Nuclear and Particle Physics at Valpo: Summer 2026

Faculty Sponsor

Adam Gibson-Even

College

College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)

Department/Program

Physics and Astronomy

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Symposium Date

Summer 7-22-2026

Abstract

Nuclear Physics students and faculty at Valparaiso University worked on three experiments: the STAR experiment, the ePIC experiment, and the nEDM experiment. One of STAR’s goals is understanding the gluon’s contribution to the proton’s overall spin of ½ ħ. At the STAR experiment, polarized proton collisions, provided by the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), produce numerous neutral pions (𝜋0) that promptly decay into two photons. The photon energies are measured by the Endcap Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EEMC) and used to reconstruct the 𝜋0 invariant mass. Our work supports 𝜋0 spin asymmetry analysis by investigating systematic uncertainties through alternate background modeling of 2013 data and Quality Assurance (QA) on the 2015 data set. Ahead of BNL’s transition from RHIC to EIC (Electron-Ion Collider), the EIC’s first detector, ePIC, had six hadronic calorimeter modules tested at a CERN test beam in May. Using this data, we have been performing HGCROC waveform analysis and analyzing the effects of changing preamplifier settings. The neutron Electric Dipole (nEDM) experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory is designed to search for the nEDM at the level of 10-27 e*cm. The precession frequency of neutrons in a weak magnetic field and a strong electric field are extremely sensitive to even the smallest stray magnetic fields, especially very tiny magnetic dipoles in the detector components. A process involving precise magnetic scanning, sonic cleaning, and magnetic characterization of the parts going into the MSR will be presented.

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