IAS Junior Fellow Sets Sail for
CERN ATLAS
ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) is one of the seven
particle detector experiments constructed at the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland. Dr Kirill
Prokofiev, our IAS Junior Fellow, plays an active role in the
experiment by coordinating two groups of scientists to
generate productive results.
“The ATLAS collaboration represents an uncommon yet
successful society model. The common work in the
3000-people-collaboration is based on democracy,
competitiveness and mutual respect. There is a
management which is elected by the collaboration’s board
composed of CERN’s representatives. The board also
appoints physics coordinators who then appoint heads of
working groups. It is noteworthy that people managing the
working groups, the group members and the management
themselves are employed by different universities.
Therefore there is no finance, contract or hierarchy
relationship between them.
They can work together only
out of common scientific
interests bound by mutual
respect.” said Kirill. “There is
also an important
competition factor: everyone
tries to make his/her
university team most visible
in the collaboration. The
system is very democratic:
a member of any university
team can reach nearly any
level in the collaboration –
subject to personal skills,
hard work and recognition by the community. When a
new interesting topic, performance study or a physics
analysis comes on stage, individual universities teams
express their interest. Soon enough they form a small
community ‘by interest’ and start working together.”
Kirill has been coordinating the vertex reconstruction
group in ATLAS for almost seven years. The group is
commissioned to maintain and update the reconstruction
software so as to ensure smooth data collection of
primary vertices at LHC. Kirill has been working on this
domain since he was pursuing his PhD at University of
Zurich, and is now regarded as an expert. In April 2014,
Kirill was also appointed convener of the Higgs properties
The blue tube is to host the spare dipole magnets used for the
LHC construction.
Discussion with CERN colleagues
over coffee break.
IAS Community
May 2015
8
