Rakitha Beminiwattha
Louisiana Tech University, LA·Physics
The Standard Model of particle physics describes the known building blocks of matter and the forces between them very well. Physicists know it is incomplete, though, and expect it to fail somewhere.
- Fields
Physics
- Topics
parity violation
electron scattering
MOLLER experiment
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Design and develop two charged-particle detection systems and a polarimeter electron detector, which measures beam polarization, for parity-violating electron scattering experiments at Jefferson Lab.
- Lead two newly proposed MOLLER-related experiments that probe quark-antiquark "sea quarks" in the proton and how nucleons behave inside the nucleus, and develop the theoretical interpretation of the results.
- Design radiation shielding for the experiments and finish publishing results from the earlier Qweak electron scattering experiment.
- Design, build and test MOLLER's Normalization and Systematic Control apparatus, including tracking, background and auxiliary asymmetry detectors, to reach sub-part-per-billion control of systematic errors.
- Support a precise measurement of the weak mixing angle from polarized electron-electron (Møller) scattering, using beam monitoring and polarimetry that help confirm the size of the measured asymmetry.
More about the research
One way to look for those failures is to measure something the theory predicts precisely and check whether the measurement agrees. This group does this with parity-violating electron scattering. In these experiments, spinning (polarized) electrons scatter slightly differently depending on which way they spin, an effect caused only by the weak nuclear force. The group's work centers on the MOLLER experiment at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in Virginia.
Why it matters
MOLLER's measurement of the electron's weak charge would be a sharp test of the Standard Model. Any disagreement with the prediction would point to physics not yet discovered. The detectors, shielding and theory the group develops help make this precision possible. The projects also keep nuclear physics research and training going at the only physics program in Northern Louisiana.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Wim Cosyn
Florida International University, FL·Physics·Early-career
Model high-energy electron scattering off the deuteron and helium using light-front quantum mechanics to separate nuclear structure from reaction dynamics.
Christopher Crawford
University of Kentucky, KY·Physics
Search for time-reversal symmetry violation by sending polarized neutrons through polarized nuclei, using low-energy neutron–nucleus resonances to amplify the effect, within the NOPTREX collaboration.
Carlos Yero
Catholic University of America, DC·Physics
Analyze data from a completed Jefferson Lab experiment in which electrons broke deuterons apart at proton–neutron relative momenta up to about 1.2 GeV/c, to probe the repulsive core of the nuclear force.
The school
Louisiana Tech University: 2 labs on PI Pages, $31M a year on research, 31 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.