Professor Peter R Hobson
I am active in particle physics, grid computing and holographic
research. You can find a brief outline of my professional
career in my CV.
A number of my publications
are available in full-text from the
BURA archive.
My Inaugural Lecture took place on Monday 26 February 2007, you
can view a video of it at
this location.
Research
High Energy Particle Physics
I am the Group Leader of the STFC funded HEP group at Brunel University
Currently I am involved in the High Energy Particle Physics experiment
CMS
, which was completed in 2008 and is located at CERN, Geneva,
Switzerland.
CMS
The CMS
experiment
is a general purpose detector designed to operate at the proposed Large
Hadron Collider (LHC). The detector has been optimised to search for
the
predicted, but as yet undiscovered, Higgs boson over a wide mass range.
My current interest is in studying the anomalous couplings of the W and
Z bosons using the CMS detector. I was one of the convenors of the
Electro-weak
working group of the LHC
Standard Model workshop
which was held at CERN during 1999. The proceedings
were published as a CERN Yellow Report
(CERN 2000-004). I worked with other CMS
colleagues
on a fully simulated Monte Carlo analysis of anomalous
couplings
which was pulished in 2006 as part of the Physics TDR Volume II.
I am also involved, with groups at Bristol,
Imperial
College and RAL
in the development
of the endcap electromagnetic calorimeter. This is based on the dense,
fast, crystalline scintillator lead tungstate. At Brunel we
evaluated
new, fast vacuum photo-triodes which are operated in the full
magnetic
field of CMS (3.8T).
Glasses
I also helped to develop a new class of dense, radiation-resistant
fast
scintillators based on cerium doped fluoro-hafnate glasses. This work
was
carried out with RAL,
Sheffield
University Department of Engineering Materials and Johnson
Matthey. As part of the CMS project we evaluated
the radiation
resistance of a number of glasses one of which is now used as the
faceplate
of
the CMS vacuum photodetectors in a high radiation environment.
Holographic Metrology
I have studied the detailed properties of in-line Fraunhofer holograms
images both theoretically and experimentally since 1981. I
have been a Principal Investigator on an NERC funded
interdisciplinary research project to look at the feasibility of
holographic recording of marine and freshwater plankton.In October 1997 we extended this
research area with funding from the EU (HOLOMAR
Collaboration under the MAST-III programme). In the HOLOMAR
collaboration (Aberdeen, Brunel, Genova, HOLO3, Quantel, Southampton
Oceanography Centre and Udine) we designed, constructed and
tested a
complete submersible holographic plankton camera and replay system. At
Brunel we built a precision hologram replay facility using a powerful
blue-violet HeCd laser. Have a look at the public
HOLOMAR pages for more information on this exciting
interdisciplinary project.
GRID Computing
I am a member of the GRIDPP collaboration which has set up
a production computing GRID specifically for computing tasks relating to high
energy physics experiments. From September 2005 I
led the Brunel Iniversity contributions to a 3 year EU FP6 funded Grid
project "GRIDCC". This project aims to extend the concepts of Grid
computing to include the real-time control and monitoring of
"instruments". To find out more, have a look at the GRIDCC web site.
Teaching
I contribute to the London Postgraduate Course for first
year Particle Physics PhD students. In 2008 I am giving lectures on
particle detectors. They are available from this site:
Administration
I am Deputy Head of School (Undergraduate Studies), chair of LSUG and chair of IRLCA. I am the Deputy Chair of the
University Research Ethics Committee and Chair of my School Ethics Committee. I was
elected chair of the Senior Common Room in 2002.
Last reviewed on 2 December 2008. This page is maintained by
ProfessorPeter R. Hobson
EMAIL: peter.hobson@brunel.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 1895 266885/266799
Fax: +44 (0) 1895 272391
Brunel University
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