Argonne scientist to become ATLAS physics coordinator for
CERN
LeCompte to oversee programs for collider detector
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ARGONNE, Ill. (July 17, 2008)—Tom LeCompte of the U.S. Department of
Energy's Argonne National Laboratory has been tapped to be the physics coordinator
for the ATLAS experiment at the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) at European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
"It's obviously very exciting," LeCompte said. "The Large Hadron
Collider is at the energy frontier. I'm grateful to the ATLAS experiment for
showing such confidence in me, and I am grateful to the laboratory for being
so supportive."
The ATLAS Collaboration Board recently approved the appointment of LeCompte
as deputy physics coordinator of the ATLAS experiment. He will be deputy starting
Oct. 1 for one year and then become physics coordinator on Oct 1, 2009.
He received his Ph.D. in physics from Northwestern
University in 1992 and
a master's degree in physics and astronomy from the university in 1989. LeCompte
began as an assistant physicist at Argonne in 1995 and became a physicist in
2000. He has been involved with the Collider
Detector at Fermilab since 1992
and STAR since 1995. At ATLAS, he has worked with the tile calorimeter and
software and computer efforts and later as co-convener of the standard-model
working group. ATLAS is one of two large collider detectors at CERN, and LeCompte
will oversee the physics program for the experiment. The Argonne High Energy
Physics Division has played a leading role in the design, installation and
commissioning of the LHC tile calorimeter for ATLAS, as well as the trigger
system and the software infrastructure.
"ATLAS will record about 2 million gigabytes of data every year," LeCompte
said. "I joined Argonne's ATLAS effort about 10 years ago, and in that
time have worked on a number of activities within ATLAS."
Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to take a leap in their exploration
of the universe. The ATLAS detector may help scientists unravel some of the
deepest mysteries in particle physics, such as the origin of mass or the identification
of dark matter. The ATLAS collaboration will now focus on commissioning the
detector in preparation for the start-up of the LHC later this summer.
CERN is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters
in Geneva. At present, its member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian
Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission
and UNESCO have Observer status.
Argonne National Laboratory brings the world's brightest scientists and engineers
together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems
in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne
conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every
scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from
hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies
to help them solve their specific problems, advance America 's scientific leadership
and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60
nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago
Argonne, LLC for the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
For more information, please contact Brock Cooper (630/252-5565
or bcooper@anl.gov) at Argonne.
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