Our group has designed and built the only digital electromagnetic calorimeter, EPICAL-2, and has performed measurements with test beams. The prototype consists of tungsten absorbers and silicon sensors, with in total ≈25 million pixels of 30x30µm2. The energy resolution of this new technology is on par with the current state of the art, but its position resolution and two-shower separation should be orders of magnitude better. Work in this project will enable the use of this potential.
Your job The analysis of the data of this new detector prototype advances into uncharted territory in the physics of particle detection. While a conventional calorimeter provides a small number of signals (of the order of 5-10 real numbers) per measured high-energy particle, a digital calorimeter such as the EPICAL-2 yields a high-precision 3-dimensional spatial map of tens of thousands of pixel hits. The much higher information content will need completely new approaches for the efficient reconstruction of measurements. You will be a key person in understanding the working principle of the new technology, obtaining world-wide unique results on detector physics and developing the new algorithms. Your work will also include using a detailed Monte-Carlo simulation of the detector.
You will continuously work on the analysis together with a relatively small international group of researchers. Depending on the outcome of the analysis, you may set up another measurement at a test beam (e.g., at the CERN laboratory) with the prototype, which we have at hand. In this case, you will make yourselves familiar with modern FPGA technology. Furthermore, your work will contribute to the development process of such calorimeters in the wider context, via the CERN ALICE FoCal collaboration and the international Detector R&D collaboration on calorimeters (DRD6).
You will contribute to scientific publications on this project and will have the opportunity to present your results at international workshops and conferences. The scientific work in this project will be the topic of your PhD thesis at Utrecht University. The PhD will be done in the context of the
Graduate School for Natural Sciences at Utrecht University and of the Dutch National Research School in Particle Physics. Besides your research work, you will have duties as teaching assistant in university courses in the physics department for a small fraction of your time.