Aran Garcia-Bellido receives prestigious DOE award

Aran Garcia-Bellido

More thorough analyses of the large amount of existing particle-collision data from the Tevatron and LHC have potential to reveal new physics beyond the Standard Model, and Aran Garcia-Bellido hopes to be a key player in making these discoveries.

Garcia-Bellido, assistant professor at the University of Rochester and collaborator on the DZero and CMS experiments, is a recipient of the DOE Early Career Research Award for his research proposal titled, "Precision physics and searches with top and bottom quark." The financial award will provide five years of funding to support the work.

Garcia-Bellido will mine data from the Tevatron and the LHC to better understand the processes by which high-mass particles decay into the particles that are ultimately detected in DZero and CMS. He hopes his work may also lead to the discovery of previously unknown heavy particles.

The motivation of this work is to glean as much information as possible from the existing particle collision data sets to ensure that no stone is left unturned regarding potential discoveries that can be made about top and bottom quark interactions.

Garcia-Bellido will also work on an upgrade to the electronics at the hadronic calorimeter at CMS to improve signal readout.

"All of this work stems from the experiences I have had at DZero and CMS," said Garcia-Bellido, who is thankful for the opportunities he has had to work on experiments at Fermilab since his days as a postdoc.

"I was really very proud and excited for being given the opportunity to carry out this research," Garcia-Bellido said.

— Christine Herman