2008 LHC Theory Postdoc and Graduate Fellowships Awarded
Organizers:
Jonathan Bagger (Johns Hopkins), bagger@jhu.edu
Ulrich Baur (Buffalo), baur@ubhex.physics.buffalo.edu
Sekhar Chivukula (MSU), sekhar@pa.msu.edu
Lynne Orr (Rochester), orr@pas.rochester.edu
- Steering Committee
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Update, March 19, 2008: First LHC-TI Fellows Meeting April 30, 2008
- Update, January 16, 2008: 2008 LHC Theory Initiative Fellowships Awarded
- Update, October 1, 2007: 2008 LHC Theory Postdoc and Graduate Fellowship Competition Announced
- Update, April 10, 2007: First LHC Theory Initiative Fellowships Awarded
- Update, December 8, 2006: 2007 LHC Theory Graduate Fellowships Announced
- Update, November 10, 2006
- Madison Meeting, May 17, 2006
- March Fermilab Workshop link added
- Update, November 4, 2005
- Update, October 5, 2005
- Update, August 24, 2005
- Update, August 12, 2005
- Update, June 17, 2005
- Call to Arms
- Madison Meeting, May 4, 2005
- Links
Jonathan Bagger (Johns Hopkins), bagger@jhu.edu
Ulrich Baur (Buffalo), baur@ubhex.physics.buffalo.edu
Sekhar Chivukula (MSU), sekhar@pa.msu.edu
Sarah Eno (Maryland, CMS), eno@physics.umd.edu
Robin Erbacher (UC Davis, CMS), erbacher@physics.ucdavis.edu
Walter Giele (FNAL Theory), giele@fnal.gov
JoAnne Hewett (SLAC), hewett@slac.stanford.edu
Ian Hinchliffe (LBNL), i_hinchliffe@lbl.gov
Paul Langacker (Penn), Chair, pgl@electroweak.hep.upenn.edu
Tom LeCompte (Argonne, ATLAS), lecompte@anl.gov
Steve Mrenna (FNAL Computing), mrenna@fnal.gov
Fred Olness (SMU), olness@mail.physics.smu.edu
Lynne Orr (Rochester), orr@pas.rochester.edu
John Parsons (Columbia, ATLAS), parsons@nevis.columbia.edu
Martin Schmaltz (BU), schmaltz@physics.bu.edu
Carlos Wagner (Argonne), cwagner@hep.anl.gov
Edward Witten (IAS), witten@ias.edu
Send email to entire steering committee here .
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FAQ's can be found here.
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Agenda:
Chair: Ulrich Baur (Buffalo)
Coffee Break
2007 LHC-TI Fellows: Summary of Research
LHC-TI FAQ's can be found here.
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Announcement here.
LHC-TI Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.
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The LHC Theory Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of
LHC theory postdoc and graduate graduate student fellowships for 2008. More
details (including application instructions) can be found
here for postdoc fellowships and here for graduate fellowships.
LHC-TI Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.
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Source: The Johns Hopkins University
Content: Press Release
Date Issued: 9 April 2007
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FELLOWSHIPS AIM TO STIMULATE YOUNG THEORETICAL PHYSICISTS
LHC Theory Initiative Awards First-Ever Grants
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Theory Initiative, a U.S.-based
consortium of theoretical physicists aiming to stimulate and cultivate
new young talent in anticipation of the opening of the Large Hadron
Collider later this year, announces its 2007 LHC Theory Graduate
Fellowship Awards.
Administered by The Johns Hopkins University and funded by the National
Science Foundation, the $40,000 awards -- being distributed for the
first time this year -- will provide selected young theorists with
funds to underwrite the costs of their research, including travel and
computing needs.
Recipients of the 2007 LHC Theory Initiative Graduate Fellowship Awards
are Randall Kelly (University of California, San Diego) and Jonathan
Walsh (University of Washington). Their research interests include
calculations of higher-order corrections both within and beyond the
Standard Model, as well as the development of new, improved, simulation
tools to confront with data theoretical models.
In addition, LHC Theory Initiative Travel Awards, which provide $3,000
for LHC-related travel, were presented to Dai De Chang (Case Western
Reserve University), Wei Gong (University of Oregon), David Krohn
(Princeton University) and Keith Rehermann (Johns Hopkins University).
