Department of Physics and INFN Building C - Polo Fibonacci Largo B. Pontecorvo, n. 3 56127 Pisa tel: +39 050 2214 366 fax: +39 050 2214 317 e-mail: sdonati@fnal.gov
Prof. Simone Donati
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
2016-today. Associate Professor (University of Pisa).
2007 - 2016. Research Scientist (University of Pisa).
2005 - 2007. Research Scientist (INFN Pisa).
1998 - 2005. Postdoctoral Research Associate (University of Pisa).
1997-1998. Guest Scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
EDUCATION
1997. Ph.D. in Physics (University of Pisa). Thesis: ”A strategy to measure the CP asymmetry in the B0 → π+π− decay mode at CDF”. Advisor: Prof. Giovanni Punzi.
1993. Master’s Degree in Physics (University of Pisa). Thesis: ”Project of a trigger dedicated to the B0 → π+π− decay mode at CDF”. Advisor: Prof. Luciano Ristori.
EXPERIMENTS
2015-today. Mu2e and Muon (g-2). Since 2015 I have been mostly involved in the development of the Mu2e electromagnetic calorimeter project. The detector exploits a matrix of cesium iodide crystals readout with silicon photomultipliers and fast digitisation electronics. I have supervised a dozen Master students in Physics and Engineering working on the development of the readout electronics and mechanical structures of detector. I am currently supervising one PhD student working on the reconstruction and analysis software. I am the INFN-Pisa representative in the Mu2e Institutional Board and I was a member of the Mu2e Speakers Committee (2016-2020). I am also a member of the Muon (g-2) INFN-Pisa group.
2012-2016. ATLAS. I worked on the development of the Fast TracKer Processor (FTK) for the ATLAS trigger. The idea was inspired by the CDF Online Silicon Vertex Tracker and was to exploit innovative digital electronics techniques and the Associative Memory technology to develop an online processor and perform fast silicon track reconstruction to improve ATLAS trigger strategy and physics reach. I supervised six Master and PhD students in Engineering working on electronics and software projects.
2004-2006. ALICE. I worked on the design of the trigger of the Time of Flight detector based on low noise multi-gap resistive plate chamber technology. The idea was to exploit the high detector granularity and digital electronics techniques to develop trigger algorithms and select events with specific topologies, including large/low particle multiplicities, typical of jets/peripheral collision events, or simply cosmic-rays for detector commissioning.
1992-today. CDF. I started my career in research as student in CDF which allowed me to work on many challenging hardware and analysis projects for more than 20 years. On the hardware side, I worked on the
development and construction of the data acquisition and trigger system and of the silicon tracker. As for data analysis, I mostly worked in the sector of beauty and charm physics on the study of CP violation and mixing.
I provided leading contribution to the Online Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT) project, the first online processor in the world which allowed to reconstruct silicon tracks in the plane transverse to the beamline at trigger level at a hadron collider. I worked on all aspects of the project: simulation, design, construction, commissioning of the digital electronics system and applications to the CDF physics program. The SVT was a major breakthrough for CDF since it made it possible to reconstruct secondary vertices at trigger level and to collect unprecedented samples of fully hadronic beauty and charm events. I also worked on the development of the trigger processor eXtremely Fast Tracker (XFT) designed to reconstruct three dimensional tracks in the drift chamber at trigger level, and of the electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeter trigger, which were fundamental for the entire CDF physics program. I served as Co-convener of the Trigger and Dataset Working Group for two years. I also worked on the design and construction of the Intermediate Silicon Layers (ISL) detector which was fundamental in strengthening the CDF tracking performance in the central region and providing a silicon standalone tracking in the forward region.
On the analysis side, I designed the CDF trigger strategy for fully hadronic beauty and charm events based on the secondary vertices reconstructed by SVT. Since there was no previous experience at a hadron collider, this was an unprecedented challenge but also an extreme success, since CDF could achieve some breakthrough results, including the observation of Bs0 and D0 mixing, the discovery of new beauty hadrons, the measurement of CP violation in a number of fully hadronic beauty and charm hadrons. I worked on many of these analyses.
