Christopher White Associate Professor of Physics
	B.S.:	University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
	Ph.D.:	University of Minnesota
	Office:	106D Life Sciences Building
	Phone:	312.567.3734       Fax:  312.567.3289
	e-mail:	whitec@iit.edu

Professional Interests

My research interests are in experimental particle physics. I am currently a collaboration member of FNAL E871 (HyperCP), FNAL E875 (MINOS) and the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment. The primary physics of HyperCP is a search for CP violation in hyperon decay. HyperCP collected data at roughly 1-GByte per minute; accumulating over 100 tera-bytes of data!! Our run ended on January 17, 2000. MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) initiated accelerator based neutrino studies in earlier 2005. MINOS has recently released the world's most precise measurement on accelerator based neutrino oscillations. The Daya Bay reactor experiment is also designed to study neutrino oscillations, using anti-electron neutrinos emitted by nuclear power plants. We're designing the experiment and hope to start collecting data in 2009.

My main analysis efforts are in the search for rare or forbidden decays of the Cascade and Omega hyperons. In particular, I am searching for DS>1 transitions which are excluded within the standard model above branching rations of ~10E-17. Any observation of such transitions would be clear evidence for new physics. I am also interetsed in precision measurements of the Lambda, Cascade, and Omega masses and lifetimes, and rare decays modes of the Omega baryon involving five final state particles.

MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) is an experiment designed to create muon type neutrinos at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois and shoot them at a detector at the bottom of an old iron mine in Soudan, Minnesota. The idea is to see if muon type neutrinos change into other neutrino types between Fermilab and Soudan (totally cool stuff!). IIT built readout electronics for and contributed to the construction of the near-detector located at Fermilab.

Representative Publications

• First observations of separated atmospheric nu(mu) and anti-nu(mu) events in the MINOS detector. By MINOS Collaboration (P. Adamson et al.) Published in Phys.Rev.D73:072002,2006
  
  
• Search for Delta S = 2 nonleptonic hyperon decays. By HyperCP Collaboration (C.G. White et al.). Published in Phys.Rev.Lett.94:101804,2005
  
  
• Evidence for the decay Sigma+ ---> p mu+ mu-. By HyperCP Collaboration (HyangKyu Park et al.). Published in Phys.Rev.Lett.94:021801,2005
  
  
• Observation of parity violation in the Omega- ---> Lambda K- decay. By HyperCP Collaboration (L.C. Lu et al.). Published in Phys.Lett.B617:11-17,2005
  
  
• Main injector neutrino oscillation experiment, MINOS. C. White (IIT, Chicago) . Feb 2004. 5pp. Prepared for Lake Louise Winter Institute 2004 on Fundamental Interactions, Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, 15-21 Feb 2004. Published in *Lake Louise 2004, Fundamental interactions* 334-338
  
  

---

---

BCPS Department, 3101 South Dearborn St., Chicago, IL 60616
Phone: 312.567.3480     FAX: 312.567.3494
BCPS Webmaster (segre@iit.edu)