All six winners are graduate students selected through a national
competition. The chair of the selection committee was Fred Olness from
Southern Methodist University.
"The goal of these fellowships and awards is to stimulate the work of
theoretical physicists who will help interpret the treasure trove of
data that will emerge from the Large Hadron Collider," said Jonathan
Bagger, a member of the LHC Theory Initiative and chair of the
Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins. "Our initiative
will help the high-energy physics community take full advantage of the
LHC."
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European laboratory for particle
physics in Geneva, Switzerland, is expected to begin operation late this
year. With its unprecedented energy and luminosity, the LHC promises to
revolutionize particle physics and our understanding of the universe. It
is expected to create new forms of matter as scientists search for the
elusive Higgs boson and a host of new particles, as well as help answer
some of the most fundamental questions of physics.
"How do particles acquire mass? Can dark matter be created in a
laboratory environment? Do new symmetries of nature link matter, energy,
space and time? How did matter behave a fraction of a second after the
Big Bang? Those are just some of the questions that we believe will be
answered through the LHC," says LHC Theory Initiative member Lynne Orr
of the University of Rochester. "The ultimate goal of particle physics
is to identify the fundamental principles that govern matter, energy,
space and time. The LHC will allow us to explore this new terrain."
Bagger and Orr are joined as principal investigators on the LHC Theory
Initiative by R. Sekhar Chivukula of Michigan State University and
Ulrich Baur of the State University of New York at Buffalo.
"In the coming years, we will not only continue to award the Graduate
Fellowship and Travel Awards, but will also award $150,000 grants to
postdoctoral fellows," Baur said. "The money will allow these young
researchers to pursue their research and to build a network of
LHC-related theorists. We want to create a strong community of young
physicists."
For more information on the LHC Theory Initiative see:
http://www.lhc-ti.org
JHU Press Office Contact: Lisa De Nike
(443) 287-9960, LDE@jhu.edu
LHC-TI Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.
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The LHC Theory Initiative is pleased to announce the availability of two
LHC theory graduate student fellowships beginning in summer 2007. More
details (including application instructions) can be found
here.
LHC-TI Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.
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The revised LHC Theory Initiative grant proposal for nation-wide postdoctoral and student fellowships was submitted to NSF on November 2; the text of the proposal can be found here, along with a summary of the main changes between the 2006 and 2005 proposals
(in "FAQ" format) here. The PI is Jonathan Bagger, with co-PIs Ulrich Baur, Sekhar Chivukula, and Lynne Orr.
Experimentalists Robin Erbacher (CMS) and Tom LeCompte (ATLAS) have agreed to serve on the Steering Committee.
LHC-TI Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.
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Agenda:
Chair: Fred Olness (SMU)
Send email to town meeting organizers here .
LHC-TI FAQ's can be found here.
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There will be a mini-workshop on Monte Carlo Tools for Physics Beyond the Standard
Model (MC4BSM) at Fermilab on March 20-21, 2006. The registration
for the workshop is now open. For more information and to register,
please consult the workshop's web page,
http://theory.fnal.gov/mc4bsm/.
There will be no registration fee for this workshop.
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The LHC Theory Initiative grant proposal for nation-wide postdoctoral and student fellowships was submitted to NSF on October 24; the text of the proposal can be found here. The PI is Jonathan Bagger, with co-PIs Ulrich Baur, Sekhar Chivukula, and Lynne Orr.
Here is an updated version of the whitepaper.
LHC-TI Frequently Asked Questions can be found here.
LHC Theory Initiative Whitepaper can be found here (September 22, 2005 version). Here is the October 24 update.
Proposal to be sent to NSF within 2-3 weeks.
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LHC-TI discussion in Aspen, Wednesday Aug. 24. Click here for slides.
Dear Colleague
We are writing to bring you up to date on the activities of the LHC Theory Initiative.
1) LHC-TI discussion in Aspen: For those of you attending the Aspen or Snowmass workshops this month, there will be a discussion an LHC-TI information session/discussion in Aspen at 2pm on Wednesday Aug. 24; see
http://pheno.physics.wisc.edu/~than/aspen-talks.html
for the Aspen schedule. Please attend if you can.
