McNair Scholar 2019 Salamong Xiong
Salamong Xiong is a rising senior at Macalester College, double majoring in physics and philosophy. His research interest revolves around the evolution of the universe. He plans on getting his Ph.D. in Physics.
My dream is to work for NASA and contribute to astrophysical or cosmological science. In the future, I want to be able to pull others up especially those from my home community.
Research project
SuperCDMS: Energy Calibration of a Ge HV Particle Detector using Radioactive Sources
Abstract: The goal of the SuperCDMS collaboration is to directly detect dark matter. Potential candidates for dark matter are Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). To detect WIMPs, it is important to be able to predict how a Ge/Si particle detector will respond to a dark matter signal. Thus, it is necessary to create a calibrated energy spectrum. This paper presents the energy calibration spectrum of a SuperCDMS-HV Ge detector using 241Am and a PuBe neutron source. Due to high event rate, criteria were developed to remove low-quality data arising from particle interactions that occur too soon after a previous interaction. Peaks in histograms of pulse amplitudes were identified as energy peaks from the various radioactive sources, and fits of these peaks formed the basis for generating an energy calibration function. The calibration function is used to generate the calibrated energy spectrum.
Faculty mentor
Dr. Vuk Mandic is conducting research on gravitational waves with the LIGO group and dark matter with the SuperCDMS group. In SuperCDMS, his research team is focused on development and characterization of Ge/Si detectors necessary for detecting dark matter particles. His team is also responsible for simulating and analyzing CDMS data. Dr. Mandic is published in multiple research journals and has presented his work at national conferences. This is Dr. Mandic’s first year as a McNair faculty mentor.