Dr Alex Finch

Research Officer

Research Overview

My research effort is currently solely within the topic of long baseline neutrino experiments. I am a a member of the T2K collaboration for which I wrote and continue to develop the event display software. This produces pictures of the interactions in the detector and is a vital tool for the collaboration from checking the data when it is first collected, through developing reconstruction algorithms, and finally analysing the physics results. I am convenor of the software group and take care of maintaining much of the documentation for the software. I am also working on a proposed succesor to T2K known as HyperK which can be simply summarised as T2K on steroids. If it is approved then it will be built in a few years time.

For most of my career before moving to T2K my main research interest has been the field of photon photon collisions. The photon is a fundamental particle of the `Standard Model' of matter so by studying its interactions we are able to study many aspects of the model, but in particular the strong force which binds atomic nuclei together.

For many years my research took place as part of the ALEPH collaboration at CERN using the electron positron collider. This was the original accelerator to occupy the tunnel now used by the LHC. I recently measured the rate at which two colliding photons produce a final state containing b quarks using techniques for identifying b quarks that had not previously been used for data of this type.

In addition to my research work I help to teach C++ programming in the department.

Selected Publications

Measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters from muon neutrino disappearance with an off-axis beam
T2K Collaboration, Brailsford, D.B. 19/11/2013 In: Physical review letters. 111, 21, 7 p.
Journal article

The electromagnetic calorimeter for the T2K near detector ND280
Kormos, L., Bertram, I., Ratoff, P., Bentham, S., Grant, N., Reeves, M., Finch, A., Davies, G., O'Keeffe, H., Hatzikoutelis, A., Maryon, T., Mercer, I., Reeves, M. 17/10/2013 In: Journal of Instrumentation. 8, 10, 42 p.
Journal article

Measurement of the hadronic photon structure function F2(gamma)(x, Q**2) in two-photon collisions at LEP
Heister, A., ALEPH Collaboration, T., Bouhova-Thacker, E., Bowdery, C., Finch, A., Foster, F., Hughes, G., Jones, R., Smizanska, M. 09/2003 In: European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields. 30, 2, p. 145-158. 14 p.
Journal article

Evidence of electron neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam
T2K Collaboration 5/08/2013 In: Physical Review D. 88, 3, 41 p.
Journal article

Exclusive production of pion and kaon meson pairs in two photon collisions at LEP
Heister, A., Bouhova-Thacker, E., Bowdery, C., Finch, A., Foster, F., Hughes, G., Jones, R., Smizanska, M., ALEPH Collaboration, T. 11/09/2003 In: Physics Letters B. 569, 3-4, p. 140-150. 11 p.
Journal article

Measurement of the D*+- cross-section in two photon collisions at LEP
ALEPH Collaboration 1995 In: Physics Letters B. 355, 3-4, p. 595-605. 11 p.
Journal article

The T2K experiment
Abe, K., Abgrall, N., Aihara, H., Ajima, Y., Albert, J.B., Allan, D., Amaudruz, P., Andreopoulos, C., Andrieu, B., Anerella, M.D., Angelsen, C., Aoki, S., Araoka, O., Argyriades, J., Ariga, A., Ariga, T., Assylbekov, S., de Andre, J.P.A.M., Autiero, D., Badertscher, A., Ballester, O., Barbi, M., Barker, G.J., Baron, P., Barr, G., Bartoszek, L., Batkiewicz, M., Bay, F., Bentham, S., Berardi, V., Berger, B.E., Berns, H., Bertram, I., Besnier, M., Beucher, J., Beznosko, D., Bhadra, S., Birney, P., Bishop, D., Blackmore, E., Blaszczyk, F.D.M., Dealtry, T., Finch, A., Grant, N., Hatzikoutelis, A., Kormos, L., Maryon, T., Mercer, I., Nowak, J., Ratoff, P., Statter, J., T2K Collaboration 11/12/2011 In: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment. 659, 1, p. 106-135. 30 p.
Journal article

First muon-neutrino disappearance study with an off-axis beam
Dealtry, T., T2K Collaboration 22/02/2012 In: Physical Review D. 85, 3, 8 p.
Journal article

Measurement of the inclusive νμ charged current cross section on carbon in the near detector of the T2K experiment
T2K Collaboration 7/05/2013 In: Physical Review D. 87, 9, 20 p.
Journal article

Consolidated Grant 2019 - 2022
01/10/2019 → 30/09/2023
Research

STFC Capital Bid from the HEP Group to STFC 2015
01/10/2015 → 31/03/2016
Research

  • Experimental Particle Physics