2) Aspen Consensus: There was a discussion of the LHC Theory Initiative at
the workshop in Aspen on electroweak symmetry breaking which
was held earlier this summer. The organizers of the workshop
(John Terning, Csaba Csaki, and Konstantin Matchev) and
Sekhar Chivukula drafted a consensus statement of support, which
was endorsed by 25 of the participants. The statement can be found
here.
3) NSF proposal and whitepaper making the physics case: Work on these by the steering committee is proceeding apace. The proposal deadline is September 28. There seems to be general agreement that we should request funding for postdoctoral and student fellowships, to be awarded on a competitive basis, more or less along the lines of the Barnett-Hinchliffe proposal and the "Apsen consensus" (see below). Some people have advocated faculty-level fellowships as well, but there is less agreement on this, and with the money constraints, we
thought it best to focus the initial NSF grant on postdocs and students.
We expect to distribute a draft proposal for your comments during the first week of September, but in the meantime, comments, suggestions, and contributions to the text are welcome.
For your convenience the webpage has been updated to include active email links to individual members of the steering committee, as well as one for the committee as a whole.
Best regards,
Lynne Orr and Ulrich Baur
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Dear Colleague,
We would like to inform you about the activities of the LHC Theory
Initiative following the organizational meeting in Madison on May 4. We
believe that the meeting was quite successful.
After the Madison meeting, we received a number of messages and phone
calls which provided very useful feedback. Here we would like to
summarize the most important suggestions we received, together with some
other recent developments.
-- We received a well thought out proposal by Michael Barnett and Ian
Hinchliffe for postdoc and student funding
(here). We
believe that the Feynman Fellowships proposed by Michael and Ian are an
excellent starting point for further discussions. An important aspect
of these fellowships is that they are to be awarded on a competitive
basis, based on proposals submitted to a selection committee. This is
intended to keep eligibility open to all in the community.
-- The Fermilab theory group has expressed interest in participating in
the LHC-TI. The head of the group, Chris Hill, liked the idea of
trying to get Fermilab to sponsor a number of Feynman Fellowships
(suitably adapted to fit the needs of Fermilab).
-- Taking into account the suggestions of the community to include
representatives of ATLAS and CMS, of the model building community, and
the string community, we have completed the formation of the Steering
Committee. The current members of the steering committee are (in
alphabetical order):
Jonathan Bagger (Johns Hopkins, bagger@jhu.edu)
Ulrich Baur (Buffalo, baur@ubhex.physics.buffalo.edu)
Sekhar Chivukula (MSU, sekhar@pa.msu.edu)
Sarah Eno (Maryland, CMS, eno@physics.umd.edu)
Walter Giele (FNAL Theory, giele@fnal.gov)
JoAnne Hewett (SLAC, hewett@slac.stanford.edu)
Ian Hinchliffe (LBNL, i_hinchliffe@lbl.gov)
Paul Langacker (Penn, pgl@electroweak.hep.upenn.edu)
Steve Mrenna (FNAL Computing, mrenna@fnal.gov)
Fred Olness (SMU, olness@mail.physics.smu.edu)
Lynne Orr (Rochester, orr@pas.rochester.edu)
John Parsons (Columbia, ATLAS, parsons@nevis.columbia.edu)
Martin Schmaltz (BU, schmaltz@physics.bu.edu)
Carlos Wagner (Argonne, cwagner@hep.anl.gov)
Edward Witten (IAS, witten@ias.edu)
-- We have received several interesting proposals how working groups and
other regional activities can be organized. We encourage you to
develop such ideas and bring them to the attention of the Steering
Committee. After all, the LHC-TI is a community effort, and a funding
proposal is only one (although important) aspect of it. The Steering
Committee will try to integrate these activities into the larger
framework of the Initiative.
As you all know, the immediate goals are to produce a whitepaper which
makes the physics case, and a NSF proposal by this Fall. The deadline for NSF
proposals is September 23. The Steering Committee will now begin to
organize the writing of these documents, based on the proposals for
postdoc and student funding, and for
junior faculty hiring which we have received. The steering committee
will also identify a host institution for a possible NSF grant, and keep
in close contact with DoE representatives.
We will post updates to this LHC-TI website.
