top of page

DR. TIMOTHY NELSON

I'm a particle physicist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. My research focuses on understanding the nature of so-called dark matter and how it relates to the visible matter in our universe. In particular, I am interested in scenarios where dark matter is part of a rich "dark sector" of particles and forces.

NEWS AND UPCOMING EVENTS

Dark Matter New Initiatives
Funding is Announced
4.18.2019
Lepton-Photon 2019
8.5.2019 - 8.10-2019
DOE Basic Research Needs Report for Dark Matter New Initiatives
02.12.2019

MY LATEST RESEARCH

The Heavy Photon Search (HPS) experiment searches for a dark-sector analog to the ordinary photon. Because this particle can, in general, mix with the Standard Model photon, it can be produced in ordinary interactions, such as electron bremsstrahlung in a high-Z fixed target.

The heart of the HPS experiment is the Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT), designed and built at SLAC, which employs low-mass, radiation tolerant silicon sensors and high-speed data acquisition in a vacuum chamber inside a dipole magnet to identify the decays of dark photons to ordinary charged particle pairs.

bottom of page