Kevin T. Pitts
Associate Professor of Physics
Kevin T. Pitts is a high energy experimentalist who has made seminal contributions to the measurement and understanding of CP violation in bottom quark decays . He received a B.A. in physics and mathematics from Anderson University (1987) and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Oregon (1989 and 1994, respectively). After working as a research associate at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in the Collider Detector Facility (CDF) experiments, Professor Pitts joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1999.
Professor Pitts continues to work on the CDF experiment at Fermilab. He leads the Illinois group responsible for the construction, installation, integration, and operation of the very-high-speed digital trigger (XTRP), a central component of the CDF trigger system. Professor Pitts is also co-leader of the CDF Bottom Physics working group (link: http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/physics/new/bottom/bottom.html) He was the overall project manager for the electronics for the CDF central outer tracking chamber (COT), which included coordinating design and development of the front-end electronics and trigger and the integration of data acquisition.
An engaging and gifted teacher, Professor Pitts has already received high marks for his introductory Physics lectures.
Research Areas: experimental high-energy physics; CP violation in bottom quark decays
Selected Publications
Acosta, D, et al. (CDF Collaboration). Measurement of the tt-bar production cross section in pp-bar collisions at square root-s = 1.96 TeV using lepton + jets events with secondary vertex b -tagging. Phys. Rev. D 71, 052003-1-28 (2005).
Acosta, D, et al. (CDF Collaboration). Measurement of partial widths and search for direct CP violations in D0 meson decays to K-K+ and p-p+. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 122001-1-12 (2005).
Acosta, D, et al. (CDF Collaboration). First measurements of inclusive W and Z cross sections from run II of the Fermilab Tevatron collider. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 091803-1-7 (2005).
Acosta, D, et al. (CDF Collaboration). Measurement of the moments of the hadronic invariant mass distribution in semileptonic B decays. Phys. Rev. D 71, 051103-1-9 (2005).
Acosta, D, et al. (CDF Collaboration). Measurement of the lifetime difference between Bs mass eigenstates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 101803-1-7 (2005).
Abulencia, A, et al. (CDF Collaboration). Search for Bs0 m+m- and Bd0 m+m- decays in pp-bar collisions with CDF II. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 221805-1-7 (2005).
honors and awards
- National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 2004
- Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising, 2002, 2004, 2005
- Outstanding Junior Investigator, U.S. Department of Energy, 2002
- Beckman Fellow, University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study, 2001–02
Other Pages