Finally, please forward this message to anyone who might be interested who
does not appear on our mailing list, and also please let us know so we can
add them to the list.
with best regards
Lynne Orr and Ulrich Baur
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Dear Colleague,
In March 2004, Fred Cooper, the Director of the NSF Theoretical Physics
Program sent a message to the participants of the KITP Collider Physics
Workshop in which he outlined the idea of a "Virtual Phenomenology
Institute" -- an initiative to broadly increase the funding support for
Particle Physics Phenomenology (PPP) in the US. Subsequently, the original
message was distributed to a wider audience and Fred presented
the idea at the DPF2004 town meeting in Riverside.
With the completion of the LHC less than 3 years away, we believe that the
time has come to pursue the issue of PPP funding more seriously. We would
like to launch an initiative similar to that of the lattice community a
few years ago (see
http://www.science.doe.gov/hep/SugarHEPAPApril02.pdf
and http://thy.phy.bnl.gov/www/qcdocworkshop.dir/sdac_proposal_final.pdf).
Rather than trying to propose a comprehensive phenomenology initiative
which encompasses all areas, we suggest to concentrate on LHC physics. The
goal is to obtain funding from DoE and NSF for the project which we
tentatively entitle
LHC physics: from the Standard Model to New Physics.
The purpose of this project is to pursue calculations which are of specific
interest for the LHC, ranging from precision Standard Model calculations
(higher order corrections, PDF uncertainties, etc.) to investigating the
observational consequences of New Physics scenarios (Little Higgs models,
Fat Higgs models, supersymmetry, strong EW symmetry breaking, etc.).
In particular, we would like to bring together model building experts and
phenomenologists in a broad based collaboration: in order to
successfully search for new physics, it is necessary to
a) calculate the phenomenological consequences of new physics scenarios
b) provide the LHC experimental community with tools to pursue the
search for new physics, and
c) provide them with accurate predictions of what the SM predicts for the
signatures of interest.
We believe that a LHC theory initiative which addresses the needs of the
experimental community and brings together phenomenologists and model
builders has a realistic chance of getting funded in the coming years:
both NSF and DoE have invested a significant amount of money into the
LHC and should be interested in getting the highest possible physics
return from it. Without improved Standard Model calculations and
improved predictions for new physics signals at the LHC the return will
be limited. We also think that funding should come from both
agencies as the theory community is funded by both.
At this point it is natural to ask:
-- what should be funded?
-- how should one pursue funding?
As a starting point for a hopefully lively discussion: one could imagine
a "Virtual Phenomenology Institute" along the ideas of Fred Cooper (which has
some features in common with the EU Networks of the European Union):
1) Broadly speaking, the project should fund personnel (postdocs and
students) at various participating institutions, travel, and equipment
(computing, video conferencing etc.).
2) Several times per year, the participants of the project get together
for a workshop. These workshops could be held, for example, at National
Labs, Aspen, or KITP.
3) The participants are linked through videoconferenced "collaboration
meetings" which serve as a means to communicate efficiently in between
workshops. This would also allow small groups and individual faculty
members to participate in the activities.
4) Individual calculations are pursued in close consultation with the
experimental community.
Of course there are many other possibilities which should be discussed
and investigated.
In order to pursue funding,
i) those interested in participating should get organized and
ii) the case for funding has to be made. This could be in form of a whitepaper
or an informal proposal. This document is then used as a basis for
discussion with the funding agencies.
We believe that the second point is absolutely crucial; it has to be
clearly demonstrated how much more physics can be done if this
initiative is funded.
From the organizational point one could form a LHC theory executive
committee (LHCTEC), which serves as a contact to the funding agencies.
We would like to invite you to participate in shaping this initiative and
we ask you to help us in making the case for increased support of LHC
related theory and phenomenology. Your input is essential. We welcome
your feedback and your ideas. In order to facilitate the exchange of
ideas, it may be useful to hold a one-day meeting (this could be
videoconferenced) sometime this winter or spring. Please let us know
whether you would be interested in participating in such a meeting.
Feel free to distribute this message to anyone you believe might be
interested.
With best regards
Ulrich Baur
Lynne Orr
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Agenda:
Chair: Fred Olness (SMU)
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