The technology behind the world’s most advanced particle detectors is extraordinarily sophisticated. The soundtrack powering the construction, however, is more mainstream.
“It’s a lot of manual labor,” said Sydney Dixon, a researcher at the University of Virginia. “Taylor Swift keeps us going throughout some of the more menial tasks.”
Dixon is currently building components for a new timing detector, which will sit in the heart of the CMS experiment and timestamp the secondary particles produced by the Large Hadron Collider with 30 picosecond accuracy. The Taylor Swift song “Bejeweled” could be a fitting anthem for this new detector, which is dripping in more than 10,000 crystal sensors. But according to Dixon, the song “Change” from Swift’s 2008 album Fearless might be more fitting: These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down / It’s a revolution, the time will come.
“The high luminosity era of the Large Hadron Collider will bring in new information about particle physics, and we now can use timing as a dimension so that we will be able to look at interactions in a new way,” Dixon said.
Dixon is a student at the University of Virgina. Not a graduate student: a third-year student currently working on her bachelor’s degree in physics. According to Chris Neu, a professor at the University of Virginia, undergraduate contributions to the HiLumi LHC upgrades are not just nice to have—they’re essential.
“It can’t be all old people doing the work,” said Chris Neu, Dixon’s professor. “CMS greatly benefits from young people being involved.” (He also agrees with Dixon that the song “Change” is the perfect anthem for the work they are currently doing.)
So what can undergraduates contribute to an international experiment with thousands of scientists? Not only are they designing, building and testing components, but according to Neu, the knowledge and training undergraduate students gain through research is indispensable to the long-term success of the LHC research program.
There is no try; only do
Jack Shadel started working with Neu on the CMS timing detector as a high school student when he was 17 years old. At first, he just attended the group meetings and learned about the project. Eventually, he graduated onto building the detector itself.
“I was never a crafty person, so this was a first-time experience for me,” Shadel said.
The new timing detector is the size of a small research submarine and will eventually hold thousands of individual sensor modules. One of Shadel’s first tasks was to glue the crystal sensors (which create a flash of light when a particle passes through) onto the silicon photomultipliers (which transform the flash of light into an electrical signal.)
“I was really nervous—I was putting down the glue layer, and my hands were shaking a lot,” he said. “It was so bad that one of the graduate students asked if I was OK.”
Now that Shadel has been working on the project for four years, it’s a different story.
“It’s hard to explain,” he said. “One day you just wake up and you’re better at it.”
While working with Neu, Shadel has learned not only how to handle fragile crystals and silicon photomultipliers, but also how to think like an experimental physicist.
“Physics in the classroom is very different from physics in the lab,” Shadel said. “When we’re working in the lab, no one really knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re all just figuring it out together. This also means that there’s room for discovery and improvement.”
In addition to experiencing first-hand the collaborative and improvisational nature of physics research, working in the lab has also allowed Shadel to gain confidence as a scientist.
“What I’m doing is going to make a difference in the world of physics and will help other physicists with their future discoveries by improving the data that they have to work with,” he said.
Diamonds in the rough
Neu traces his commitment to involving undergraduates in research back to his own first research experience as a 19‑year‑old at the University of Illinois.
“I got the chance to work on testing components for the upgrade of a major particle physics experiment at the Tevatron, the CDF detector,” he said. “I remember the first time I saw the CDF detector, and I was amazed. That’s when I fell in love with experimental particle physics and the big science domain.”
When recruiting students to work in his lab, Neu doesn’t just pick the bookworms with 4.0 GPAs.
“I wasn’t a top-performing student, but being a good student isn’t always indicative of who will be successful in research,” he said. “I’m more concerned about, is this person curious? Are they ready to really devote time to a new endeavor? I really want to see someone that completes things and sees things to their end.”
When Neu met Dixon, he saw something special in her.
“I don’t typically take first year undergrads, but she has this energy, and she really wants to learn,” he said.
When the group needed someone to build a temperature and humidity-controlled box to store the newly constructed detector modules while they cured, Dixon immediately volunteered. Her solution was so resourceful that even MacGyver would be proud.
“Our high energy physics building was built during the Cold War, so there’s just a bunch of old stuff that nobody’s using,” Dixon said. “I found an old bookshelf and used it to make the frame, and them some foam and epoxy to insulate it. The lid is not very heavy, so we threw a bunch of textbooks from the 80s on top.”
According to Neu, the group is still using Dixon’s curing box to this day.
“It works,” he said. “I was really impressed by her design, and the best part is that this project came from her.”
In Neu’s view, involving undergraduates in high‑energy physics isn’t a nice extra—it’s structural to maintaining a thriving research program and preparing young adults for careers in STEM.
“CMS and the HL‑LHC will run well beyond the careers of today’s senior physicists,” Neu said. “We have the responsibility to gradually move this research into the hands of younger scientists.”
