahmad Tarhini, European Physics Journal Plus 128, (2013) 6. Evolution of Yukawa couplings and quark flavour mixings in the 5D MSSM, Ammar Abdalgabar and A. S. Cornell, Journal of Physics Conference Series 455, (2013) 012001. Higgs quartic coupling and neutrino sector evolution in 2UED models, Ammar Abdalgabar, A. S. Cornell, Aldo Deandrea, and Ahmad Tarhini, Physical Review D 88, (2013) 056006.
3.4.7 Conferences
The SA-CERN/Theory group organized two major conferences. The first, Hot and Dense Nuclear and Astrophysical Matter 2013, held at the University of Venda, was organized by Prof Muronga, as part of the ongoing series, which began at the University of Johannesburg in 2012. Prof Cleymans and Prof Cornell presented at this workshop.
Group photo from HDM2013. (Courtesy of Azwinndini Muronga.)
The other was the 6th annual Hard and Electromagnetic Probes 2013 Conference
(http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/hp2013), which was organized and co-chaired by Dr Horowitz and
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Prof Weigert, with Profs Cleymans, Peshier, and Muronga members of the Local Organising Committee. There were 190 participants from all over the world, including
MIT (Gunther and Christof Roland), Columbia (Brian Cole), Yale (John Harris), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Peter Jacobs, Xin-Nian Wang), Brookhaven National Laboratory (Takao Sakaguchi, Peter Steinberg, Peter Petreczky, Paul Sorensen), Ohio State University (Ulrich Heinz), Stony Brook University (Barbara Jacak), McGill University (Charles Gale, Sangyong Jeon), Saclay (Francois Gelis, Edmond Iancu), CERN (David d'Enterria, Carlos Lourenco, Paolo Giubellino [spokesperson for ALICE], Andreas Morsch, Karel Safarik, Yves Schutz [deputy spokesperson for ALICE]), Frankfurt University/Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (Harald Appleshauser, Carsten Greiner, Reinhard Stock) By all accounts, this was a huge success and congratulations to Will and Heribert for
working hard all year to bring this to fruition. There was also a Summer School held in conjunction with this Conference, organized by Prof Weigert. (See http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/hp2013/school.php) The lecturers at this Summer School were:
Andrew Hamilton, UCT (Introduction to the Standard Model, Particle Detectors), Marco Stratmann, BNL (Introduction to QCD), Tom Dietel, UCT (Introduction to heavy ion collisions), Francois Gelis, CEA Saclay (Introduction to finite temperature QCD) Paul Sorensen, BNL (Heavy ion collisions: single particles, collectivity, jets, photons, charm and beauty, proton nucleus collisions), Tuomas Lappi, Jyvaskyla (Color Glass Condensate), and Anges Mocsy, Pratt (Qarkonia)
Andrew Hamilton is a member of SA-CERN/ATLAS and Tom Dietel is the Head of SA-
CERN/ALICE, so there was much in the way of participation in this conference from most of the SA-CERN Programmes.
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Group photo from Hard Probes 2013. (Photo courtesy of Will Horowitz)
Group photo from the HP2013 Summer School. (Photo courtesy of Heribert Weigert.)
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3.4.8 Conference Attendance and Presentations
1. Prof Steven Karataglidis:
a. Aspects of the structure of the heavy carbon isotopes; S. Karataglidis, K. Amos, J. P. Svenne, L. Canton, P. R. Fraser, and D. van der Knijff, delivered at the 58th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics, Richards Bay, July 2013.
b. New facts about nuclear density functional calculations, B. G. Giraud and S. Karataglidis, delivered at the 20th Nuclear Physics Workshop “Marie and Pierre Curie”, Kazimierz, Poland, September, 2013.
c. Exploring exotic nuclei with MCAS, invited talk at the first International African Symposium on Exotic Nuclei, IASEN2013, Somerset West, December, 2013.
d. Recent developments in Multi-Channel Algebraic Scattering calculations; L. Canton, K. Amos, S. Karataglidis, P. R. Fraser, J. P. Svenne, and D. van der Knijff, invited talk presented at the 10th Latin American Symposium on Nuclear Physics and Applications, Montevideo, Uruguay, December 2013.
e. Exploring exotic nuclei within the MCAS framework, seminar presented at ISOLDE, CERN, January 23, 2014.
2. Prof Jean Cleymans:
a. The Tsallis Distribution at the LHC, colloquium presented at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany, May 29, 2013.
b. The Tsallis Distribution at the LHC, participant at the XXXI Max Born Symposium and HIC for FAIR Workshop, Wroclaw, Poland, June 14—16, 2013.
c. Presentation of the National SA-CERN Programme, talk presented at the 58th Annual Conference of the South African Institute of Physics, Richards Bay, July 2013. Also gave a lecture at the Winter School on High Energy Physics.
d. Systematic properties of the Tsallis Distribution: energy dependence of parameters in high-energy p-p collisions, talk presented at Strangeness in Quark Matter SQM2013, University of Birmingham, UK, July 2013. Prof Cleymans was also a member of the International Advisory Committee.
e. The Tsallis Distribution at the LHC, talk presented at the XXXVI Brazilian Meeting on Nuclear Physics, Maresias, Brazil, September, 2013.
f. The Tsallis Distribution at the LHC, talk presented at the Heavy Ion Forum, CERN, January, 2014.
3. Prof André Peshier
a. Participated in the workshop, Relativistic Aspects of Nuclear Physics (RANP2013), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September, 2013.
