> 2010 Summer Program of Scientific Internship for Italian Students

ISSNAF - INAF Borse di apprendistato scientifico in USA per studenti di Fisica e Astrofisica - Estate 2010

 

Gianluca Castignani (Fisica Teorica, University of Pisa and Scuola Normale Superiore)
Host Institution: Space Telescope Science Institute

Advisor: Marco Chiaberge. Astronomer, member of AWT (Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 Team) for the Hubble Space Telescope. Chiarberge’s research interests are related to the physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).

Francesca Calore (Fisica delle Interazioni Fondamentali, University of Torino)
Host Institution: Goddard Space Flight Center - NASA - Astrophysics Science Division

Advisor: Neil Gehrels - Astrophysics Science Division. NASA/GSFC ASD conducts a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, and fundamental physics. Individual investigations address issues such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy, which planets outside our solar system may harbor life, and the nature of space, time, and matter at the edges of black hole. Neil Gehrels is an experimental physicist working in gamma-ray astronomy who is active in instrument development and data analysis. His interests include gamma-ray bursts and supernovae. He is Principal Investigator for the Swift gamma-ray burst MIDEX.

ISSNAF - ASI Borse di apprendistato scientifico in USA per studenti di Fisica e Ingegneria - Estate 2010

 

Pietro Romano (Ingegneria Elettronica, University of Roma La Sapienza )
Host Institution: Goddard Space Flight Center - NASA - GEST Research. Group: Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes

Advisor: Mircea Grecu. His research interests include: rainfall estimation from space and ground observations, assimilation of satellite observations in atmospheric and hydrologic models and short term atmospheric and hydrologic forecasting. Dr. Grecu is currently involved in the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM) project in progress at the Mesoscale Atmospheric Processes Branch of NASA GSFC. His work is focused on the refinement and extension of algorithms for rain estimation from TRMM observations. Specifically, he investigates the combined use of active and passive microwave observations for rainfall estimation by employing radar and radiative transfer models in optimal estimation frameworks.

Marco Rajola (Ingegneria  Spaziale, University of Pisa)
Host Institution: Goddard Space Flight Center - NASA

Advisor: Paul Racette - GRSS PACE Rep. - NASA/GSFC. Dr. Paul Racette is a member of the senior technical staff at Goddard, an observation theorist whose research interests include the study and modeling of non-stationary processes, calibration methodologies and the role of consciousness in the evolution of the universe.

ISSNAF - Fondazione Rocca Borse di apprendistato scientifico in USA per studenti di Medicina, Biologia e Biotecnologie - Estate 2010

 

Maurizio Fazio (medical student at the University of Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milano)
Host Institution: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Advisor: Monica Fornier. Dr. Monica Fornier is a member of Faculty of the Breast Cancer Medicine Service of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center who specializes in the care of patients affected by breast carcinoma. Her  research focuses on developing new treatment schedules to improve the outcome of women with early-stage disease. Fornier collaborates with clinical and laboratory scientists to develop novel strategies for the treatment of metastatic disease.

ISSNAF - Amber Capital Borse di apprendistato scientifico in USA per studenti di Fisica, Chimica e Ingegneria - Estate 2010

 

Advisor: Alberto Salleo. The Salleo Research Group is interested in novel materials and processing techniques for large-area and flexible electronic/photonic devices as well as ultra-fast laser processing for electronics, photonics and biotechnology.

ISSNAF - INFN Borse di apprendistato scientifico in USA per studenti di Fisica, Informatica e Ingegneria - Estate 2010 / Summer program of scientific internship at Fermilab Students’ Training Programs.

 

Supervisor: Luciano Elementi, at the Fermilab Technical Division, working on the Mu2e experiment design -- the muon-to-electron conversion experiment (Mu2e) designed to search for the coherent, neutrino-less conversion of a muon to an electron, in the Coulomb field of a nucleus.

