Undergraduates
I know that matter can be converted into energy. Is it not possible, then, that energy can be converted into matter? If so, how?
Professor Paul T. Debevec received his bachelor's degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968 and his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University in 1972. He joined the Department of Physics at the Indiana University as an assistant professor in 1974 after working as a research associate at Argonne National Laboratory. He came to the University of Illinois in 1977 as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in 1983.
Professor Debevec has worked extensively on a multi-institutional experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory to measure the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, which will sharpen the congruity between theoretical predictions and experimental results that form a cornerstone of the standard model. A key contribution was his development of the microstrip gas chamber to measure the number and direction of electrons flying from decaying muons.
As a collaborator in BNL E812, the g–2 experiment, my group is responsible for the measurement of the stored muon distribution. We have designed and built a compact system of drift chambers to track the decay electrons to determine the parent muon distribution. The convolution of this distribution and the precision field map is the field which precesses the muons. This quantity and the precession frequency together determine g–2. With our expected precession, we have an unambiguous test of the standard model and its extensions. The techniques developed in the g–2 experiment are leading us to a new measurement of the muon lifetime. The Fermi coupling constant, one of three fundamental constants of the standard model, is obtained from the muon lifetime.