Alex T. Grecu's Personal Page
Proposals for Student Summer Stages
As a member of the LHCb group with more than 10 years experience in computational and high energy physics, I propose a few research topics to students with decent background of physics, mathematics and computing which can be developed to full-fledged projects for Summer Stages in the frame of collaboration agreements between various universities and our institute (IFIN-HH).
Basic requirements are indicated for each of the major topics. Please, do not get dettered by them as the good news is that you've already passed the most important one, namely having a decent command of English which allows you to read this material and hopefully write at least as well.
Contact: Alex Grecu, junior researcher, alex{dot}grecu [at] cern(dot)ch
Monte Carlo Modelling of Processes in High Energy Interactions
Topics may be chosen along the following guidelines:
- Tuning of strange particle production in non-perturbative regime
- Overview of heavy flavour particle production models at TeV energy scale
- Tuning of heavy flavour particle production in MC event generators (such as PYTHIA, Herwig, etc.)
The student is expected to actively learn about the basics of relativistic kinematics, the Standard Model of the elementary particles, the basics of implementation of event generation in high energy event generators while occasionally reviving and using notions and methods learnt during courses in the junior years (according to current curricula at any Faculty of Physics).
The student will have the opportunity to acquire new programming skills like the use of programming languages and algorithms specific to high energy physics and statistical data processing, e.g., the student will be introduced to and use the ROOT framework (and C++), RIVET/Professor generator tuning system, Python, Linux shell scripting, etc.
Depending on the level of programming literacy the student has/may attain during the working stage, he/she may be able to contribute to the open-source RIVET framework by authoring a code module implementing the filtering and analysis of simulated collision data in accordance to one of the many published LHCb measurements. A further goal of the working stage or subsequent voluntary collaboration would be the opportunity to finish a study of the predictions provided by a wide range of event generators and aim at publishing a paper in a scientific journal in the frame of at most two years.
This type of research topics is obviously biased towards physics students (possibly at least at the Ms. Sc. level) with basic knowledge (and experience) of programming in C++ under a Linux environment. Basic experience on using shell scripting or FORTRAN may constitute a strong advantage.
Automatic Experimental Data Collection, Processing and Publishing in International Databases for High Energy Physics
The guidelines for choosing a summer stage project are:
- Experimental Data Collection and Semantic Processing for Machine Readable Databases
- Automatic Management of User Jobs in GRID-type Networks. Management System for Event Generator Validation and Tuning
The student will be introduced to applied techniques for data mining, experimental data processing and encoding as well as technologies for creating, parsing and publishing metadata associated with physics measurements.
This topic is mainly focused on applied computing, so very little initial physics knowledge is required (the student will definitely enlarge his/her background on high energy physics by the completion of the working stage). Basic knowledge and user level experience on Python programming, Linux shell scripting, web technologies or Qt GUI design and programming are a big advantage for any student starting this type of working stages.
Depending on the skills (existing or acquired during the working stage) the Romanian LHCb group may be interested in a further collaboration with the student that would take the shape of a temporary to permanent position (the actual details depending on the financing sources available at the time of opening such a position - running grants, open calls, institute endowment).