Faculty

BERND SURROWAssociate Professor of Physics

 Name: Bernd Surrow Title(s): Associate Professor of Physics Email: MIT surrow@lns.mit.edu BNL surrow@bnl.gov Phone: MIT (617) 324-1522 BNL (631) 344-3544 Assistant: Joanne Gregory (617) 253-7062 Address: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Bldg. 26-402 Cambridge, MA 02139 Brookhaven National Laboratory Department of Physics P. O. Box 5000 Upton, NY 11973 Related Links:

Area of Physics:

High-Energy QCD Physics

Research Interests

Bernd Surrow's research is focused on investigating the structure of the proton and its underlying dynamics.

Lepton-nucleon scattering experiments have played an important role in our understanding of the structure of the proton in terms of its underlying constituent momentum and spin distribution functions. Those measurements contributed to the test of the field theory among quarks and gluons know as Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). The first electron-proton collider, HERA at DESY, has allowed researchers to explore the structure of the proton in a new kinematic region compared to previous fixed target experiments, in particular the observation of the steep rise of the proton structure function F2 at low Bjorken x.

Surrow was deeply involved in the investigation of the transition region of non-perturbative ("soft") and perturbative ("hard") QCD. Together with Dieter Schildknecht, he formulated the GVD/CDP (Generalized Vector-Dominance/Color-Dipole Picture) model, which led to the observation of low x scaling in γ*p collisions.

Similar to the unpolarized case, several polarized fixed-target experiments have been conducted in the past to gain a deeper understanding of the spin structure of the proton. Those experimental efforts have been restricted to large values of Bjorken x. The role of the gluons to make up for the missing proton spin is currently only poorly constrained from scaling violations in fixed target experiments. A need for a new generation of experiments to explore the spin structure of the proton is clearly apparent. The spin physics program at RHIC at BNL focuses on the collision of polarized protons to gain a deeper understanding of the spin structure of the proton in a new, previously unexplored territory.

Exploring the structure of the proton and atomic nuclei at a future electron-ion collider facility at BNL would allow researchers to probe QCD in a manner previously not possible such as the polarized quark and gluon distributions at low x and in particular possible saturation phenomenon at high patron density.

Bernd Surrow is currently working as a member of the Hadronic Physics Group on the RHIC Spin program within the STAR experiment and on a future electron-ion collider facility at BNL.

Bernd Surrow's group is leading a program on gluon polarization measurements and a program studying the production of W bosons to deepen our understanding of the QCD sea. His group developed a new tracking detector concept needed for the STAR W physics program.

Bernd Surrow is serving as co-spokesperson of the polarized p-p program of the STAR experiment at RHIC.

Biographical Sketch

Bernd Surrow was born in Germany. In 1989, at the beginning of his university studies at the Department of Physics at the University of Wurzburg, he was awarded a scholarship by the German National Academic Foundation. He received his Pre-Diploma in Physics in 1991.

In 1992, Surrow joined the Department of Physics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook to continue his graduate work. He conducted his Masters Thesis research work within the Relativistic-Heavy Ion Group at Stony Brook with the design and test of a RICH detector for the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. Surrow received a Masters Degree in Physics in 1993, which was subsequently granted as a German Diploma degree.

In 1994, Surrow joined the ZEUS experiment at DESY where he conducted his Ph.D. thesis research on the measurement of the proton structure function F2 at low Q2 and very low x. His work was supported by a DESY Ph.D. scholarship. Surrow received a Ph.D. in Physics in 1998 by the University of Hamburg and was awarded the DESY Ph.D. Thesis prize and the Ph.D. Thesis prize by the Department of Physics at the University of Hamburg.

From 1998 until 2000, Surrow worked as a CERN Fellow for the CMS and OPAL Collaboration where he served on the OPAL run coordination team and as convenor of the OPAL Two-Photon physics working group. He was subsequently appointed a permanent staff member at DESY before joining the Physics Department at BNL as a Goldhaber Fellow.  Surrow joined the MIT faculty in January 2004 as an Assistant Professor of Physics, starting a new involvement within the Hadronic Physics Group at the RHIC Spin Program within the STAR experiment at BNL and towards a future electron-ion collider at BNL.

Selected Publications

• STAR Collaboration (B.I. Abelev et al.) "Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry and cross section for inclusive neutral pion production at mid-rapidity in polarized proton collisions at ${\rm \sqrt{s} = 200\,$ GeV", Phys. Rev. D80 (2009) 111108.
• F. Simon et al., "Beam Performance of Tracking Detectors with Industrially Produced GEM foils", Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A598 (2009) 432.
• STAR Collaboration (B.I. Abelev et al.) "Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry for inclusive jet production in $\vec{p} + \vec{p}$ collisions at ${\rm \sqrt{s} = 200\, GeV}$", Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 (2008) 232003.
• STAR Collaboration (B.I. Abelev et al.) "Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry and cross section for inclusive jet  production in polarized proton collisions at ${\rm \sqrt{s} = 200\, GeV}$", Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 (2006) 252001.
• B. Surrow, "Measurement of the Proton Structure Function F2 at low Q2 and Very Low x with the ZEUS Beam Pipe Calorimeter at HERA," Eur. Phys. J. direct C1 (1999) 2.
• ZEUS Collaboration (J. Breitweg et al.), "ZEUS Results on the Measurement and Phenomenology of F2 at low x and and low Q2," Eur. Phys. J. C7 (1999) 609.
• ZEUS Collaboration (J. Breitweg et al.), "Measurement of the Proton Structure Function F2 and σtot(γ*p) at low Q2 and very low x," Phys. Lett. B 407 (1997) 432.
• G. Cvetic, D. Schildknecht, B. Surrow and M. Tentykov, "The Generalized Vector Dominance Color Dipole Picture of Deep Inelastic Scattering at low x," Eur. Phys. J. C20 (2001) 77.
• OPAL Collaboration (G. Abbiendi et al.), "Measurement of the Hadronic Cross section for the scattering of two virtual photons at LEP," Eur. Phys. J. C24 (2002) 17.
• OPAL Collaboration (G. Abbiendi et al.), "Total Hadronic Cross-section of Photon-Photon Interactions at LEP," Eur. Phys. J. C14 (2000) 199.
• CMS Tracker Collaboration (B. Surrow et al.), "Automated Silicon Module Assembly for the CMS Silicon Tracker," Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A 461 (2001) 251.