CAS CONNECT 2013

Kaladi Babu i s prov i d i ng the theoret i ca l background for a ma jor proj ect by the Sanford Underground Research Faci l i ty i n South Dakota. High-Energy Research OSU Regents Professor Babu is lending a hand to set up a national lab 23 Babu helps a team of 364 researchers from about 10 countries. If the lab is estab- lished, Babu will provide the Sanford Underground Research Facility the theo- retical background for one of its major projects: beam- ing tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos underground from Chicago’s famous Fermi Lab to a massive detector deep inside the gold mine. “I will do the theory of neutrinos relevant for that experiment,” Babu says. “The collaboration is active, but it is not ready to take data.” Babu, who was appointed Regents Professor — the high- est promotion an OSU professor can receive — in 2012, came to OSU in 1998 after several postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and the universities of Maryland and Rochester. When he arrived, he found only one other person in high-energy physics on campus, professor Satya Nandi. Together, they drummed up funding from the Department of Energy and founded the Oklahoma Center for High Energy Physics collaboration among OSU, the University of Oklahoma and Langston University and helped hire three new faculty members at OSU. “We’re very proud of what we have set up here,” says Babu, a native of south India’s Kerala Province. story by Matt Elliott continues O ne of the newest Regents Professors in the College of Arts and Sciences is getting a unique opportunity to help set up a national laboratory — 5,000 feet underground. Kaladi Babu is part of a team of researchers attempt- ing to turn a South Dakota gold mine into a virtual gold mine for high-energy physi- cists who study rare phenomena. PHIL SHOCKLEY / UNIVERSITY MARKETING