High Energy Physics
B.S., Physics, Rose-Hulman Institute of Tehnology
B.S., Mathematics, ibid.
M.A., Rice University, 1989
Ph.D., ibid, 1994
Batavia, IL 60510
While the Standard Model of particle physics does an extraordinary job describing the measurements currently available, there remain many mysteries. The origin of the mass of subatomic particles is unknown. We don’t understand why there are three generations of quarks and leptons that seem to be carbon copies of one another. We don’t understand why gravity is so much weaker than the other three forces. The list of the unknown questions is rather long. A very promising way to explore these questions is to study data resulting from colliding beams of subatomic particles at speeds approaching the speed of light.
Professor Lincoln’s research interests concern the very highest energy phenomena accessible by modern particle accelerators. He spends his research time split between the Fermilab Tevatron and the CERN Large Hadron Collider or LHC, the world’s two highest energy particle accelerators. Currently, the Tevatron has the brightest beams and the LHC has the ones with the highest energy. As time goes on, the LHC will become the dominant particle accelerator. As this occurs, Dr. Lincoln will be ramping down his multi-decade association with the DØ experiment at the Tevatron to exploit the brand new data set now becoming available from the CMS experiment at the LHC.
Dr. Lincoln has worked with dozens of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers over the last few years to study the production of jets, which are the observable debris of interactions involving the strong force. He has convened the DØ experiment’s QCD group, resulting in over a dozen publications over the last two years.
While he works in many areas looking for new physical phenomena, the problem that he thinks about on those nights he can’t sleep is the question of quark and lepton generations. Historically, the existence of multiple copies of particles with similar properties, but larger mass has suggested a substructure (e.g. the chemical periodic table). The quark and lepton generations are strongly suggestive of something inside. Finding the source of this mystery is a fascinating challenge.
A. Bhatti, D. Lincoln, Jet Physics at the Tevatron, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci, Vol. 60 (2010).
D. Lincoln, Recent QCD Results, Proceedings of the DPF-2009 Conference, Detroit, MI, July 27-31, 2009, arXiv:0911.0449v1 [hep-ex].
D. Lincoln, The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider, Johns Hopkins Press (2009).
V. M. Abazov, et al., Measurement of the dijet invariant mass cross section in proton/antiproton collisions at center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV, submitted to Phys. Lett. B.
V. M. Abazov, et al., Determination of the strong coupling constant from the inclusive jet cross section in proton/antiproton collisions at center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV, Phys. Rev. D 80 111107 (2010).
V. M. Abazov, et al., Measurement of dijet angular distributions at center of mass energy = 1.96 TeV and searches for quark compositeness and extra spatial dimensions, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 191803 (2009).
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
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