 |
Featured Faculty: Alec HabigAssociate Professor, Department of Physics Interests: Particle Astrophysics, especially cosmic rays and neutrinos Courses Taught: Physics 5561: Astrophysics, Physics 5061: Website: http://neutrino.d.umn.edu/~habig/ |
Dr. Habig studies cosmic rays, highly energetic particles from outer space which hit the earth's atmosphere. Some of the resulting spray of secondary particles make it to deep underground neutrino experiments such as MINOS (at the Soudan Mine Underground Lab near Tower, MN) and Super-Kamiokande (at the Kamioka Neutrino Observatory in Japan).
Dr. Habig (lower right) installing the 29th of the 485
eventual planes which make up the MINOS Far Detector at the Soudan Mine
Underground Lab
Studying cosmic rays teaches us more about space and the extreme astrophysical objects which create such high energy particles. These experiments also help to find out more about the particles themselves, especially the elusive and poorly-understood neutrino. MINOS and the new Nova experiment use a beam of neutrinos created at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab to see what happens to neutrinos as they travel from near Chicago to northern Minnesota.
Dr. Habig leading a tour at the MINOS facility
Dr. Habig is also involved with the SNEWS Supernova Early Warning System, which watches data from the world's neutrino experiments to provide early detection of the next supernova in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Habig has been at UMD since 2000, and is a 2004 McKnight Land-Grant Professor.