Diffraction studies at ATLAS

Career overview

Professor Paul Newman came to the University of Birmingham as a PhD student in 1992. He completed his PhD in Particle Physics in 1996, focusing on the H1 experiment at the HERA electron-proton collider at DESY, Hamburg, where he worked for 20 years, including a four-year term as the experiment’s physics coordinator. His expertise lies in the experimental study of the strong nuclear force, particularly the quark and gluon sub-structure of protons and nuclei, and the behaviour of gluons at very high densities. He is currently involved with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), specifically in identifying and studying diffractive processes where one of the beam protons remains intact. Professor Newman has a significant history of involvement in proposals for next-generation electron-proton colliders, including the LHeC project at CERN and the EIC project in the USA. He is the principal investigator on the Birmingham Particle Physics grant from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and leads a group engaged in various experiments, including ATLAS, LHCb, NA62, and DUNE. His group has substantial capabilities for research and development and construction projects involving silicon tracking detectors and fast high-throughput trigger and data acquisition electronics. Professor Newman has also been active in particle physics strategy in the UK and Europe through committee work and has contributed to science policy discussions.

Research interests

Professor Newman’s research focuses on the experimental study of the strong nuclear force, particularly the quark and gluon sub-structure of protons and nuclei, as well as the behaviour of gluons at very high densities. He is currently involved in studying collisions between ultra-high energy protons detected by the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Additionally, he is investigating future possibilities for electron-proton and electron-ion colliders at CERN and in the US. His research themes include diffractive processes, deep inelastic scattering, proton structure, low x physics, strong interactions and QCD, silicon detector instrumentation, and fast, high throughput trigger electronics. He has a significant history of involvement in proposals for next-generation electron-proton colliders, including the LHeC project at CERN and the EIC project in the USA. Professor Newman is also the principal investigator on the Birmingham Particle Physics grant from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and is engaged in various experiments such as LHCb, NA62, and DUNE.