EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Forging a Lasting Collaboration Between New Mexico State University and the Electron-Ion Collider

This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an Assistant Professor and training for a graduate student at New Mexico State University. The work will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Stefan Bathe and Dr. Murad Sarsour at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Through the fellowship, the Principal Investigator (PI) will participate in the construction of a cutting-edge, 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator known as the Electron-Ion Collider. This nuclear physics project will address core questions about the shape of the particles that form our entire world and leverage the unique relationship between U.S. National Labs and research universities to construct a facility that will create fundamental new scientific knowledge. The project team will utilize the emergent potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to implement new data analysis tools to be used at this facility. The project will also expand the STEM workforce by enabling a Ph.D. student and an early-career professor to obtain training and early involvement at a facility that is likely to define the next decades of nuclear physics. The project will allow the PI and one Ph.D. student to live at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) for a total of four months and build key techniques and subsystems for the Electron Ion Collider (EIC)’s first particle detector, known as the electron-Proton-Ion-Collider (ePIC) detector. The researchers will work on the ePIC Barrel Hadron Calorimeter, which is necessary for the EIC to detect hadronic final states. The project team will integrate a custom-designed light-emitting diode (LED) system for calibration and monitoring of silicon photomultipliers, implement a new ML-based energy calibration schema, and help BNL staff and other collaborators with preparations for the refurbishment of the BNL sPHENIX experiment’s Outer Hadron Calorimeter. This project will build the PI's research infrastructure by providing important professional advancement in accelerator physics, detector design, and ML, and will train a Ph.D. student as a key expert on the physics and design of the EIC. These training activities will naturally synergize with the work at BNL, where the student can learn directly from both the PI and the staff/collaboration experts. Finally, the project will strengthen the nuclear physics workforce by establishing an early career faculty member in the EIC community, opening doors to a fruitful partnership between NMSU and BNL, and preparing a graduate student with key modern technical skills. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows (ERF). The ERF program supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.