Experimental Elementary Particle Physics
Darien Wood
Darien Wood
Professor
PhD University of California at Berkeley, 1987
(617)373-2958
darien@neu.edu

Research Summary:

Prof. Wood is currently studying high energy (2 TeV) collisions of protons and antiprotons with the DØ Experiment at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab. DØ is studying quark scattering at the highest available energies, has observed the elusive top quark and measured its mass, and made many precise measurements of the properties of other particles. The experiment continues to search for new particles, including the Higgs boson. In addition to searches for the Higgs boson, Prof. Wood's particular area of interest is the study of the W and Z bosons, the carriers of the weak force.

Prof. Wood currently leads the DØ Experiment as co-spokesperson. In the past he has worked on the system to detect muons, and he led an effor to upgrade the experimental "trigger" system which decides (in a few microseconds) which events to discard and which ones to retain for futher study.

Before joining the DØ Experiment, Prof. Wood worked on the UA2 experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, which was also dedicated to the study of proton-antiproton collisions. Before that, he studied high energy electron-positron collisions at SLAC in California.

Recent Publications:

"Observation of ZZ Production in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV " Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 171803 (2008).
http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.0703

""Evidence for Production of Single Top Quarks and First Direct Measurement of |V_tb|", Phys. Rev. Lett. {98}, 181902 (2007).
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0612052

""The Upgraded D0 Detector" Nucl. Instr. and Methods A {565}, 463 (2006).
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0507191

"Search for the Standard Model Hhiggs Boson in the ppbar->ZH->nu nubar b bbar Channel" Phys. Rev. Lett. {97}, 161803 (2006).
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0607022

"The RunIIb Trigger Upgrade for the DØ Experiment" IEEE Trans. of Nucl. Science {51} 340 (2004).
http://www-d0.fnal.gov/trigger/runIIb/documents/docs.html

Related links

National Science Foundation discovery video featuring Prof. Wood

Fermilab home page