Frank Taylor, Academic Staff

I am studying jet and single particle production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC as a test of the standard model. 

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Area of Physics

Particle Physics Experiment – High Energy Physics

Research Interests

Since 1994, Dr. Taylor has been working toward the highest energy frontier where he is a collaborator on the ATLAS Detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The unprecedented energy and luminosity of the colliding beams at the LHC will open a window on several of the most fundamental questions of high energy physics. Some of the theoretical possibilities that will be addressed at the LHC focus on the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking, the existence of super-symmetry and the possibility of unifying gravity with other forces through large extra dimensions.

Many of the signatures of ‘new physics’ involve the detection and measurement of leptons, such as muons. Dr. Taylor has chosen a path to the LHC research frontier by collaborating on the design and construction of the ATLAS muon system. The system is based on a toroidal magnetic field and has an outstanding stand-alone performance. Dr. Taylor is the Project Leader of the US ATLAS Muon effort.

Dr. Taylor’s research interests have for a long time been in precision tests of the electro-weak sector of the standard model, focusing on the experimental exploration of the nature of electro-weak symmetry breaking and physics beyond the standard model. His involvement in the ATLAS collaboration at the LHC is a continuation of that interest. Dr. Taylor has been a collaborator on the SLD Experiment at the linear collider at SLAC nearly since its inception. Before moving to SLAC, Dr. Taylor conducted a series of neutrino experiments on the weak neutral current at FNAL using a fine-grained calorimeter.

Biographical Sketch

My interests have always been in astronomy and physics. Growing up in Northern Virginia and attending public schools there in the 1950s, by the accident of place and time I was lucky to be a member of the ‘Sputnik Generation’ of American Scientists. With the Sputnik inspiration and with scholarships and an NSF Fellowship, I obtained a Ph.D. degree in experimental High Energy physics from Cornell University in 1970. Following a postdoc appointment at Cornell for one year, I worked at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Hamburg Germany on photoproduction physics. In 1972, I assumed an assistant professorship of physics at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb ILL. While at DeKalb and working my way through the academic ranks, I collaborated on a number of experiments in hadron and weak interaction physics at FermiLab, the last of which was a study of the weak neutral current in neutrino-nucleon scattering using a fine-grained neutrino detector with the MIT Friedman-Kendall Group. In 1983 I joined the MIT research staff as a Senior Research Scientist in the Counter-Spark Chamber (Friedman-Kendall) Group at MITLNS. Upon completing our experimental program in neutrino physics at FNAL, I moved the Palo Alto with the MIT group to work on the SLD experiment to study the production and decay of the Z-boson in electron-positron collisions with a polarized electron beam. During 1991 to 1994, I coordinated the design of the muon system for the GEM detector that was to be built at the Super Conducting Super Collider in Texas. Following the demise of the SSC, I joined the ATLAS Collaboration at the LHC at CERN. There, I had several leadership positions both within the US ATLAS collaboration as well as at CERN. In 2013 I retired from my position as a SRS in the MIT Department of Physics. In retirement, I have been engaged in applying a method of analyzing single particle inclusive reactions in proton-proton collisions, developed in the early 1970s while I was at FNAL, to jets and particles produced in p-p, p-A and A-A collisions at the LHC. 

Selected Publications

• “Applications of pT-xR Variables in Describing Inclusive Cross Sections at the LHC”, Frank E. Taylor (MIT, LNS) (May 3, 2021), Published in: Universe 7 (2021) 6, 196 • e-Print: 2105.01010 [hep-ph].
• “Radial Scaling in Inclusive Jet Production at Hadron Colliders”, Frank E. Taylor (MIT, LNS) (Apr 24, 2017), Published in: Phys.Rev.D 97 (2018) 5, 054016 • e-Print: 1704.07341 [hep-ph].
• “Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC”, ATLAS Collaboration, Georges Aad (Freiburg U.) et al. (Jul, 2012), Published in: Phys.Lett.B 716 (2012) 1-29 • e-Print: 1207.7214 [hep-ex].
• “Combined Measurement of the Higgs Boson Mass in pppp Collisions at √s = 7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS and CMS Experiments”, ATLAS and CMS Collaborations, Georges Aad (Marseille, CPPM) et al. (Mar 26, 2015), Published in: Phys.Rev.Lett. 114 (2015) 191803, e-Print: 1503.07589 [hep-ex].