I supervised numerous Master and PhD students working on CDF hardware and analysis projects. I was also internal referee of several CDF analyses and a member (European Coordinator) of the Speakers Committee.
RESEARCH PROJECTS FINANCED ON A COMPETITIVE BASIS Highly relevant at international level and for DUNE
- Principal Investigator of PROBES, Probes of new physics and technological advancements from particle and gravitational wave physics experiments. A cooperative Europe - United States - Asia effort, (web site:
riseprobes.df.unipi.it, financed by the European Commission with 2.1 Meuro for the years 2021-2025, H2020- MSCA-RISE-2020 GA 101003460).
- Principal Investigator of INTENSE, Particle physics experiments at the high intensity frontier. A cooper- ative Europe - United States effort, (web site: riseintense.df.unipi.it, financed by the European Commission with 2.6 Meuro for the years 2020-2024, H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019 GA 858199).
- Principal Investigator of INTENSE, Particle physics experiments at the high intensity frontier, from new physics to spin-offs. A cooperative Europe - United States - Japan effort, (web site: riseintense.df.unipi.it, financed by the European Commission with 2.1 Meuro for the years 2019-2024, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2018 GA 822185).
- Principal Investigator of NEWS, New windows on the universe and technology advancements from trilateral EU-US-Japan collaboration, (web site: risenews.df.unipi.it, financed by the European Commission with 1.6 Meuro for the years 2017-2022, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2016 GA 734303).
Highly relevant at national and local level
- Principal Investigator of the University of Pisa unit of IRMA, Innovative radiation monitor for containers at port custom gates, (web site: porirma.df.unipi.it, financed by Regione Toscana and European Commission with 1.2 Meuro for the years 2021-2022, POR-FESR 2014/2020).
- Principal Investigator of the University of Pisa unit of PRIMIS, Predictive maintenance in hostile en-
vironment, (web site: primis-project.eu, financed by Regione Toscana and European Commission with 1.9 Meuro for the years 2018-2020, POR-FESR 2014/2020).
- Principal Investigator of INTENSE, Particle physics experiments at the Fermilab high intensity frontier, (financed by the University of Pisa and Massachusetts Institute of Technology with 7,000 euro of Seed Funds for the years 2019-2020).
- Principal Investigator of Scintillating materials and innovative applications in sub-nuclear physics experi- ments, (financed by the University of Pisa with 37,000 euro for the years 2020-2022).
- Principal Investigator of Development of digital electronics for particle physics experiments in hostile environment, (financed by the University of Pisa with 37,000 euro for the years 2017-2019).
- Principal Investigator of Development of a simulator of complex events based on heterogeneous processing units, (financed by the University of Pisa with 37,000 euro for the years 2015-2017).
Member of the proponent teams of the following projects
- MUSE, Muon campus in US and Europe contribution, (web site: muse.lnf.infn.it, financed by the European Commission with 1.7 Meuro for the years 2016-2019, H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 GA 690835).
- FTK, Fast tracker for hadron collider experiments, (web site: ftk-iapp.physics.auth.gr, financed by the European Commission with 1.6 Meuro for the years 2013-2017, FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IAPP GA 324318).
- PROBE FOR NEW PHYSICS, The third generation as a probe for new physics: experimental and technological approach, (web site: cordis.europa.eu/project/id/HPRN-CT-2002-00292, financed by the Eu- ropean Commission with 1.5 Meuro for the years 2002-2006, HPRN-CT-2002-00292).
- QUANTEP, Quantum technologies experimental platform, (financed by INFN with 1.0 Meuro for the years 2021-2022).
- HAMLET, High bandwidth commercial digitizer for hostile environment, (financed by INFN with 25,000 euro for the years 2020-2021).
- Trigger, advanced electronics and innovative methods for Higgs measurements at LHC, (financed by the Italian Ministry of Research as a Project of Significant National Interest with 320,000 euro for the years 2013-2017).
- New trigger strategies at hadron colliders for frontier research in high energy physics, (financed by the Italian Ministry of Research as a Project of Significant National Interest with 208,000 euro for the years 2009-2010).
