Celeste Carruth

Academic background

Working on Ph.D. at U.C. Berkeley. 

Research Interests

I'm working on the ALPHA experiment at CERN year-round. One of the challenges we have in our experiment is that our positron plasmas behave differently on a day-to-day basis, making it difficult to have consistent rates of antihydrogen production. I'm working to develop a new technique to remove the effect of the fluctuations by controlling the density and the number of particles. This development work is based on the discovery of the strong drive regime first discovered at UC San Diego, where the plasma's density is controlled by the rotation frequency of a rotating electric field we use to drive the plasma. 

In addition to the plasma studies, I help run the experiment during our operation season (about half the year), and contribute to the upgrade work during the off-season time. The two hardware/software projects I'm working on are an update to the Faraday cup data acquisition system, and some development work on a pair of flappers that will go on opposite ends of the atom trap to improve the vacuum.