Oliver Buchmueller

Summary

Buchmueller's research interests focus on several of the most intriguing challenges of modern fundamental physics: dark matter and gravitational wave detection and physics processes beyond the standard model in general.

Buchmueller is a full Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, a senior member of the CMS Collaboration, and the leading Principal Investigator (PI) of the Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network (AION) consortium [1] as well as the lead author of the Atomic Experiment for Dark Matter and Gravity Exploration in Space (AEDGE) mission [2]. He also spearheads the international community building process for Cold Atoms in Space, which brings together representatives of the cold atom, astrophysics, cosmology, fundamental physics, geodesy and earth observation communities [3].

AION and AEDGE

Buchmueller was instrumental in establishing the physics case of AION, and led the project to national funding approval, at the ~£10M level, in Summer 2020. The institutions currently involved in the AION project are University of Birmingham, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London (lead), Kings College London, University of Liverpool, University of Oxford, and STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. In addition, the project is in partnership with UK National Quantum Technology Hub in Sensors and Timing, Birmingham, UK, the MAGIS Collaboration, US and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, US. The AION programme will become a direct partner in the MAGIS-100 experiment making critical contributions to the construction, operation and physics exploitation of the experiment as well as establishing network operation between AION and MAGIS.

This novel combination of quantum technologies has the potential for ground-breaking discovery at the very heart of fundamental physics, as well as commercial applications in quantum technology.

Based on this work, Buchmueller also led the design study AEDGE mission proposal, which was submitted in the context of the European Space Agency (ESA) Voyage 2050 call. The AEDGE mission is based on the AION technology and is under currently under review by ESA. AEDGE has more than 130 proponents from over 70 institutions based in 23 different countries and, thus, already enjoys broad international support.

Both AION and AEDGE projects are uniquely interdisciplinary missions that will harness cold atom technologies to address key issues in fundamental physics, astrophysics and cosmology that can be realized in the next few decades.

CMS Experiment at CERN

Buchmueller is a senior member of the CMS Collaboration, which comprises approximately 3000 international members and is one of the largest collaborations in fundamental science. During the last decade, he has participated in many management and physics analysis activities in CMS. For example, following a two-year term as a convener of the supersymmetry search group, he became a member of the Collaboration’s 5-person Physics Management Office, responsible to coordinate the physics programme of CMS. Buchmueller also chaired the CMS analysis review committee (ARC) that was tasked with scrutinizing and publishing the data analysis of Higgs Bosons decaying to the diphoton final state. After the Higgs boson discovery, he played a key role in defining the upgrade programme of CMS for the High-Luminosity running of the LHC. He chaired the working group that was in charged to oversee technical design/choices and impact on performance, cost and schedule for the future Trigger upgrade.

After this, Buchmueller was CMS representative in the LHC DM working group from 2015 to 2017, which brings together theorists and experimentalists to define guidelines and recommendations for the benchmark models, interpretations, and characterisations necessary for broad and systematic searches for dark matter at the LHC. In September 2016 he became the convener of the EXOTICA search group in CMS. The mandate was a high- level physics management position with a two-year term. The EXOTICA search group is the biggest search group in CMS comprising many different data analyses that are executed by several hundreds of CMS collaborators. The group produces typically 20 to 30 peer reviewed publications and about 50 different public results per year.

Selected Scientific Roles

• 2018 – present: PI of the Atom Interferometer Observatory and Network (AION) project
• 2007 – present: Founding member of the MasterCode project
• 2003 – present: Senior member of the CMS Experiment
• 2017 – 2021: PI of the Imperial CMS group.
• 2017 – 2020: Leader of the CMS B Parking Activity
• 2016 – 2018: Convener of the EXOTICA search group in CMS.
• 2015 – 2017: CMS representative on the new LHC Dark Matter working group.
• 2015 – 2016: Co-chair of the comprehensive review panel of the CMS Phase II Tracker upgrade.
• 2012 – 2015: Co-chair of the Trigger Performance and Strategy Working Group in CMS.
• 2011 – 2014: Chair of the CMS review committee overseeing the Higgs to 2-photon analysis,
• 2013 – 2014: Senior Experiment Fellow of the Institute for Particle Physics Pheno. in Durham.
• 2012 – 2013: Senior Fellow of the LHC Physics Centre at the FermiLab, US
• 2010 – 2012: Member of the Physics Office in CMS
• 2008 – 2010: Convener of the SUSY group in CMS
• 2004 – 2007: Convener of the tracker alignment and the Software alignment group in CMS