4. Dr William Horowitz
a. Corrections and uncertainties in energy loss model predictions, invited talk presented at the 9th International Workshop on high-pT physics at the LHC, Grenoble, France, September, 2013.
b. EVMP: Nucleons vs Nuclei, an update, talk presented at the 4th International Workshop on the physics opportunities at an ElecTron-Ion Collide (POETIC IV), Jyvaskyla, Finland, September, 2013.
c. Heavy quark energy loss and bulk physics, talk presented at the 14th International Conference on Strangeness in Quark Matter (SQM2013), Birmingham, UK, July, 2013.
d. The qualitative failure of holographic jet quenching and success of pQCD energy loss in heavy ion collisions, talk presented at the CERN Heavy Ion Forum, CERN, July 2013.
e. Lecturer in the Particle Physics Winter School at the 58th Conference of the South African Institute of Physics, Richards Bay, July 2013.
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4 Key Performance Indicators
SA-CERN KEY PEFORMANCE INDICATORS FINANCIAL YEARS
COMMENTS 2012/13 2013/14
RESEARCH OUTPUTS
Number of peer review articles 183 110 publications attributed to articles, in preparation or to be formally peer reviewed, (150 in ATLAS) due to be published soon
Number of Research Reports 6 4
Number of Full Length Conference proceedings 21 15
HUMAN CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT
Number of students supervised- Doctoral 17 17
Number of students supervised- Masters 23 31
students increased by 15% greater participation, program more established and increased funding
Number of Post-Doctoral Fellows 9 11 Number of students completed - graduated- Doctorals 4 2 Number of students completed - graduated- Masters 2 9 Proportion of investment in HCD to total expenses 26% 28%
VISITS TO CERN Number of Visits - Students 14 13
Number of Visits - Post Doctoral Fellows 7 8 50% increase in students who completed degrees
Number of Visits - Researchers 26 36
INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE
Proportion of Investment in infrastructure total expenses 25% 26%
increased investment in both HCD and infrastructure due to increased funding allocated by the DST
CERN SPECIFIC KPIs
Number of shifts 596 886 shifts largely due to increased funding
SCIENCE ADVANCEMENT
Number of learners reached 12900 13010 50% increase in students who completed degrees
Number of teachers reached 1085 1096
Number of Public talks 34 35
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Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
5 Financial Situation
NOTES: During the first quarter of 2013/14 financial year DST approved a new three year funding contract for SA-CERN for (R27m). The MOA was signed in July 2013. An updated three year budget for (2013/14 to 2015/16) was subsequently submitted to the DST which outlined the project allocations.
The total income received in year, excluding rollovers, is R8,5m – The more than doubling of
Year on Year (y/y) funding supported the growth in the SA-CERN program during the previous
contract term. The current year carry forward funds (R1,9m) slightly higher than the previous year
is largely attributed to uncertainty with the finalisation of 2013/14 funding.
Operational expenses (R8,8m), including commitments, represents largely CERN Visits (R4.8m)
and CERN Fees (R2m). The y/y increase in expenses, which largely supported the significant
growth in both ATLAS and ALICE projects, directly translated into greater participation of Post-
Doctoral Fellows and Students at the CERN facility in Geneva, Switzerland. The increase in
CERN Fees relate to annual ATLAS Authorship fees paid in the prior year, will correct in
2014/15. In addition to the increased participation at CERN, the higher Subsistence and Travel
expenses was also negatively impacted by the weaker South African Rand (ZAR) currency. The
impact of the depreciated ZAR to the Swiss Franc is calculated at more than R1m, which limited
the achievement of planned outputs. A detailed motivation in this regard was submitted to the
DST.
The increase in computing and equipment expenses largely relate to the local infrastructure
upgrades at iThemba LABS for the ALICE and ISOLODE projects.
The reported increased surplus y/y is largely due to the delay in finalising the new contract with
the DST, finally approved in July 2014. The planned activities for April and May 2014 expunged
most of the surplus.
SA-CERN YEAR TO DATE INCOME AND EXPENSES 31 March 2014
LINE ITEMS
Actual - March 2012/13
Actual March
2013/14
Income R'000's R'000's
DST Grant 4 000 8 500
DST Once-off funding -
Carry Forward funds from prior year 1 541 1 951
Total Income 5 541 10 451
Expenditure R'000's R'000's
CERN Visits 1 930 3 489
Student Scholarships - -
National Meetings 136 168
Post-Doc 177 372
CERN Visitors in RSA - -
CERN Annual/Joining Fees 771 1 780
National Workshop and Seminars 59 155
Programme Manager 101 80
Computing and equipment 128 199
Administration costs 300 595
Commitments 1210 1 918
Total Expenses 4 920 8 757
Surplus/(Deficit) 741 1 694
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Annual Report 2013/14 – SA-CERN
List of acronyms ALICE A Large Ion Collider Experiment ASP African School of Physics ATLAS A Toroidal LHC Apparatus CERN Centre Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire DST Department of Science & Technology GeV Giga electron volt ISOLDE Isotope On-Line Detector JINR Joint Institute for Nuclear Research LHC Large Hadron Collider MTEF Medium Term Expenditure Framework MoU Memorandum of Understanding M.Sc Master of Science / Magister Scientiae Ph.D Doctor of Philosophy / Philosophiae Doctor UCT University of Cape Town UJ University of Johannesburg SCT SemiConductor Tracker TeV Tera electron volt TDAQ Trigger Data Acquisition UKZN University of Kwazulu-Natal WITS University of the Witwatersrand
