University of Tennessee Physics

Dr. Thomas Handler

Professor
Ph.D., Rutgers University, 1975

Office: 213 Science and Engineering Building
Phone: 865-974-7820
Fax: 865-974-7843
thandler@utk.edu
Web Site: http://utkhep.phys.utk.edu/~th

ELEMENTARY PARTICLE PHYSICS

Photoproduction of Meson States

My main area of research in elementary particle physics has been in the study of the meson resonance states that exist between mass limits of 1.0 and 5.0 GeV.

The study of these states can often be complicated because of their production mechanisms. To avoid such complications I, along with George Condo, have studied these states as produced in photoproduction experiments. Our inital investigations were begun in BC72, BC73,, BC75 as performed in the SLAC Hybrid Bubble Chamber Facility with a photon energy of 20 GeV. We have continued our investigations concerning these meson states in experiment E687, at a mean photon energy of 200 GeV, that was conducted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. E687 is a relatively small collaboration, ~100 physicists from institutions in the United States, Puerto Rico, Italy, and Korea. The primary purpose of this expermeint was the investiagtion of charm mesons and charm baryons. To this end it has been a highly successful experiment.

One of the more enigmatic problems in meson spectroscopy is the possible existence of states that are not within the realm of the standard model - that is, exotics such as glueballs. The E687 experiment has presented us with a sizable sample of "clean" data with extremely good mass resolution. This has allowed us to conduct a thorough examination of the some of the possible channels in which these exotics might appear. We can say that the data is very suggestive.

To further extend the study of cham particles the collaboration is currently conducting a second generation experiment to follow up on the results of E687. This is experiment E831. This experiment will have approxiamtely a factor of 10 more in data than did E687. E831 has recently, July 1996, started in the initial phases of the experiment and will run for a total of 24 weeks in two data taking segments with a possible third segement later.

Brief Vita

Professor Thomas Handler earned a B.S. in Physics from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1968, and a Ph.D. degree from Rutgers University in 1975. He joined the staff of the University of Tennessee as a Research Associate Physicist in 1974. In 1977 he became a Visiting Assistant Professor at Tennessee and has been a full Professor since 1992. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 papers on experimental High Energy Particle Physics.

Selected Publications

  1. "Charm Meson Decay into the Final States KsK+ and KsK*+," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B346, 199(1995).
  2. "Analysis of the D+, Ds+ -> K+K-pi+ Dalitz Plots," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B351, 591(1995).
  3. "Study of the Charged Haronic Four-body Decays of the D0 Meson," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B354, 486(1995).
  4. "Measurement of the Omegac0 Lifetime," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B357, 678(1995).
  5. "Doubly and Singly Suppressed Cabibo Charm Decays intoi K+pi-pi+ Final State," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B359, 403(1995).
  6. "Study of Higher Mass Charm Baryons Decaying into Lambdac+," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Submitted to Physics Letters B.
  7. "Search for the Decay of D+ and Ds+ Mesons to Three Charged Kaons," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B363, 259(1995).
  8. "Analysis of the Decay Mode D0 -> K-mu+nu," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B364, 127(1995).
  9. "Charm-Anticharm asymmetries in High Energy Photoproduction," (with P. L. Frabetti, et al.) Phys. Lett. B330, 222(1995).