Group for Cooperation with CERN

Our group in the Department of Low-Temperature physics is involved in two experiments at CERN, COMPASS and AMBER. We focus mainly on data analysis, especially on hadron structure in terms of parton distributions (TMD PDFs and GPDs); and we are co-responsible for data acquisition.

In case you are interested in a thesis, student or post-doc project, please contact us. In these pages, you can find our publications and talks, grants, and also group members.

COMPASS and AMBER are fixed-target experiments using 100–200 GeV muon or hadron beams, focused on the structure of matter, more precisely on properties of the strong interaction. COMPASS finished data-taking in 2022 and is now in analysis phase. AMBER started taking data in 2023 and has approved programme for several years ahead.

In both collaborations, we are one of the groups responsible for the data acquisition, data processing and other IT systems. Our members fulfill quite important roles, for example run or analysis coordination and data acquisition system on-call. In COMPASS, we were co-responsible for the polarised target, a complex device that exploits several interesting low-temperature and spin physics phenomena. We are involved in the development of a modern 'trigger-less' data acquisition with continuous readout and high-level software trigger for AMBER. We are developing and maintaining a system for data production (reconstruction) management for COMPASS and AMBER "Nazca" and a shift scheduling system for AMBER.

We are active in experimental data analyses, focusing mainly on hadron structure in terms of parton distributions (TMD PDFs and GPDs). The questions we are trying to answer include: Are quarks polarised within hadrons? How large is their intrinsic transverse momentum? What is the transverse extension and orbital angular momentum of partons in hadrons? To answer them, we analyze mainly COMPASS hydrogen target data from 2016–2017 and with transversely polarised deuterium from 2022. In the data, we study hadron production in deep-inelastic scattering and also hard exclusive meson production. Currently, we are aiming to improve the results by mastering the final-state-hadron identification with RICH, which should allow to separate the contribution of different quark flavours. We are also working on the antiproton production cross section in the collissions of protons with helium, hydrogen and deuterium (AMBER 2023 and 2024 data), which are an important input for cosmology models and dark matter searches. Finally, we are interested in kaon-induced Drell–Yan process as a tool to study kaon structure.

In June 2023 we organized, together with Czech Technical University and COMPASS collaboration, a confenerce IWHSS 2023. In 2024 we participated in organizing ICHEP 2024 in Prague.