Physics Undergraduate Honours Thesis Public Presentations
Mon. Apr. 1 01:00 PM
- Mon. Apr. 1 04:00 PM
Location: 2M70
Physics Honours Thesis Public Presentations
This year we have two undergraduate students who will be giving their honours thesis public presentations, Andrew Sikora and Junyao Pu. Each talk will be approximately 20 minutes in length regarding their research, followed by 5 minutes of questions from the audience. All members of the department and students are welcome to attend. Light snacks and refreshments will be available.
Andrew Sikora
Aerogel Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector for Pion and Kaon Particle Identification
After the discovery of neutrino oscillations and the subsequent Nobel Prize being awarded to Dr. Art McDonald and Dr. Takaaki Kajita for that discovery, the area of neutrino physics continued to be actively studied by particle physicists. In order to increase the precision on measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters, the uncertainty in the initial neutrino flux must be reduced. The Experiment to Measure Proton Hadron at a Test facility In Chicagoland (EMPHATIC) that will be located at Fermilab is being planned to measure pion and kaon production by high energy (5-120 GeV) proton beams. The key to understanding neutrino fluxes is to understand how many particles (pions and kaons) which decay into neutrinos are produced. A type of detector called a Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) can be used for particle identification. When a particle travels though a medium at faster than the speed of light in that medium it will emit a cone of Cherenkov radiation. The opening angle of the cone, and number of Cherenkov photons produced dependents on the speed of the particle that produced it. If one can measure this opening angle, then particle speed is determined, and along with information about the particle momentum, particle identification is possible. The last seven months have been spent developing a simulation for such a RICH detector using aerogel (the world's lightest material) as the Cherenkov radiator. The purpose of this simulation is to determine the feasibility of building such a detector and to develop the required analysis software needed for particle identification.
Junyao Pu
An Improved Monte Carlo Simulator for Optical Coherence Tomography
Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a high-resolution imaging technology with an increasing number of applications in medicine. A fast and accurate simulator could help us to understand the fundamental principles of OCT and improve the OCT system performance. In this project, I am implementing an improved sequential Monte Carlo method on a current OCT simulator. The improved method will allow us to simulate the OCT signal faster and more accurate. I will present the core idea of our improved method and some sample result from our improved simulator.