Physics 564 - Introduction to Elementary Particle Physics

Dates: December 5^th and 7^th

Students will make a brief (12 minutes + questions) presentation in class of a particular aspect of modern particle physics. Here is a growing list of possible topics to consider. One good source of review articles is the Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science. Another good source of review articles is provided by SPIRES although their list is somewhat out of date in some cases. Suggest a topic yourself and I'll try to find a good review article on which you might base your presentation.

Suggested Topics:

Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 2005, 55:27-69	Neutron electric dipole moment
Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 2004, 54:141-174	The Brookhaven Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment Experiment
http://xxx.lanl.gov/	Determination of α_s/Tests of QCD
Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 2002, 52:115-151	Double Beta Decay
MiniBoone, LSND and KARMEN	ν_μ to ν_e oscillations ?!?
(http://xxx.lanl.gov)	Direct CP violation in B meson decays
Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 2003, 53:199-218	Observation of the Tau Neutrino
KTeV experiment	Direct CP violation in the K⁰ decays
DAΦNE/KLOE	Physics with φ mesons
(http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/)	Solar Neutrinos
(http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index_e.html)	Atmospheric neutrinos
(http://www-numi.fnal.gov/index.html)	NuMI/MINOS experiment: ν_μ disappearance experiment
(http://www.awa.tohoku.ac.jp/KamLAND)	KamLAND experiment: ν_e disappearance experiment
(http://neutrinooscillation.org/)	More neutrino results
Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 092001-1-5 (2005)	Proton structure
Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 2003, 53:301-351	Top-Quark Physics
	Precision measurements of m_t and m_W
	Precision tests of the Standard Model at LEP
Supersymmetry?	(This is potentially a big topic... choose carefully.)
Supersymmetry searches	Overview as of 2000
Supersymmetry searches	Overview as of 2002

Chosen topics

December 5^th

Person		Subject
Nicole Knust		Double beta decay
Lingyi Dong		Solar Neutrinos
Xiaobing Shi		Reactor Neutrinos
Dmitri Kondratyev		Tau Neutrino
Haichuan Cao		Direct CP violation

December 7^th

Person		Subject
Tong Zhao		Neutron Star Merger
Minxi Yang		Strong Coupling Constant
Jason Thieman		Top Quark
Amandeep Singh Bakshi		Strange Quark Content of the Proton

Here is Prof. John Conway's useful advice for giving effective presentations. The context is that of the CDF experiment, but you should be able to glean some general principles.