Professor Peter N Ratoff
Professor / Head of Department
Room: B1 Physics Building
Tel: +44 (0)1524 593649
Fax: +44 (0)1524 844037
Email: p.ratoff@lancaster.ac.uk
Head of the Lancaster Particle Physics Research Group
Research Interests
I am currently working on the D-Zero experiment at Fermilab and on the T2K neutrino oscillations experiment in Japan. Previously, I was involved for many years in the design and construction of the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Prior to that I worked for nearly twenty years on a series of electron-positron annihilation experiments at centre of mass energies ranging from 3 Gev (CRYSTAL BALL at SLAC) to 46 GeV (TASSO at DESY) and finally to 200 GeV (DELPHI at LEP). My main physics interest during this period was the study of electroweak interactions. Whilst working on DELPHI I served as the Electroweak Physics coordinator and as a convenor of the Tau Physics team. I wrote my PhD thesis on deep inelastic neutrino scattering with the Gargamelle Bubble Chamber at CERN.
The D-Zero experiment is located at the Fermilab proton-antiproton collider, the Tevatron. Lancaster joined the experiment in the Spring of 1999 and we were involved in the upgrade of the detector for Run 2 of the machine, which began in March 2001. We have installed in Lancaster a powerful new computing facility for D-Zero event simulation and data analysis. This was funded through a JREI award from HEFCE. We are involved in various physics topics associated with b-quark production and have produced a substantial number of new measurements and observations including the first double-sided limit on Bs mixing. I am currently one of the co-conveners of the Tracking and Vertexing Algorithms group in D-Zero.
The ATLAS experiment is currently under construction and is scheduled to commence data taking at CERN's proton-proton collider, the LHC, in 2007. The Lancaster group are founder members of the experiment and we are collaborating with many other British and overseas groups in the construction of the Silicon tracker, the SCT. We are also involved in the preparations for physics, especially the simulation of B physics processes.
The T2K long-baseline neutrino oscillations experiment consists of a low energy neutrino beam produced at the Japanese Hadron Facility (JHF) in Tokai, a Near Detector (ND280m) located 280m from the origin of the beam and a Far Detector (SuperK) positioned 295Km downstream. The key goal of the experiment is to observe the appearance of electron type neutrinos in the muon neutrino beam and thereby measure one of the three neutrino mixing angles. The Lancaster group is taking responsibility for building the 6 ton Downstream Electromagnetic Calorimeter module.
A list of my conference/workshop talks, summer school lectures and seminars in the last few years can be found here.