Commissioning the DIRC Detector and Searching for Axion-like Particles at GlueX
Name
yang-yunjiey-phd-physics-2021-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
20.54 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
2e6447c7c9e19b79fc9957d7fe117e5b
Author(s)
Yang, Yunjie
Advisor(s)
Williams, Mike
Date Issued
June 2021
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis centers around problems in the study of the strong nuclear force. The GlueX DIRC, a Cherenkov radiation-based detector, was proposed to upgrade the particle identification capability of the GlueX experiment, which aims to perform quantitative tests of Quantum Chromodynamics in the nonperturbative regime by searching for and studying hybrid mesons. This thesis describes the construction, commissioning, reconstruction, and calibration of the GlueX DIRC detector.
Originally proposed to solve the strong CP problem, axions and axion-like particles are hypothetical pseudoscalar particles found in many proposed extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics. This thesis presents a search for photoproduction of axion-like particles using data in photon-proton interactions collected by the GlueX experiment at Jefferson Laboratory in the 𝛾𝛾 and 𝜋 +𝜋 −𝜋 0 final states of the axion-like particles.
In addition, the Monte Carlo modeling of the strong interaction at low energies leads to challenges known as the event generator tuning problem. This thesis presents a novel approach to the Monte Carlo event generator tuning problem using Bayesian optimization.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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