Stephanie Hickford's Home Page
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PhD Thesis
Analysis Paper (in preparation)
Muon Paper (in preparation)
Research
I am a postgraduate physics student at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. I am doing my PhD research in the theoretical physics group in the Physics and Astronomy Department and am focusing on high energy astro-particle physics. The University of Canterbury is a member of the IceCube Collaboration.
IceCube is an international collaboration which is constructing a km³ neutrino telescope at the South Pole in Antarctica. This telescope will detect all flavours of neutrinos interacting under the ice using Cherenkov radiation. When completed in 2011, the IceCube neutrino telescope will extend from 1450 metres to 2450 metres under the ice, and will consist of 80 strings each with 60 digital optical modules (DOMs) spaced 17 metres apart vertically. These DOMs have photo multiplier tubes (PMTs) that detect charged particles by the Cherenkov radiation they produce, digitize the waveforms from the Cherenkov light and send the signal to the surface to be analysed.
Monitoring and Verification
I am involved with the South Pole monitoring and verification. This entails calibration of the newly installed parts of the telescope each season as well as continuous checks on the quality of data being sent to the surface. I was at the South Pole Station during January and February of 2009 carrying out verification tasks with Anna Franckowiak, and I am responsible for the Local Coincidence checking module running year round. Details of Local Coincidence checking can be found on the Local Coincidence wiki page.
IC40 Cascade Analysis
I am looking into the production of long range muons within hadronic cascades. This work is sumarised here:
Research for my PhD thesis is an IC40 high energy diffuse cascade analysis, current work can be found here:
Supervisors:
Dr. Jenni Adams and
Dr. Suruj Seunarine
email: Stephanie Hickford
