Undergraduate Student Research Positions with the ATLAS Toronto Group in 2021

Project topics and potential supervisors include:

• Physics Studies for ATLAS:

  
  Simulation of physics events in the ATLAS detector and development of data selection and analysis techniques for specific physics channels. The LHC has been colliding protons at 13 TeV since 2015 and the group is involved in analysis of channels including multiple W and Z bosons, top quarks and Higgs bosons. There will be opportunities to look at some of the very newest data. Who knows, perhaps we will make a discovery this summer!
  
  Contact: Peter Krieger, Bob Orr, Pekka Sinervo, Pierre Savard or Richard Teuscher

• Inner Tracker Upgrade Sensor and Readout Electronics R&D:

  

  The ATLAS experiment is replacing its inner detector with a new Inner Tracker (ITk), with the new device in place by 2026. The collision intensity and radiation background will mean that both the particle sensors and their associated readout electronics must be more radiation-tolerant and run at much higher data transfer speeds. In Toronto we will be building prototype silicon sensor assemblies in association with Celestica, a company specializing in the fabrication of high-density electronics. As part of this project we will be testing and characterizing miniature silicon sensors that have been irradiated in a reactor. This is to simulate how the real sensors will behave after being exposed to radiation from the LHC beams. We use a probe station, a Strontium-90 source, and a laser system at low temperature to study the sensors. One, or more, students involved with this project will help to modify our sensor testing setup, take data with the miniature sensors, and help to understand the interesting physics of these devices. There is plenty of scope for electronics, hardware, software and most of all, thinking. All in the environment of a small self-contained experiment. The picture opposite shows one of our first complete silicon sensor modules, with its associated readout chips.
  
  Contact: Bob Orr or William Trischuk

  At CERN a student with, for example, an IPP summer fellowship or participating in the project through the Woodsworth Science Abroad program, will be able to join our efforts in understanding how the prototype ITk readout electronics responds to neutron and ionizing radiation dosage. This work will use intense radioactive sources. We will be focusing on tests of the ``production'' versions of the readout chip, the so-called ABCStar.
  
  Contact: Richard Teuscher or Pekka Sinervo
  

  The ATLAS Toronto group is also involved in the development of a simulation of the ITk detector, and studies of its performance. The ITk will have to function in an environment where the LHC beams will create up to 200 collisions at one time. We will be working to better understand and improve the simulation software the ATLAS collaboration has developed to model and predict the performance of the tracking system.
  
  Contact: Pekka Sinervo