Grant: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Major Resources Support Program

This grant application is to fund a technical team which provides computer and technical support at Carleton University for research in particle physics. This team consists of a designer, an electronics specialist, a technician and a software and grid computing expert. This team of people has many years of experience in designing, building and installing detectors for particle physics experiments and in providing computer support for simulation and data analysis. Highlights of these activities include apparatus built for experiments at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory in Geneva and components for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) located in the INCO Creighton Mine in Sudbury, Ontario. For CERN, the group built detectors to locate and measure particle tracks with high precision and very dense detectors to absorb and measure the total energy of high energy particles. For SNO, the group designed and built water purification systems for both the light and heavy water used to study neutrinos coming from the sun. These water systems reduced the contamination in both kinds of water to levels never before achieved. The proposed activities of the group for the tenure of the MRS grant is to assist in the design and development of innovative detectors for the newly funded SNOLAB (also located in Sudbury) and future international accelerators. SNOLAB experiments will explore more deeply the properties of the elusive neutrino and look for ""dark matter particles"" that appear to dominate the material of the universe. Detectors will be developed for future accelerators including the International Linear Collider (ILC) which will be a precision machine at the energy frontier and an upgraded particle collider at CERN. Detector work for the ILC is targeted to produce a complete experiment design by 2010. The technical group will also be supporting simulation and data analysis for Carleton's experimental program through hardware and software developments and the establishment of the infra-structure for distributed grid computing.