James Pinfold

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James Lewis Pinfold ARCS FRSC (born 1950 in Ealing, West London) is a British-Canadian physicist, specializing in particle physics.

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Education and career

Pinfold graduated in physics in 1972 with a B.Sc. from Imperial College London and in 1977 with a Ph.D. from the University of London. His Ph.D. thesis was on weak neutral currents, stemming from his work as part of the Gargamelle discovery team. From 1977 to 1989 he held research assistant and senior research assistant positions at CERN (near Geneva) and Fermilab (near Chicago). From 1989 to 1992 he was an associate professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science. At the University of Alberta, he was from 1992 to 1996 an associate professor and from 1996 to 2016 a full professor, and he is since 2016 a distinguished university professor. From 1995 to 2004 he was the University of Alberta's Centre for Subatomic Research [1] (renamed in 2006 the Centre for Particle Physics). [2] Since 2005 he has held a visiting professorship at King's College London. [1] He frequently travels back and forth between the University of Alberta and CERN in Geneva. [3] He is the author or co-author of over 1250 citable publications and has given over 220 invited talks. [1]

Pinfold was from 1988 to 1989 the spokesperson for CERN's WA88 experiment. From 1987 to 1992 he was the spokesperson for the MODAL experiment at CERN's Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP). [1] He was one of the founders in the 1990s of the ATLAS experiment involved in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) discovery of the Higgs boson. [4] From 2000 to 2002 he was the deputy spokesperson for ATLAS-Canada. Since 2000 he is the leader and spokesperson for the MoEDAL experiment. [1] [3] From 2004 to 2010 he was the deputy co-spokesperson for the SLIM experiment. [1] [5]

In 2007, he won an award from ASTech (Alberta Science & Technology Leadership Foundation) for his leadership in starting the Alberta Large-area Time-coincidence Array, or ALTA, Project. This educational and research project "involves spreading out many cosmic-ray detectors over vast areas, connecting them through the Internet, and synchronising their readings with an integrated GPS system. Most of the detectors are run by high school students". [6] In 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). [7] In 2018 he received the Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Prize. [4]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CERN</span> European research centre based in Geneva, Switzerland

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Geneva, on the France–Switzerland border. It comprises 23 member states. Israel, admitted in 2013, is the only non-European full member. CERN is an official United Nations General Assembly observer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnetic monopole</span> Hypothetical particle with one magnetic pole

In particle physics, a magnetic monopole is a hypothetical elementary particle that is an isolated magnet with only one magnetic pole. A magnetic monopole would have a net north or south "magnetic charge". Modern interest in the concept stems from particle theories, notably the grand unified and superstring theories, which predict their existence. The known elementary particles that have electric charge are electric monopoles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Large Hadron Collider</span> Particle accelerator at CERN, Switzerland

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundreds of universities and laboratories, as well as more than 100 countries. It lies in a tunnel 27 kilometres (17 mi) in circumference and as deep as 175 metres (574 ft) beneath the France–Switzerland border near Geneva.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ATLAS experiment</span> CERN LHC experiment

ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland. The experiment is designed to take advantage of the unprecedented energy available at the LHC and observe phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not observable using earlier lower-energy accelerators. ATLAS was one of the two LHC experiments involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012. It was also designed to search for evidence of theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CERN Axion Solar Telescope</span> Experiment in astroparticle physics, sited at CERN in Switzerland

The CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) is an experiment in astroparticle physics to search for axions originating from the Sun. The experiment, sited at CERN in Switzerland, was commissioned in 1999 and came online in 2002 with the first data-taking run starting in May 2003. The successful detection of solar axions would constitute a major discovery in particle physics, and would also open up a brand new window on the astrophysics of the solar core.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LHCb experiment</span> Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TOTEM experiment</span>

The TOTEM experiment is one of the nine detector experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. The other eight are: ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, LHCb, LHCf, MoEDAL, FASER and SND@LHC. It shares an interaction point with CMS. The detector aims at measurement of total cross section, elastic scattering, and diffraction processes. The primary instrument of the detector is referred to as a Roman pot. In December 2020, the D0 and TOTEM Collaborations made public the odderon discovery based on a purely data driven approach in a CERN and Fermilab approved preprint that was later published in Physical Review Letters. In this experimental observation, the TOTEM proton-proton data in the region of the diffractive minimum and maximum was extrapolated from 13, 8, 7 and 2.76 TeV to 1.96 TeV and compared this to D0 data at 1.96 TeV in the same t-range giving an odderon significance of 3.4 σ. When combined with TOTEM experimental data at 13 TeV at small scattering angles providing an odderon significance of 3.4 - 4.6 σ, the combination resulted in an odderon significance of at least 5.2 σ.

