Julia Thom-Levy

Professor

395 Physical Sciences Building
jt297@cornell.edu
607/255-4093

Education

Physics Dipl., 1997, Hamburg University.
Ph.D., 2001, Hamburg University.

Departments and programs

Physics

Affiliated Colleges

College of Arts and Sciences

Academic interests

Experimental Elementary Particle Physics

Overview

Experimental Elementary Particle Physics, Heavy Quark Physics, Hadron Collider Physics, Solid State Detectors for Particle Physics and X-ray science

Research Focus

My research focus is data analysis at the Compact Muon Soleniod (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, as well as the development of novel Silicon detectors for particle and x-ray science.

The LHC is colliding protons at the highest energies ever reached with accelerators- a new energy scale that opens up the exciting possibility of great scientific discoveries. Explanations for the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking, the existence of dark matter, and the discovery of supersymmetric particles are within our reach. The discovery of the Higgs boson has been a major milestone for our field, and we are now exploring the Higgs sector in more detail, as we are integrating data and are gaining sensitivity rapidly.

At the LHC, I work on the upgrades of the innermost layers of the pixelated Silicon detectors, which have to withstand enormous doses of radiation. Our sensitivity to New Physics depends critically on our ability to track particles with very high precision in a very challenging environment.

Pixelated sensors are also used in imaging radiation detectors, to reveal the detailed static and dynamic structural properties of matter. I work on detector development for use at CHESS and other light sources.

Research work in my group involves detector R&D both for particle and x-ray science, development of data analysis algorithms and Monte Carlo simulation of New Physics phenomena expected to be observed at the LHC, and CMS detector operations and upgrades.

Graduate Students
Lena Franklin

Postdocs
Joseph Reichert, Jose Monroy

Undergraduate Students
Hannah Hu, Benjamin Myers, Jeffrey Backus, Alexander Albert

Awards and Honors

Fellow, German National Scholarship Foundation 1993-1997

Professional Experience

Research Assistant, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) 1997-2002.
Research Associate, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) 2002-2005.
Assistant Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 2005-2012.
Associate Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 2012-2018.
Professor, Physics, Cornell University, 2018-present.
Deputy Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Accelerator-Based Sciences and Education, January 2018-present.
Vice Provost for Academic Innovation, May 2017-present.
Guest Scientist at RWTH Aachen, Germany, March-Sept 2009.

Publications

Observation of ttH production, CMS Collaboration with J.Thom, Published in PRL 120, No.23, 231801 (2018)

Evidence for associated production of a Higgs boson with a top quark pair in final states with electrons, muons, and hadronically decaying \tau leptons at sqrt{s} = 13 TeV, CMS Collaboration with J.Thom, published in JHEP 1808, 066 (2018)

Searches for R-parity-violating supersymmetry in pp collisions at √ s=8TeV in final states with 0–4 leptons. V. Khachatryan et al. (CMS Collaboration) Phys. Rev. D 94, 112009 – Published 29 December 2016.

Measurement of the integrated and differential ttbar production cross section for high-pT top quarks in pp collisions at √s= 8 TeV , CMS Collaboration). Apr 30, 2016. 25 pp. Published in Phys.Rev. D94 (2016) no.7, 072002 CMS-TOP-14-012, CERN-EP-2016-078.

3D IC for Future HEP Experiments J. Thom, et al. 2014. 8 pp., Journal of Instrumentation 9 (2014) 11, C11005

Measurement of Jet Multiplicity Distributions in Top Quark Pair Events at √s = 7 TeV, CMS collaboration, Eur. Phys. J. C74 (2014) 8, 3014

Measurement of the t-tbar production cross section in pp collisions at 7TeV with lepton+jets final states, CMS Collaboration, Physics Letters B 720 (2013) 83.