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Name

Krzysztof Piotrzkowski

Position

Former member
Member from September 2003 to October 2021

Teaching

LPHYS2221 Astrophysics and astroparticles
LPHYS2101 Analog and digital electronics
LPHYS2102 Detectors and sensors
LPHYS2336 Advanced experimental aspects of fundamental interactions
LPHY2360 Physique atomique, nucléaire et des radiations

People responsibilities

Former members

Mohammed El Amine Benaichouche (PhD student in IRMP)

Gustavo Gil Da Silveira (Postdoc in IRMP from February 2012 to March 2014)
Current position: Professor

Laurent Forthomme (PhD student in IRMP from September 2010 to April 2016)
Current position: Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki

Jonathan Hollar (Postdoc in IRMP)

Tomasz Pierzchala (Postdoc in IRMP from September 2004 to December 2008)

Maxime Renaud (PhD student in IRMP from September 2014 to September 2016)

Xavier Rouby (PhD student in IRMP from September 2002 to July 2010)
Current position: Founder & Director at Pfease (www.pfease.com)

Nicolas Schul (PhD student in IRMP from September 2006 to August 2011)
Current position: SWIFT - Capacity Planner

Thomas Van den Schrieck (Master student in IRMP)

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.

Working on photo-production tagging techniques, using very forward, near beam detectors at colliders. In particular, developing novel, ultra-fast Cerenkov detectors with picosecond resolution. Investigating possibility of new techques in ToF-PET. Has deep expertise in precise luminosity measurements at hadron colliders using QED processes.

Participating in the development of the next generation detectors of gravitational waves. Investigating physics with the proposed detectors - the Einstein Telescope and LISA.

Projects

Research directions:

Cosmology and General Relativity
Data analysis in HEP, astroparticle and GW experiments
Detector commissioning, operation and data processing
Phenomenology of elementary particles
Research and development of new detectors

Experiments and collaborations:

CMS
FP420
RD39
Virgo

Active projects

GasToF: ultra fast timing detector

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. Such a detector is essential for selecting exclusive and semi-exclusive processes at high luminosity, and can also be applied for the timing and particle ID at future experiments.

Investigate new techniques for ToF-PET.

External collaborators: CMS PPS project, M. Albrow (Fermilab), C. Royon (Kansas), J. Varela (Lisbon), and E. Schnys (Photonis) and J. Howorth (Photek Ltd).

High energy photon-induced interactions

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, first measurements of two-photon muon pair production were performed as well as first ever observation of W boson pairs produced by photon fusion. Now unique investigations of quartic couplings between photons and W and Z bosons are being pursued.

Surveying the scientific potential of the new e-ion collider at Brookhaven (EIC) and the future LHeC at CERN.

External collaborators: M. Klein (Liverpool), Y. Yamazaki (Tokyo), B. Surrow (Philadelphia) and the groups of M. Przybycien and J. Chwastowski (Krakow).

Non-active projects

Anomalous interactions between the photon and top quark

Jérôme de Favereau

We study the observation of single top quarks in photoproduction at the LHC as a way of detecting the presence of flavour changing neutral currents, predicted by some theories beyond the standard model.

Gravitational Wave Physics with Virgo

Giacomo Bruno, Antoine Depasse, Jan Govaerts, Jean-Marc Gérard, Vincent Lemaitre, Christophe Ringeval, 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.

Hector, the simulator

[link]

Jérôme de Favereau

Hector is a fast, multi-purpose simulator for the path of particles into beamlines.

It is build to be adaptative to any beamline and is already used by people from CMS (as a part of the official software) and ATLAS at the LHC and STAR at RHIC.

It is written in C++ and uses the ROOT framework to provide nice tools for analysis.

Results were cross-checked versus MAD-X, the official software used by the LHC machine group. It already allowed to obtain many estimations in terms of acceptance and resolutions of very forward detectors, as well as the effect of beamline misalignements and other related important topics related to forward detectors.

In collaboration with Xavier Rouby (Freiburg, D).

Precise luminosity measurement in CMS

Precise determination of the absolute luminosity is crucial for many measurements in CMS. The measurement of the exclusive two-photon production of muons pairs by CMS provides a powerful method to calibrate the integrated luminosity.

External collaborators: CMS forward physics analysis group, CMS luminosity group.

RD39

Cryogenic detectors development for very high radiation environment.

External collaborators: RD39 collaboration.

Publications in IRMP

All my publications on Inspire

Number of publications as IRMP member: 61
Last 5 publications

2022

CP3-22-03: An Experiment for Electron-Hadron Scattering at the LHC

Andr\'e, K. D. J. and others

[Abstract] [PDF] [Journal] [Dial]
approved by epjc
Refereed paper. January 17.

2021

CP3-21-52: New electroweak challenges and opportunities at the LHeC

Piotrzkowski, Krzysztof and Yamazaki, Yuji

[Abstract] [PDF]
5 pages and 2 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP2021), 26-30 July 2021
Contribution to proceedings. September 17.

CP3-21-37: Constraints on cosmic strings using data from the third Advanced LIGO-Virgo observing run