Contact
Name
Krzysztof Piotrzkowski

Position
Professor

Email
Centre for Cosmology, Particle Physics and Phenomenology - CP3
Université catholique de Louvain
2, Chemin du Cyclotron - Box L7.01.05
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium

Phone
+32 10 47 3244

Office
UCL member card
Teaching
PHY1311 Classical Electrodynamics (37.5 + 15 h)

PHY2372 Experimental Methods (35 + 12.5 h)

PHY2133 Physics of Elementary Particles II (30h)

PHY2360 Introduction to Radiation and Atomic and Nuclear Physics (22.5h)
People responsibilities
Former members
Research statement
Studying high-energy photon interactions at hadron colliders. In particular, interested by exclusive two-photon production of pairs of heavy charged particles at the LHC.

Working on novel tests of the gauge boson sector of the Standard Model and searches of physics beyond the SM as supersymmetry, for example. Involved also in studies of photoproduction of top quarks at the LHC.

Working on photo-production tagging techniques, using very forward, near beam detectors within the CMS High Precision Spectrometer project. In particular, developing novel, ultra-fast Cerenkov timing detectors with picosecond resolution.

Has expertise in precise luminosity measurements at colliders using QED processes, as the exclusive lepton pair production at the LHC.

Member of CMS and ZEUS collaborations.
Projects
Research directions:
Experiments and collaborations:
Active projects
GasToF: ultra fast timing detector
Krzysztof Piotrzkowski

GasToF (Gas Time-of-Flight) detector is a Cherenkov detector developed for very precise (with ~10 ps resolution) flight time measurements of very forward protons at the LHC. Such an excellent time resolution allows, using z-by-timing technique, for precise measurements of the event vertex z-coordinate and the background reduction. This detector is essential for selecting exclusive and semi-exclusive processes at the LHC, and can also be applied for the particle ID at future experiments.

External collaborators: CMS PPS project, M. Albrow (Fermilab), M. Khakzad (Tehran), J. Varela (Lisbon), and E. Schnys (Photonis) and J. Howorth (Photek Ltd).
Gravitational Wave Physics with Virgo
Diego Bardiaux, Giacomo Bruno, Jan Govaerts, Jean-Marc Gérard, Vincent Lemaitre, Krzysztof Piotrzkowski, Andres Tanasijczuk

In July 2018 CP3 members have joined the Virgo Collaboration at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) near Pisa in Italy. Virgo is the European laser interferometer for gravitational wave detection. After several years of instrument upgrades, Virgo went in observation mode in August 2017, about one year and half after the two LIGO interferometers in the US had detected for the first time gravitational waves. Virgo and LIGO work in close collaboration, sharing data, analysing data and publishing together. Fundamental research in gravitational wave experimental physics was funded for the first time in Belgium at the end of 2018 with a project led by UCLouvain and ULiege. On the data analysis side the plan is on one side to investigate the properties of binary black hole coalescence events, possibly relating them to theoretical models of dark matter and/or primordial black holes, and on the other to search for a stochastic gravitational wave background originating from the very early moments of the life of the Universe, a discovery that would be foundational for cosmology. On the instrumentation side, contributions to computing and the optical system of the Virgo interferometer are planned.
CP3 members are also actively supporting the Einstein Telescope project, a proposed underground laser interferometer project for gravitational wave detection that is expected to take over from LIGO and Virgo around 2030.
High energy photon induced interactions at the LHC
Krzysztof Piotrzkowski

High-energy photon-photon and photon-proton interactions at the LHC offer interesting possibilities for the study of the electroweak sector up to TeV scale and the search for processes beyond the Standard Model. After in-depth exploratory studies, we performed using the CMS data first measurement of two-photon muon pair production as well as first ever observation of W boson pairs produced by photon fusion. Now our group is leading unique investigations of quartic couplings between photons and W and Z bosons.

External collaborators: CMS FSQ analysis group and the group of A. Szczurek (Krakow).

Non-active projects
Publications in CP3
All my publications on Inspire

Number of publications as CP3 member: 39

Last 5 publications

2017

CP3-17-56: The Phase-2 Upgrade of the CMS Tracker
CMS collaboration

[Full text]
CERN-LHCC-2017-009 ; CMS-TDR-014
Refereed paper. December 13.

2016

CP3-16-13: Evidence for exclusive gamma-gamma to W+ W- production and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings at sqrt(s) = 7 and 8 TeV
Khachatryan, Vardan and others

[Abstract] [PDF] [Journal] [Dial]
Submitted to JHEP
Refereed paper. April 19.

2015

CP3-15-34: Evidence for exclusive gamma-gamma to W+ W- production and constraints on Anomalous Quartic Gauge Couplings at sqrt-s = 8 TeV
CMS collaboration

[Full text]
Public experimental note. October 3.

2014

CP3-14-62: Central $\mu^{+}\mu^{-}$ production via photon-photon fusion in proton-proton collisions with proton dissociation
Gustavo Gil da Silveira, Laurent Forthomme, Krzysztof Piotrzkowski, Wolfgang Sch\"afer, and Antoni Szczurek

[Abstract] [PDF] [Journal] [Dial]
26 pages, 40 figures, 2 tables, submitted to JHEP
Refereed paper. September 4.

2013

CP3-13-24: Study of exclusive two-photon production of $W^+W^-$ in pp collisions at $sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV and constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings
CMS Collaboration

[Abstract] [PDF] [Journal] [Dial] [Full text 1] [Full text 2]
Published in JHEP 07 (2013) 116 [FSQ-12-010]
Refereed paper. May 31.

More publications