COSM at Hampton University

Top: simulated graviton decay event in ATLAS TRT Barrel;
bottom: Hampton graduate student Alex Harvey working on TRT installation

COSM is a National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center in particle and nuclear physics. The Center is a partnership between Hampton University, Norfolk State University, and North Carolina A&T State University.

First beam at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

On the morning of Wednesday September 10th, 2008, at 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, The LHC team began to steer a beam around the entire 17-mile ring of the LHC. This is like trying out a new bowling alley to see if it is straight and level, except that this alley is 17 miles long and one-and-a-half inches wide. The bowling balls (protons) travel at nearly at the speed of light, and are guided by magnetic fields.

This first test did not produce new physics. The energy of the beams was 450 GeV, only half the energy of a machine that has been colliding beams of 980 GeV for many years - the Fermilab TeVatron. To see a report, go to the First Beam website.

It was planned to test the LHC with beams accelerated to 5000 GeV (5 TeV) before the end of the year, and possibly have 5 on 5 TeV collisions. Unfortunately, a malfunction on September 19th damaged some magnets and necessitated a shut down for repairs.

Details of the malfunction can be found at the CERN press release web page.

The Center's areas of activity are:

The energy frontier in particle physics with the ATLAS experiment at the CERN LHC, where an unprecedented energy of 14 TeV (seven times higher than that at any existing laboratory) will open a new window to exciting discoveries about the nature of space, time, and matter.
The precision frontier in intermediate-energy nuclear and particle physics, currently with the Primex and HKS experiments, using the unmatched precision of the machines at Jefferson Lab.
Using state-of-the-art computing techniques in support of research, including grid computing
For education and outreach, the Center's approach is that doing forefront science will attract capable minority students to a career in science. The Center allows students at HBCUs to see science being done, and encourages them to become involved. At the high-school level, the QuarkNet program achieves the same goal.

COSM also supports a variety of other outreach efforts,r including the Virtual QuarkNet Center and LHC online and the U.S. version of the EPPOG Masterclass". The Virtual QN website includes a blog on particle physics by high-school students.

Center Director: Prof. Kenneth W. McFarlane, Physics Department, Hampton University

Center for the study of the Origin and Structure of Matter

First beam at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)