Departmental Groups
Related Research Groups
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James D. Olsen
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One of the continuing mysteries of the universe is why the fundamental constituents of matter, the quarks and leptons, come in different “flavors” arranged in three separate generations of matter. In the standard model of particle physics, this flavor structure is connected to another fundamental question, the origin of mass, through the Yukawa couplings of the fermions to the Higgs field. In recent years, the success of the standard model in describing a wide variety of flavor-changing processes has led to stringent constraints on the structure of possible extensions of the standard model, and possible explanations for the masses of the fundamental particles. These constraints will play an important role in elucidating the nature of the discoveries anticipated when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) begins operating at the energy frontier.
For the past decade our group has played a leading role in elucidating the flavor structure of the quark sector through the study of CP violation using the BaBar detector at SLAC, including the discovery of direct CP violation in the B-meson system and the first measurement of CP asymmetries in decays mediated by the b -> d flavor-changing neutral-current transition. Recently the focus of our group has shifted to CERN and the direct search for the Higgs boson, which will further shed light on the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and the related questions of mass and flavor. As members of the CMS collaboration at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, we are involved in the commissioning and operation of the detector and are taking a lead role in the analysis of first-year data. We have openings for new students who are excited about the prospects of uncovering the fundamental properties of matter at the energy frontier, and are interested in obtaining a broad education in experimental particle physics.
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S e l e c t e d P u b l i c a t i o n s:
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- J. Olsen and A. Telnov, with the BaBar Collaboration, Observation of CP Violation in
B0 -> π+ π-, K+π-, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 021603 (2007).
- J. Biesiada and J. Olsen, with the BaBar Collaboration, Observation of
B+ -> K(bar)0K+
and
B0 -> K0K(bar)0, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 171805 (2006). [J. Biesiada won the 2008 APS Tanaka Dissertation Award for this work.]
- Y. P. Lau and J. Olsen, with the BaBar Collaboration, Measurement of γ in
B+/- -> D(*)0K+/-
Decays with a Dalitz Analysis of
D0 -> K0sπ+π-
, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 121802 (2005).
- N. Danielson and J. Olsen, with the BaBar Collaboration, Direct CP Violating Asymmetry in
B0 -> K+π-
Decays, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 131801 (2004).
- N. Danielson and J. Olsen, with the BaBar Collaboration, Measurements of Branching Fractions and CP Violating Asymmetries in
B0 -> π+ π-, K+π-, K+K-
Decays, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 281802 (2002).
- J. Olsen, with the BaBar Collaboration, Measurement of Branching Fractions and Search for CP Violating Charge Asymmetries in Charmless Two-Body B Decays into Pions and Kaons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 151802 (2001).
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