- Development of technologies for the selection and the analysis of rare events in new generation astro- particle and fundamental physics experiments, (financed by the Italian Ministry of Research as a Project of Significant National Interest with 260,000 euro for the years 2004-2005).
TEACHING
I have been teaching General Physics courses at the Departments of Engineering and Chemistry of the University of Pisa for almost 20 years. I have supervised more than 30 Master and PhD students in Physics and Engineering on CDF, ATLAS and Mu2e research projects. I am the Coordinator of the Erasmus Programs and of the Internationalisation activities of the Department of Physics and the contact person of the University of Pisa at the Universities Research Association (URA) in US.
Since 2007 I have organised internships in US for about 300 Italian students in Physics, Astrophysics, Astron- omy, Engineering, Computing and Materials Science. I am the coordinator of the University of Pisa Summer School ”Summer Students at Fermilab and other US Laboratories” (web site: unipi.it/summerschool) and the Co-organizer of the internship programs at Fermilab and several space science centres in US.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- N. Atanov et al., Construction status of the Mu2e crystal calorimeter, JINST 15, no. 09, C09035 (2020).
- N. Atanov et al., The Mu2e calorimeter readout system, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A936, 333-334 (2019).
- A. Anastasi et al., The monitoring electronics of the laser calibration system of the Muon (g-2) experiment, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A936, 372-373 (2019).
- A. Driutti et al., The calibration system of the Muon (g-2) experiment, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A936, 98-101 (2019).
- N. Atanov et al., Design and Status of the Mu2e Crystal Calorimeter, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 65, no. 8, 2073 (2018).
- C. Luongo et al., The Italian Summer Students Program at Fermilab and other US Laboratory, contribution to ICHEP 2018, e-Print 1908.01900.
- C.-L. Sotiropoulou et al., The Associative Memory Memory System Infrastructures for the ATLAS Fast Tracker, IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 64, no. 6, 1248 (2017).
- A. Andreani et al., The Associative Memory Serial Link Processor for the Fast TracKer (FTK) at ATLAS, JINST 9, no. 11, C11006 (2014).
- A. Aaltonen et al., The CDF Collaboration, Observation of D0− D0 Mixing Using the CDF II Detector, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 231802 (2013).
- A. Aaltonen et al., The CDF Collaboration, Measurement of the branching fraction BR(Λ0b → Λ+cπ−π+π−), Phys. Rev. D 85, 032003 (2012).
- A. Aaltonen et al., The CDF Collaboration, Measurement of Polarization and Search for CP Violation in Bs0 → φφ Decays”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 261802 (2011).
- A. Aaltonen et al., The CDF Collaboration, Measurement of direct CP violating asymmetries in charmless decays of strange bottom mesons and bottom baryons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 181802 (2011).
- A. Aaltonen et al., The CDF Collaboration, Observation of new charmless decays of bottom hadrons, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 103, 031801 (2009).
- A. Abulencia et al., The CDF II eXtremely Fast Tracker Upgrade, Nucl. Instrum. and Meth. A581, 482-484 (2007).
- A. Abulencia et al., The CDF Collaboration, Observation of the Bs0 → B0s oscillation, Phys. Rev. Lett.
97, 242003 (2006).
- A. Abulencia et al., The CDF Collaboration, Observation of Bs0 → K+K− and measurements of branching fractions of charmless two-body decays of B0 and Bs0 mesons in pp collisions at√
s = 1.96 TeV, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 97, 211802 (2006).
- D. Acosta et al., The CDF Collaboration, Measurement of partial widths and search for direct CP violation in D0 meson decays to K+K− and π+π−, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 122001 (2005).
- W. Ashmanskas et al., The CDF online Silicon Vertex Tracker, Nucl. Instrum. and Meth. in Phys. Res.
A485, 178-182 (2002).
- F. Abe et al., The CDF Collaboration, Observation of top quark production in p − p collisions, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 74, (1995), 2626-2631.
- F. Abe et al., The CDF Collaboration, Evidence for top quark production in p − p collisions at√
1.8 TeV, Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, (1994), 225-231.
