课程详情

课题背景

原子理论是物理学与化学中有关物质本质的科学理论。与物质无限可分的概念相反,依据原子理论,物质是由一个个离散单元原子所构成。原子起初是自然哲学中的概念。西方对于原子的称呼来自于古希腊语的ατομος。而中文中,原子早前的译名“莫破”也来源于此。原子这一概念由于与基督教教义抵触一度被弃置,直到近代才被重拾。

课题内容

学生将分作两组来进行亚原子物理学论文的学习研究,包括讨论理论概念,实验方法和实验结果,并做出研究报告。研究报告结果以演讲的形式展现。同时教授会进行C++,root和科学数据分析法的基础授课,让学生有能力更好的进行研究。

导师信息

Gunther Roland

麻省理工学院物理系终身教授

(1)麻省理工学院重离子实验室主任

(2)麻省理工学院重离子研究组等7个研究小组CO-PI(联合领导人)

(3)人类近20年最大量子物理实验计划sPHENIX计划两位领导人之一

(4)MIT同行评测全球前三量子物理学家,兼任美国能源部布鲁克海文国家核物理实验室首席科学家

Atomic theory(Gunther M Roland)Referring materials:Textbooks:The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics (R. Cahn, G. Goldhaber)Subatomic Physics (E. Henley, A. Garcia)Introduction to High Energy Physics (D. Perkins)Review articles:Concepts of Heavy-Ion Physics (U. Heinz) https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0407360v1Quark-Gluon Matter (D. d'Enterria) https://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-ex/0611012Software:Any introduction to basic programming and C++ROOT analysis software (including tutorials etc) https://root.cern.chResearch method:Atomic theory, the notion that matter consists of indivisible smallest particles, datesback several thousand years. Only in the early 20th century technological, theoretical and experimental advances started to allow a systematic investigationof the nature of atomic and subatomic particles, leading to our current model of thefundamental interactions of nature - the Standard Model. In this course we willdiscuss the experimental foundations of our modern understanding of themicroscopic nature of matter. This will include basic concepts of particleaccelerators and particle detectors, as well as discussion of selected seminalexperiments in subatomic physics. Particular emphasis will be placed on thephenomenology of the strong interaction and the understanding of matter at thehighest densities and temperatures, the quark-gluon plasma. The lectures will becomplemented by student work related to two research proposals, with studentreports on original research papers and student analyses of open data provided byexperiments at the CERN LHC accelerator. The student work will be guided bylectures and discussion on scientific communication (papers and presentations)and principles of scientific data analysis. Research proposal one:In groups of two the students will prepare reports on original scientific papers thatadvanced our understanding of subatomic physics, including discussion oftheoretical concepts, experimental methods and main results. The reports will bepresented in short presentations. To guide the preparation of the presentations, lectures on scientific communication will be presented and example presentationswill be discussed. Research proposal two:In small groups the students will reproduce recent experimental analyses of datafrom the CERN LHC experiments, using publicly accessible open data and thepublic domain ROOT analysis framework. The work will be guided by introductorylectures on C++, ROOT and scientific data analysis, including the estimation ofstatistical and systematic uncertainties. The analysis results will be presented inshort papers, guided by lectures on written scientific communication.