The Roman pot is the name of a technique used in accelerator physics. Named after its implementation by the CERN-Rome collaboration in the early 1970s, it is an important tool to measure the total cross section of two particle beams in a collider. They are called pots because the detectors are housed in cylindrical vessels. The first generation of Roman pots was purpose-built by the CERN Central Workshops and used in the measurement of the total cross-section of proton-proton inter-actions in the ISR.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">LHCf experiment</span>

The LHCf is a special-purpose Large Hadron Collider experiment for astroparticle physics, and one of nine detectors in the LHC accelerator at CERN. LHCf is designed to study the particles generated in the forward region of collisions, those almost directly in line with the colliding proton beams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quark–gluon plasma</span> Phase of quantum chromodynamics (QCD)

Quark–gluon plasma is an interacting localized assembly of quarks and gluons at thermal and chemical (abundance) equilibrium. The word plasma signals that free color charges are allowed. In a 1987 summary, Léon van Hove pointed out the equivalence of the three terms: quark gluon plasma, quark matter and a new state of matter. Since the temperature is above the Hagedorn temperature—and thus above the scale of light u,d-quark mass—the pressure exhibits the relativistic Stefan-Boltzmann format governed by temperature to the fourth power and many practically massless quark and gluon constituents. It can be said that QGP emerges to be the new phase of strongly interacting matter which manifests its physical properties in terms of nearly free dynamics of practically massless gluons and quarks. Both quarks and gluons must be present in conditions near chemical (yield) equilibrium with their colour charge open for a new state of matter to be referred to as QGP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marek Gazdzicki</span> Polish physicist

Marek Gaździcki is a Polish high-energy nuclear physicist, and the initiator and spokesperson of the NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MoEDAL experiment</span>

MoEDAL is a particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Wyatt</span> British scientist

Terence Richard Wyatt is a Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, UK.

Stephanie A. Majewski is an American physicist at the University of Oregon (UO) researching high energy particle physics at the CERN ATLAS experiment. She worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Brookhaven National Laboratory prior to joining the faculty at UO in 2012. She was selected for the Early Career Research Program award of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), one of 35 scientists in all DOE-supported fields to receive this national honor in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Butterworth</span> Professor of Physics at University College London

Jonathan Mark Butterworth is a Professor of Physics at University College London (UCL) working on the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). His popular science book Smashing Physics, which tells the story of the search for the Higgs boson, was published in 2014 and his newspaper column / blog Life and Physics is published by The Guardian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FASER experiment</span> 2022 particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN

FASER is one of the nine particle physics experiments in 2022 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It is designed to both search for new light and weakly coupled elementary particles, and to detect and study the interactions of high-energy collider neutrinos. In 2023, FASER reported the first observation of collider neutrinos.

Stable massive particles (SMPs) are hypothetical particles that are long-lived and have appreciable mass. The precise definition varies depending on the different experimental or observational searches. SMPs may be defined as being at least as massive as electrons, and not decaying during its passage through a detector. They can be neutral or charged or carry a fractional charge, and interact with matter through gravitational force, strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force or any unknown force.

David M. Strom is an experimental high energy particle physicist on the faculty of the University of Oregon.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "James Pinfold, PhD, FRSC". University of Alberta, Directory. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  2. "Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute". University of Alberta. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  3. 1 2 Sarkonak, Jamie (6 October 2015). "Decorated physics prof seeks to answer "the big questions"". The Gateway: The University of Alberta's Official Student Newspaper. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  4. 1 2 Brown, Michael (9 May 2018). "Relentless quest to solve universe's puzzles lands U of A physicist major Killam Prize". University of Alberta. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  5. Balestra, S.; Cecchini, S.; Fabbri, F.; Giacomelli, G.; Giacomelli, R.; Giorgini, M.; Kumar, A.; Manzoor, S.; McDonald, J.; Margiotta, A.; Medinaceli, E.; Nogales, J.; Patrizii, L.; Popa, V.; Quereshi, I.; Saavedra, O.; Sher, G.; Shahzad, M.; Spurio, M.; Ticona, R.; Togo, V.; Velarde, A.; Zanini, A. (2006). "Rare Particle Searches with the high altitude SLIM experiment". arXiv: hep-ex/0602036 .
  6. Chowdhury, Jeeshan. "The ALTA Project, Dr. James Pinfold, U Of A; 2007 Winner: ASTech Award for Excellence In Science And Technology Public Awareness". ASTech Foundation. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  7. "Four UAlberta faculty members named to Royal Society". University of Alberta. 6 September 2013. Retrieved 6 October 2022.