Paul Soler's Web Page

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Contact Details:

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
U. K.

• Office: Room 453, Kelvin Building
• Email: p.soler@physics.gla.ac.uk
• Telephone: +44 141 330 4153
• Fax: +44 141 330 5881
• Secretary: +44 141 330 4702 (Valerie Flood, room 477)

Teaching

I am a Reader in the Department of Physics and Astronomy . These are the courses I am currently teaching:

• Exploring the Cosmos 1: Solar System Part 1.
• Physics 1X*, Frontiers of Physics, The Large Hadron Collider
• Physics 306H, Elecromagnetism 1 (Part 2)
• Physics 304H, Quantum Mechanics (Part 2)
• Link to Physics and Astronomy Moodle site for information about course and lecture material
  
• Graduate course on "Neutrino Physics" for Particle Physics students ( course content ).
• Physics 3 small group supervision sessions

• Physics 1X*, Frontiers of Physics, Discovery of the Neutrino Mass (2003-2006).
• Physics 1X: Optics, Waves and Lasers, Part 2 (2000-2005).
• Physics 4: Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Systems (MSci), Part 1 (2005).
• Physics 3, Circuits and Systems (304) Part 1 (2000-2004).
• Graduate course on "CP Violations" for Particle Physics students (2001-2002).

Administration

• Physics and Astronomy Examinations Officer.
  
• Honours Projects Coordinator
  Working with the literature seminar
• Co-organiser of the 55th Scottish Universities Summer School for Physics (SUSSP55) that was held at St Andrews during 7-23 August 2001 with the theme: "Heavy Flavour Physics".
• Co-organiser of the 57th Scottish Universities Summer School for Physics (SUSSP57) held at St Andrews from 17-29 August 2003 and editor of the proceedings "Large Hadron Collider Phenomenology" (review in CERN Courier).

• Co-organiser of the 61st Scottish Universities Summer School for Physics (SUSSP61) to be held at St Andrews from 8-23 August 2006 with the theme: "Neutrinos".
  

Research

• LHCb

My main research activity is the LHCb experiment that is currently in its design and construction phase and will commence data taking at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland in 2007. The aim of the experiment is to measure differences in the decay of B-mesons (quark-antiquark states containing the beauty quark) with respect to their antiparticle partners. The mechanism that governs the difference between B and anti-B decays is called CP violation and is thought to be the mechanism that allowed matter to dominate over antimatter at an early stage in the formation of the universe. The Standard Model of particle physics has an explanation for CP violation, but the effect is too small to explain the large asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the universe. It is thought that there might be some new physics effect that might solve this puzzle. In the LHCb experiment we will test the internal consistency of the Standard Model theory of CP violation and, hopefully, discover new physics phenomena.

• LHCb at CERN.
• LHCb activities in Glasgow.
• Neutrino Physics

I also work in neutrino physics, having worked on the neutrino oscillation experiment NOMAD. There are three types of neutrinos that are known (electron-, muon- and tau- neutrinos). There is evidence that neutrinos can oscillate from one type to another. Neutrino oscillation is related to neutrino mixing and it is thought that CP violation can also be measured for neutrinos. To achieve this, one needs accelerators that can produce huge numbers of neutrinos. I participate in a programme of R&D to develop a neutrino factory some time in the future that would deliver beams of neutrinos of sufficient intensity to measure all the mixing parameters of neutrinos and, ultimately, discover CP violation in the neutrino sector. My activities in neutrino factory R&D include:

• HARP: an experiment to measure the yields of pions needed to produce the muons for the neutrino factory.
• MICE: an experiment to measure muon ionization cooling, the proposed method to cool beams of muons in a neutrino factory, to increase the luminosity of a neutrino factory. See also MICE at RAL.
• Neutrino Factory International Scoping Study Near Detector Group Convenor: requirements of a near detector at a future neutrino factory facility. See the International Scoping Study web page.
• Neutrino Factory International Design Study (Detectors and Instrumentation). See the International Design Study web page.

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Curriculum Vitae

• Paul Soler's CV.
• Publications from SPIRES database.

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Talks, posters

• RAL LHCb Poster for PPARC Council meeting (9 January 2002).
• RAL-University of Southampton seminar on "Physics Reach of LHCb Experiment" (26 April 2002).
• Proposal MICE (January 2003)
• LHCb Meetings held at Glasgow, 6-8 July 2004.
• IWORID workshop MAPMT poster.
• "LHCb: a dedicated CP violation experiment at the LHC", seminar Royal Holloway University of London, 13 April 2005.
• Document for Photodetector Test Facilities Production Readiness Review, 18-19 July 2005.
• RICH1 B-field poster for PPARC Council visit at CERN
• VELO poster for PPARC Council visit at CERN
• LHCb Hardware (PPGP visit)
• Bonn Seminar Neutrino Factory
• Neutrino Factory International Scoping Study Seminar
• International Scoping Study Report (Tar files version 26 Dec 2007, 5 Mb)
• International Scoping Study Report (PDF version 26 Dec 2007, 3 Mb)

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Personal

• Personal pages.

First written 23rd January 2001; last modified 23rd May 2008

Send comments about this page to p.soler@physics.gla.ac.uk