Dr Ian Dawson

I am a Research Fellow in the Particle Physics and Particle Astrophysics Group at the University of Sheffield, working principally on the ATLAS experiment at CERN, Geneva.

My work on ATLAS currently falls into two main areas:

1. Hadron collision physics
   My main interest is low-pT physics, in particular minimum bias and underlying event studies, with the aim understanding better the structure of the proton in the non-perturbative QCD regime. More recently I've been investigating possible new ways of measuring luminosity at the LHC.
   • Determining the inelastic proton-proton cross section at the LHC using minimum bias events. Paper accepted for publication in Eur.Phys.J.C. (2007)
   • Luminosity measurement in the interaction regions of the LHC using proton-proton collision multiplicities. Paper accepted for publication in Nucl.Instrum.Meth.A (2007)
   • Luminosity determination using collision multiplicities. Talk given at the ATLAS Overview week, Glasgow, July 2007.
   Prediction for minimum bias and the underlying event at LHC energies. Paper published in Eur.Phys.J.C50:435-466,2007
   • Summary of minimum bias activities. Talk on behalf of MinBias group given at ATLAS Standard Model meeting, June 2006
   • Structure Function Measurements at the LHC. Conference talk given on behalf of ATLAS at PANIC05, Santa Fe, October 2005
   • Early measurements with minbias data. Talk given at the ATLAS UK Physics meeting at UCL, May 2005.
   • Measurement of dN/dEta. Talk given at the ATLAS Standard Model meeting at CERN, April 2005.
   • Prediction for Minimum Bias and the Underlying Event at LHC Energies ATLAS Note: ATL-PHYS-PUB-2005-007, March 2005
   • Minimum bias and the underlying event: towards the LHC. Conference talk given at the LHC Physics Conference in Prague, July 2003.
   • Comparison of predictions for minimum bias event generators. ATLAS Note: ATL-PHYS-2003-020, July 2003.


2. Radiation background studies
   I was a core member of the Radiation Taskforce from 2000 to 2004, which investigated the impact of the radiation environment on the ATLAS experiment. Since then, I have started looking at issues concerning a luminosity upgrade of the LHC - the SLHC - and I am a member of the ATLAS high luminosity upgrade steering group. I simulate radiation backgrounds using the FLUKA particle transport program. Details of my FLUKA radiation simulation studies for ATLAS can be found here.
• The SLHC prospects at ATLAS and CMS. Conference talk to be given on behalf of ATLAS/CMS at the Euro. Phys. Conf on HEP, Manchester, July 2007
• Radiation simulations and radiation facilities. Talk given at the ATLAS Tracker Upgrade Workshop in Liverpool, December 2006.
• Radiation background issues for an upgraded ATLAS inner-tracker. Talk given at the ATLAS Tracker Upgrade Workshop in Genova, July 2005.
• Radiation Background Task Force Summary Document. ATL-GEN-2005-001, January 2005.
• Radiation in USA15. Talk given to ATLAS Technical Management Board, February 2004.
• Radiation in the USA15 cavern in ATLAS. ATL-TECH-2004-001, January 2004.
• Predicting the radiation environment at high-luminosity hadron-collider experiments. Paper published in Nucl.Instrum.Meth. A510, 2003
• Radioactivation of silicon tracker modules in LHC radiation environments. Paper published in Nucl.Instrum.Meth. A515, 2003



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