Research Interests:

Professor Cox has been involved in many experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and CERN Lab in Geneva, Switzerland in the general areas of electroweak interactions, quantum chromodynamics, heavy flavor detection, and time reversal violation in the kaon system. Prof. Cox has acted as scientific spokesman for several of these experiments. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory before joining the University of Virginia faculty to found the experimental particle physics group. He held several positions at Fermilab including head of the Proton Laboratory and the Research Services Department and was deputy chair of the Physics Department there.

Prof. Cox has recently been engaged in studies of the very basic structure of matter and the evolution of the universe in the CMS experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. This experiment will be at the forefront of experimental particle physics for the next decade or two and will focus on the search for the elusive Higgs particle(s) and for supersymmetry in 14 trillion electron volt collisions of protons on protons at the large hadron collider. The discovery of these particles would make profound differences in the way we think about the physical world and establish the underpinnings of the Standard Model. Prof. Cox plans to try to detect supersymmetric particles in the CMS experiment in a search for the origin of dark matter in the universe.

In addition to the CMS Experiment, Prof. Cox has been performing research on the phenomenon of time reversal violation in the weak decays of strange quarks in the Fermilab experiment known as KTeV. The phenomenon of time reversal violation often manifests itself as an asymmetry between matter and antimatter. It is thought that this phenomenon is necessary to explain the domination of matter over antimatter in the present day universe. Therefore, in order to understand the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang, is important to understand time reversal violation. In the very successful KTeV experiment, the origin of time reversal violation has been shown to be in the weak interaction, a result which has been awaited for over 35 years since the first observation of time reversal in the Cronin-Fitch Nobel prize winning experiment in 1964. This result was designated as the best experimental result of 1998-99 by the US Department of Energy.

The KTeV experiment has also uncovered new and different effects of time reversal violation. The University of Virginia KTeV component has found the largest indirect CP violation effect yet measured in K decays. In addition the KTeV experiment has resolved the problem of first row unitarity in the CKM matrix of the weak interaction, a result that was designated by Fermilab as its best measurement of 2004.

Research Group(s):

High Energy Physics Group

Selected Publications:

Current and Recent Courses:

PHYS 5720: Introduction Nuclear & Partical Physics (Lecturer) Fall