Training Plan: The Mu2e experiment design requires magnets built utilizing Permanent Ferrites.
Permanent Magnets are utilized for the purpose of beam steering when the beam is at a fixed energy, and have the advantage of avoiding power supply and heat generation.
We have an older, but fairly functional mechanism for measuring the relative strength of the residual field of individual Permanent Magnets Ferrites, but doubts about the absolute value [i.e. Gausses] of different size and different materials (e.g. Rare Earths Ferrites).
Andrea first goal is to understand the mechanism by which we measure the residual magnetism, therefore derive the absolute strength of the Ferrite Bricks measured.
Further analysis, through modeling, will help derive the field for different shapes and thicknesses.
As we continue with our work presently the system suffers from quantization noise, which may be improved by some convenient hardware addition, and we will like to understand the errors.

Supervisor: Patrick Lukens, working in the context of NOVA Project at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Training  Plan: During the summer of 2010, the Nova experiment will be installing and commissioning the first sections of the Near Detector in the new Near Detector Surface Building, located just south of the Minos Service Building.  The activities for this summer include the mechanical installation of the detector blocks, filling them with liquid scintillator, and installation of the full data acquisition and detector readout electronics.  The student will join this effort and will work with members of the Nova collaboration on the electronics installation. That will be the first time a large scale Nova detector will operate.  
In addition, there will be a large Nova mechanical prototype built in the summer of 2010.  This prototype will be instrumented with strain gauges and proximity sensors, for the purpose of providing information on the mechanical stability of the Nova Far Detector when it is loaded with scintillator. Depending on the advancement of this construction the student will collaborate in this effort as well. All together, working within the Nova team in summer 2010 will provide the student with direct experience with the development of an advanced particle physics detector.

Alessia Marruzzo (Fisica Teorica, University of Roma)

Supervisors: Eliana Gianfelice-Wendt and Yuri Alexahin - Muon Collider Task Force at Fermilab.

Training Plan: The Monte Carlo (MC) simulation program describing the radio frequency field in the accelerating cavities of the linear accelerator is at a stage where effects of beam-beam interaction,  stray fields, magnet misalignments and field errors must be considered.
In particular, the fringe field of the Interaction Region quadrupoles of the Muon Collider, where the lattice functions change strongly over the stray field length, are expected to have a large impact on beam dynamics.
Unlike the K.Oide (KEK) code, SAD, the code used so far at Fermilab for lattice design and particle tracking is not able to handle stray fields. Alessia`s task which should be possible to accomplish in a two months time period will be making SAD working at Fermilab, produce a SAD input file describing the Monte Carlo lattice, look at the effect of the stray fields and implement corrections.

Maria Giulia Collura (Ingegneria Elettronica, Politecnico di Torino)

Supervisors: Giovanni Pauletta and  Alvin Tollestrup, working on correlation between the voltage pickup within the 800 MHz cavity and the light measurements

Training Plan: Very high gradients RF cavities are needed for the muon collider.  The main difficulty has been that these cavities must operate in regions of very high magnetic fields.  The B field due to its focusing action on the field emitted electrons causes the available gradient to be greatly reduced compared to the no field case.  One possibility that is being investigated is to fill the cavity with very high pressure Hydrogen gas and this approach has been quite successful in our initial tests.  We have yet to test this arrangement with an intense beam of particles traversing the cavity, but that will take place shortly.  
We have had to understand a lot of classical physics in the process of developing the theory for breakdown in these cavities.  We also have a very sophisticated DAQ that measures the voltage in the cavity as well as light pickups and a spectrometer that measures the details of the discharge process.  One element that we lack right now is a tight correlation between the voltage pickup within the 800 MHz cavity and the light measurements.  We would like to be able to correlate these processes in time to better than a 1/10 of a cycle or 200-300 ps.  We need to develop a light pulser system that is simple to use that can tie the electrical measurements to that from the phototubes within the afore mentioned accuracy.  The choice of the source and construction of a system would be the goal of the student`s effort.

> Download "ISSNAF-INFN training programs.pdf"