Prof Frank KraussInstitute for Particle Physics PhenomenologyDepartment of Physics
University of Durham
Office: OC 201 |
My research area is the phenomenology of particle physics - this is the branch of theoretical physics that bridges the gap between theorists who construct more abstract models for the fundamental interaction of the constituents of the matter in the Universe at the smallest distances, and the experimenters that search for and measure phenomena, for example at the LHC at CERN. Phenomenologists use these models, new and old, to make predictions for observables in experiments or to calculate quantities that allow the experimenters to interpret their data as measurements of fundamental quantities.
My role in this is the construction of a simulation tool that tries to describe the experimental reality in great detail. Tools such as the ones I work on are also called event generators, since they generate "events", the plethora of particles that are produced when particles smash into each other at large energies. In these relatively violent collision the large energies of the incident beam particles are translated into showers of elementary particles which hit the detector at velocities very close to the speed of light. Event generators are the workhorses of particle physics, and are deployed for a wide range of purposes: Their output -- the simulated events -- is utilised to better understand detector responses to the interaction with incident particles, to help in the planning of analyses by providing an understanding of interesting signals and their backgrounds, to subtract backgrounds from signals, and to compare the most precise calculations directly with data. To fulfil these functions, they must contain all relevant physics, from the highest energies of the order of a few TeV down to the relatively low scales of MeV that characterise hadron physics. Traditional methods of evaluating quantum field theories, based upon the perturbative expansion in coupling constants, cannot fulfil this, due to two limitations: The sheer number of outgoing particles leads to a computational complexity we cannot conquer yet, and many of the produced particles are hadrons, bound states of the fundamental quarks and gluons, which form the hadrons in a phase transition that we cannot yet describe in a quantitative way. These two problems are addressed in event generators by decomposing the simulation into different phases, characterised by vastly different energy scales. The event generator project I work on - now for more than 15 years - is called SHERPA. We are a team of about 10 people or so from 5 countries on two continents, who work on the development, maintenance, deployment and validation of our tool. To be more specific (and more for the specialists), here are my current research topics:
Motivated by the Covid-19 pandemic I developed some interest in the simulation of epidemics and how they spread through a population. Together with academic collegaues in Durham and at UCL, and with PhD students from the STFC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training I created the individual-based model JUNE. It has recently been published in R. Soc. Open Sci. 8 (2021): 210506.
| PhD | Career Path | Currently | Publications | |
| Parisa Gregg | Durham, 2022 | > | Publications | |
| Alan Price | Durham, 2020 | Postdoc at U Siegen, Germany | >Publications | |
| Robin Linten | Durham, 2018 | > | System Optics Engineer, Carl Zeiss, Germany | Publications |
| Daniele Napoletano | Durham, 2017 | Postdoc at U Paris, Jussieu | >Postdoc at U Milan-Bicocca | Publications |
| Silvan Kuttimalai | Durham, 2016 | Postdoc at SLAC | Research Physicist at 1QBit | Publications |
| Jennifer Thompson | Durham, 2013 | Postdocs at U and U Heidelberg, Germany | Data Scientist at Bosch | |
| Oliver Hall | Durham, 2013 | Private sector | ||
| Jennifer Archibald | Durham, 2011 | Associate | ||
| Marek Schoenherr | Dresden, 2012 | Postdocs at IPPP Durham, U Zurich, CERN | ||
| Frank Siegert (PhD 2010, Durham, postdoc at Freiburg, now Junior Research Group leader at TU Dresden, Germany) | ||||
| Stefan Hoeche (PhD 2008, Durham, postdocs at U Zurich, SLAC, now Staff Scientist at SLAC, Stanford, USA) | ||||
| Jan Winter (PhD 2008, Dresden, postdocs at Fermilab, CERN, MPI Munich, now at Michigan U, USA) | ||||
| Tanju Gleisberg (PhD 2008, Dresden, postdoc at SLAC, now private sector) | ||||
| Steffen Schumann (PhD 2007, Dresden, postdocs at Edinburgh, Heidelberg, now Professor at U Goettingen, Germany) | ||||
| Andreas Schaetrcke (PhD 2005, Dresden, postdocs at DESY-Zeuthen, Edinburgh, now private sector) | ||||
| Ralf Kuhn (PhD 2002, Dresden, now private sector) |