Geoffrey Hall, FRS is a British particle physicist, currently Professor of Physics at Imperial College London.[1] He is best known for developing radiation and particle detectors and other electronic instruments for use in particle physics experiments, notably the CMS detector in CERN's Large Hadron Collider (a project on which he has worked for three decades).[2][3]
Geoffrey Hall | |
|---|---|
| Born | UK |
| Alma mater | Imperial College London |
| Known for | Particle physics |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Imperial College London |
| Website | Official website  |
Scientific career
editHall began his research career as a post-doctoral research assistant at Imperial College in 1974 and, except for brief periods at the University of California, Santa Cruz and CERN, has worked there ever since.[4] Since 1992, he has worked on the development of CERN's CMS detector (part of the LHC project), which played a key role in the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012.[5]
As part of the Stanford Linear Accelerator project in the 1970s, Hall worked with bubble chamber detectors and later developed gas Cherenkov counters for research into the lifetimes of charmed quarks.[4]
Hall joined CERN's CMS project in 1992, working mainly on tracking detectors and readout electronics.[6] One of his biggest challenges on the CMS project was to develop detectors that could survive the intense radiation near the LHC's colliding proton beams for long enough to capture useful data.[2] Since the discovery of the Higgs boson, Hall's attention has focused on extending the lifetime of the LHC project.[3][7][8]
Awards
editHall has received multiple honours and awards for his work, including the Duddell Medal and Prize (2004) and the James Chadwick Medal and Prize (2020), both awarded by the Institute of Physics.[9][10] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.[11]
Selected publications
edit- Hall, G (2010). "8: Innovations in the CMS Tracker Electronics". In Green, Dan (ed.). At the Leading Edge: The ATLAS and CMS LHC Experiments. World Scientific. pp. 205–232. ISBN 9789814277617.
References
edit- ^ "Professor Geoffrey Hall FRS". Imperial College London. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
- ^ a b "Congratulations Geoff Hall for Royal Society Fellowship". CERN. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
- ^ a b "Royal Society elects outstanding new Fellows and Foreign Members". The Royal Society. 6 May 2021. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
Geoffrey Hall's work on detector designs and exploitation of programmable digital electronics for real-time measurements will considerably extend the physics reach of the LHC.
- ^ a b "Professor Geoffrey Hall FRS: Research". Imperial College London. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Connor, Steve. "Have they found the Higgs boson at last? Cern physicists say they're confident of breakthrough". The Independent. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Hall, G (2010). "8: Innovations in the CMS Tracker Electronics". In Green, Dan (ed.). At the Leading Edge: The ATLAS and CMS LHC Experiments. World Scientific. pp. 205–232. ISBN 9789814277617.
- ^ Dunning, Hayley (15 June 2018). "Ground broken on upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider". Imperial College London. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
- ^ Aron, Jacob. "Hacking the LHC to sift trash could help find a mystery particle". New Scientist. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ "IoP rewards top British physicists". The Guardian. 1 September 2004. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
- ^ "Congratulations to Geoffrey Hall on achieving the James Chadwick Medal and Prize". CERN. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ O'Hare, Ryan; Brogan, Caroline; Dunning, Hayley (6 May 2021). "Four top Imperial academics become Royal Society Fellows". Imperial College London. Retrieved 14 May 2022.