University of Tennessee Physics

Dr. Bill Bugg

Professor
Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1959

Office: 609 Science and Engineering Building
Phone: 865-974-7799 or 650-926-4898 (SLAC)
Fax: 865-974-7843
bugg@slac.stanford.edu

ELEMENTARY PARTICLE PHYSICS

SLD--This experiment involves the use of a large detector to study the production and decay of Z0 intermediate vector bosons in electron positron collisions at the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC). Tennessee constructed the original Luminosity Monitor-Small Angle Tagger for the SLD detector to measure the cross section for Z0 production. We recently completed and installed in SLD a new radiation-resistant quartz fiber calorimeter to measure the polarization of the electron beam from the Stanford Linear Collider. Precision measurement of this polarization facilitated the world's most precise single measurement of the Weinberg angle, a key parameter in the so-called "Standard Model," which successfully describes present day elementary particle physics of our physical world. The SLD experiment includes more than 120 physicists from 21 U.S. and 13 international universities and national laboratories.

BaBar is a large new detector under construction to measure CP violation in B0 decay at the PEP II asymetric electron-positron collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Tennessee has accepted responsibility for measuring detector backgrounds at the collider, prior to installation of the BaBar detector.

E-144--This experiment studies nonlinear quantum electrodynamics by measuring the Compton Scattering of an extremely intense laser beam by the 46 Gev electron beam of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Final Focus Test Facility. The intense electric fields seen by the electron at the laser focus provide the source of many previously unobserved phenomena such as multiphoton Compton Scattering and positron electron pair production in photon-photon scattering. Electric fields of this intensity are seen in nature only near the surface of neutron stars and perhaps in heavy nuclear collisions. In the fall of 1997, E144 gained a great deal of national and international attention for "turning light into matter." The experiment is a collaboration between the University of Tennessee, Princeton University, the University of Rochester and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Two major experiments utilizing neutron facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are under study to explore the fundamental properties of nature. One of these at the HFIR reactor would examine the question of barym instability by measuring the lifetime decay of neutrons. The other experiment would utilize the newly approved Neutron Spallation Source at ORNL to measure the oscillation of neutrons from peon decay with great precision.

Brief Vita

Professor William Bugg received his A.B. degree in physics in 1952 from Washington University in St. Louis and his Ph.D. in 1959 from the University of Tennessee, where he joined the faculty. From 1969 until 1996, he served as head of the Department of Physics before stepping down to resume full-time research and teaching. His research specialty is high energy physics and began with nuclear modifying emulsion and bubble chamber studies. Since 1974 he has been involved in the construction and operation of numerous large detector systems for experiments at Fermilab and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; including PWCs, drift chambers, Pb-Glass Cherenkov counters, scintillator hodoscopes, and calorimeters. His interest in silicon detectors for high energy physics experiments began in 1984, resulting in construction of precision silicon calorimeters for Luminosity Monitor/Small Angle Tagger for SLD, the first of large e+e- detectors to use this technique for luminosity measurement. He was an early proponent of silicon calorimetry for SSC/LHC use and participated in the development of radiation hard fast electronics for SSC calorimeters and has carried out research on radiation hardness of such devices. Dr. Bugg is a fellow of the American Physical Society and currently serves IEEE as vice president of the NPSS Administrative Committee and as a member of the Nuclear Instruments and Detectors Committee.

Selected Publications

  1. "Measurement of the Parity-Violating Paramenter Ab from the Left-Right Forward Backward Asymmetry of B Quark Production in Z0 Decays Using a Momentum-Weighted Track Charge Technique," (K. Abe et al.), Phys., Rev. Lett., 2890 (1995).
  2. "Search for Jet Handedness in Hadronic Z0 Decays," (K.Abe et al), Phys. Rev. Lett., 1512 (1995).
  3. "Measurement of &agr;smz2 from Hadronic Event Observables at the Z0 Resonance, (K. Abe et al), Phys. Rev., D, 92 (1995).
  4. "A Test of the Flavor Independence of Strong Interactions," (K. Abe et al.), Phys. Rev., D53, 2271-2275 (1996).
  5. "Measurments of R9B with Impact Parameters and Displaced Vertices," (K. Abeet al.), Phys. Rev. D53, 1023-1038 (1996).
  6. "Factorial and Cumulant Moments in e e- Annihilation," (K. Abe et al.), Phys. Lett. B371, 149 (1996).