Torrence Home
Research Description
Recent Talks
Publications
PHYS 431
PHYS 432
HEP Info for Students
HEP Seminars
Physics Links
Eric Torrence is an experimental particle physicist who uses particle accelerators, some of the largest scientific instruments ever constructed, to study the most basic properties of matter and the fundamental forces of nature.
This research has primarily focused on understanding the unification of the Weak and Electromagnetic forces through precise measurements of the properties of the W and Z bosons. The internal consistency of this precise electroweak data allows for powerful constraints to be placed upon scenarios of new physics currently being explored by the theoretical community, including supersymmetry, theories of extra dimensions, and possible manifestations of string theory at lower energy scales. This work has been done as a member of the OPAL collaboration at CERN (Switzerland) and the SLD collaboration at SLAC (California). The Oregon group is also a part of the Atlas collaboration, which will begin taking data at CERN in 2008.
Eric is also a member of the BaBar collaboration at SLAC, where he is studying the fundamental properties of the tau lepton. Of particular interest are searches for rare and unexpected decay modes of the tau lepton, the tau electromagnetic couplings, and limits on the tau neutrino mass.
Eric is further interested in the accelerator instrumentation necessary to fully exploit the physics potential of these large colliders, having actively worked on measurements of beam polarization and beam energy at both SLAC and CERN. This research continues as part of the planning for a new high-energy linear collider to which Eric is an active participant.
In 2005, the Oregon group started a new initiative with the Atlas collaboration, one of the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) currently being constructed at CERN. The LHC is expected to start colliding protons at 14 TeV in Summer 2008 and start the exploration of what lies beyond the electroweak symmetry breaking scale into the Terascale. Eric has lead the Oregon group in this entry into Atlas, and is working on the trigger system, particularly algorithms to identify tau leptons.