Potential Student Projects

For Undergraduate and Masters students.

Updated October 2022

Skills

The work on these projects typically involves data analysis, computer software and algorithm development, and some hardware and electronics. Its okay if you are still developing these skills.

Also, there are some other skills and experience that I expect you will gain while doing research with us that go above and beyond particle physics. See this other web page that details some skills and experiences that you will gain.

Project: DUNE neutrino interaction model uncertainty studies

[Undergraduate and M.S. projects] There is a lot of scope and projects of different size. We are part of a team of about 10 who will implement neutrino interaction ucertainties in software for the DUNE neutrino oscillation experiment and then validate and apply them to different kinds of candidate analyses. Some of the uncertainties to be implemented are newly motivated and may be tricky to implement. Some implementations may be compared to existing data from MINERvA or even bubble chamber data. Of the many things happening on DUNE right now (which is still years away from taking data), this effort has a higher ratio of physics to technical and we forsee at least one publication from it. Significant amount of programming, touching some code written by theorists, likely some data analysis.

Project: MINERvA data fitting exercise

[M.S. project] MINERvA sparingly fits models to data and when we usually do it in a very targeted way that would be maximally informative. The danger is that inadequate uncertainties and model parameter construction lead to results that are ambiguous or worse. However, there has been enormous progress in expressing model freedoms (see the DUNE project above). In this project we will attempt to take a set of model parameters (again see the DUNE project above) and see if they give enough freedom to describe MINERvA data. Of interest is to use a Markov Chain strategy, rather than a gradient descent strategy to better highlight situations where two very different solutions may give reasonable results.

Project: Search for SRC in MINERvA

[Undergraduate or M.S. project] This picks off from a prior student project looking for evidence of highly correlated nucleon pairs in carbon nuclei using neutrinos. We know something about the short-range structure of nuclei, for example the recent article in Nature v.609, p41-45 (2022) by researchers at JLAB is the latest of studies that have been done with several nuclei. But no one has directly observed the equivalent effect in neutrino scattering off the same nuclei structure. Our experience working on this topic on MINERvA indicates it is a very challenging thing to observe and it might not work. So it might be the perfect project, no ? Previous students have applied a selection to MINERvA data that should be more likely to succeed than previous efforts, and we know more about what the real challenges are than we did before. This topic is all data analysis.

Project: energy in society

[Undergraduate project] A followon to a couple recent student projects, we are studying the economics and physical practicalities of installing an industrial size heat pump in the heading plant for the Duluth Downtown heating district. This would take in water from the lake, remove some energy from it and return it to the lake about 3C colder. That thermal energy would be transfered into the hot water loop that goes to downtown, making the water hotter. This is like a ground-source or air-source heat pump you might use at home, but on a larger scale. There are physics-rich topics relating to the quantitative economic modeling that utilize data from variable wholesale electricity price on the regional grid and to the thermal characteristics of the system both in the boiler and in the harbor. There may be additional regional or campus data-driven studies looking at other places where electrical energy (the local utilty is 50% renewable) is displacing fossil fuels, such as electric cars and home heating, depending what industry or campus partners might be interested. Could be a great project if you are also interest in business, economics, or public-policy.

Project: MINERvA measurement in Pb nuclei

[Undergraduate project] A Ph.D. student at another institution is following up on a project a UMD undergraduate started about five years ago. There are enough tasks in the scope of this project that some can be separated out to make an undergraduate project. There is a portion of the MINERvA detector (the Electromagnetic Calorimeter) where the material alternates between roughly equal parts lead and plastic. Our interest is to redo an analysis that worked exteremely well in the main part of MINERvA and also make it work in this part of the detector. The samples for analysis are now prepared and the Ph.D. student is moving to the actual analysis phase. In this stage of the effort, there are lots of details to look into. You would look into some and the Ph.D. student would work on the others.

Hardware and test beam projects

At the moment, I don't have any hardware, electronics, or test beam projects to offer. But as DUNE progresses into its construction and commissioning stage, they will appear. In some cases they opportunities may appear with little wrning. If this is an interest, please ask.

Funding

Depending on the situation and project, there is direct funding for RA, work-study funding, summer research, UROP funding, and scholarships available.

For potential Master's students

Several of the projects above have or lead to substantial, quality M.S. projects, as well as significant projects for advanced undergraduates. Students interested in continuing to a Ph.D. as well as students interested in completing the M.S. and pursuing a position in industry or technology will find excellent opportunities and experience. We can craft the specifics of each project to your goals.