My research mainly concerns the ATLAS experiment at the CERN, near Geneva. ATLAS is a detector used to analyze the results of the collisions produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), by far the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. We are just at the beginning of the ATLAS experiment. This marks one of the most exciting times in the history of fundamental physics. For the first time, the LHC lets us attain the tera-electron-volt energy scale, where we expect to encounter new fundamental physics, such as the creation of dark matter in the laboratory, the discovery of new spatial dimensions and supersymmetry. We have already discovered the Higgs boson, a central particle in the model of particle physics, since it apparently gives mass to other particles.

The study of the physics of the Standard Model of elementary particles and beyond, as part of the high-energy ATLAS experiment using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This includes research into and the study of the Higgs boson, supersymmetric particles and any new physics revealed by the high-energy collisions produced by the LHC. The study of the radiation field produced in the ATLAS detector and its spectral characteristics using the Medipix and Timepix silicon pixel detectors (ATLAS-MPX and ATLAS-TPX). These measurements of the radiation field in ATLAS at CERN concern the detection and identification of charged particles (electrons, positrons, protons, anti-protons, pions, kaons, alpha particles and heavier ions, etc.) and neutral particles (photons, neutrons, neutral pions and kaons, etc.). Luminosity measurement in the LHC using the ATLAS-MPX and ATLAS-TPX detectors and the van der Meer beam displacement method.

Measurement of the efficiency of detection and shape recognition of particles in silicon pixel detectors and heavy semiconductor pixel detectors (GaAs, CdTe) with the tandem accelerator at the Université de Montréal R.-J. A. Lévesque laboratory.

The use of Medipix and Timepix silicon pixel detectors with charged particles, X-rays and gamma rays for imaging applications (use of charge sharing between pixels) with submicron spatial resolutions. The measurement of radiation fields and their spectral characteristics using pixel detectors in medical physics experiments (including hadron therapy) and in space (development of pixel detector-based dosimeters for space missions and the International Space Station). The study of radiation damage and the improvement of radiation resistance of particle detectors exposed to high radiation levels (neutron and photon flux, in particular) in various particle accelerators covering a wide range of energy levels and in nuclear reactors.

The preparation of a program for improving the detection capacity (in particular new generations of pixel detectors) of the ATLAS detector of the LHC at CERN and the improved LHC (SLHC), with higher collision energy and greater luminosity and in future colliders.

Alan Robinson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics, is interested in particle physics issues. It conducts experiments on dark matter and more specifically develops technologies that could be used to find it.