On April 6, UI postdoctoral research associate Viviana Cavaliere presented, on behalf of the CDF collaboration at Fermilab, tantalizing new indications that a previously undiscovered particle, 150 times the mass of the proton, could be lurking in collisions that produce a W boson accompanied by two hadronic jets.
Written by Celia Elliott
On April 6, UI physics postdoctoral research associate Viviana Cavaliere presented, on behalf of the CDF collaboration at Fermilab, tantalizing new indications that a previously undiscovered particle, 150 times the mass of the proton, could be lurking in collisions that produce a W boson accompanied by two hadronic jets.
The results presented Wednesday were based on Cavaliere's PhD thesis research, which was completed at the University of Siena (Italy) in December 2010.
Cavaliere joined the CDF and ATLAS groups at Illinois in January 2011, where she is working with Professor Mark Neubauer.
At Illinois, Cavaliere and her collaborators refined the initial analysis into its present form, which has been submitted to Physical Review Letters. A preprint of the paper was posted on arXiv on April 4.
Viviana Cavaliere at Fermilab, April 6, 2011 Photo by Reidar Hahn, Fermilab
A video of Cavaliere's April 6 presentation of the results at Fermilab is available.