BU faculty and students integral to Fermilab discovery

December 18, 2006

On Friday, December 8, the D0 Collaboration announced the first evidence that top quarks are produced not only in top-antitop quark pairs through the strong interaction but also as single top quarks and antiquarks through the electroweak interaction.

Boston University had a significant role in this result with Prof. Ulrich Heintz co-leading the top quark physics analysis group and Prof. Meenakshi Narain, postdoc Shabnam Jabeen and graduate student Monica Pangilinan directly contributing to the analysis.

“Observing a few single top quarks in a sea of billions of particle collisions represents an extraordinary technical tour de force,” said Dr. Robin Staffin, Associate Director for High Energy Physics in DOE’s Office of Science. “The power and sophistication of experimental analysis techniques like those developed by the DZero experimenters augur well for exciting discoveries to come.”

You can find more information in the Fermilab press release: fnal.gov

And in the slides from Friday’s seminar: fnal.gov

—
Bennett