With Stimulus Funds SU's Physics Department Avoids Research Cuts

Because of a $4.5 million grant in U.S. stimulus funds, the Syracuse University physics department won’t have to lay off researchers and will be able to continue its work on a major international project.

The physics department received the grant money in early October from the National Science Foundation through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.

A portion of the money will go toward the salaries. If the department had not received the grant it would have had to let go some of its researchers on staff, said Sheldon Stone, SU physics professor. A majority of the funding – $3.1 million – went to the department’s high-energy particle physics group, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation since the 1960s, said Stone, the group’s leader.

‘The money greatly enhances our project, and we are very appreciative,’ Stone said. The money will be used to allow the group to continue working with international scientists on the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s particle accelerator – the Large Hadron Collider – which has made international headlines for its research.

‘What it comes down to it, does the United States want to be a leader or a follower in science? And I think that we want to lead, so it is critical to take on these endeavors,’ said Steven Blusk, SU psychics professor and member of the Particle Physics Group.

The particle accelerator produces antimatter, energy similar to the energy that was released microseconds after the Big Bang. In many ways it will replicate conditions of the early universe, Blusk said.

The goal is to test hypotheses of high-energy physics. Findings should explain what happened to antimatter after the Big Bang. Current theories can’t account for the disappearance of antimatter, Blusk said.

The SU group is currently the only U.S. group working on this project, Blusk said. One SU physics professor, Tomasz Skwarnick, is working at the Swiss headquarters of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The grants will also allow SU students to focus on new experiments and research paths. Students will be able to participate in construction of advanced microelectronics devices, said Marina Artuso, SU physics professor and member of the Particle Physics Group. ‘We are one of the few places that actually allow students to do that,’ Artuso said.

A separate grant of $540,776 is to be used by Artuso’s group specifically for construction of some small prototype models. She’ll help graduate students apply the technologies they’ve learned to other fields, such as medical imaging, according to a news release.

In the first year of the experiment, researchers will test whether machines and detectors work as expected. The experiments will collect data for several years, and the team expects to keep publishing results during that time, Blusk said.

Originally published on The Daily Orange.