Ayana T. Arce, Assistant Professor  

Ayana T. Arce

Office Location: 269 Physics
Office Phone: 919-684-1723
Email Address: atarce@phy.duke.edu

Specialties:
Experimental high energy physics

Research Categories: Experimental elementary particle physics

Current projects: Searches for top quarks produced in massive particle decays, Jet substructure observable reconstruction, ATLAS detector simulation software framework

Research Description: Hadron colliders are attempting to produce evidence of phenomena beyond the "Standard Model" of particle physics, which is our current, best description of how fundamental particles interact. This description works very well for collider experiments, but is known to be incomplete: it doesn't explain neutrino masses and mixings, it cannot account for dark matter, and it doesn't treat gravity or the accelerating expansion of the universe. The observation of particle interactions that the Standard Model cannot explain would help us build up a better theory that accounts for these striking phenomena. In my research I concentrate on better understanding what takes place in hadron collider events with complicated final state topologies, like the production and decay of top quarks. In these events, I am looking for any hint of non-Standard Model interactions. My current studies use the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and consequently, many of my recent research activities also support the broader experimental program of ATLAS.

Typical Courses Taught:

  • Physics 181, Intermediate mechanics
  • Physics 53lr, General physics i (rec)

Recent Publications

  1. ATLAS Collaboration, Search for a heavy top-quark partner in final states with two leptons with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, JHEP, vol. 1211 (Accepted, 2012), pp. 094 [doi]  [abs].
  2. ATLAS Collaboration, Search for light top squark pair production in final states with leptons and b-jets with the ATLAS detector in sqrt(s) = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions, Physics Letters B (Submitted, 2012) .
  3. ATLAS Collaboration (G. Aad et al)., Inclusive search for same-sign dilepton signatures in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector., JHEP (Aug 2011), vol. 10 (August, 2011)  [abs].
  4. ATLAS Collaboration, Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV, Eur. Phys. J. C, vol. 71 (2011), pp. 1577 .
  5. with The ATLAS Collaboration, ``Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment, Detector, Trigger and Physics.'' (2009), CERN [0901.0512v4] .

Current Ph.D. Students  

Selected Invited Lectures

  1. The ATLAS Experiment: Status and Prospects, October, 2010, SEAPS (Baton Rouge)    
  2. Prospects for New Physics at the LHC, February, 2010, APS (Washington)