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Physics Professors Earn Seven-figure Federal Grant

Professors James Popp and Andrew Edmonds were recently awarded a three-year Department of Energy (DOE) grant of $1.28M to continue research on the Muon-to-Electron Conversion Experiment (Mu2e) at York College, CUNY.

Physics Professors Andrew Edmonds (left) and James Popp (right) receive additional DOE funding for their Mu2e research

Mu2e will be performed at Fermilab, in Batavia, IL; and the two professors are leading research in the design, construction, and operation of the Pion Production Target (charged pions decay into positive and negative muons). the Muon Stopping Target (negative muons are trapped in atomic orbits).

“As of right now, we have received at least $3 million [from DOE], said Popp, whose previous partner on the project was Dr. Kevin Lynch. “They started us at $300,000. DOE needed to know it was well worth it.”

According to the professors, this latest grant award also provides support for several undergraduates, two graduate students, and a post-doctoral fellow. Both Popp and Edmonds are experts in muon physics and are using this elementary particle as a laboratory to probe for physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) of elementary particle physics.

Prof. Popp began developing the conceptual design for Mu2e with the original group of 20 colleagues in 1998. Professor Edmonds’ muon physics expertise extends from 2015.

“Students get their hands-on experience to obtain new knowledge,” said Edmonds. “The Mu2e experiment is building a whole new particle beam line. There’s a lot of novelty about everything. DOE supports research at the frontier of our knowledge about elementary particle physics and there are a lot of questions about the universe that need answers.”

Professor Popp, who has been at York since 2008 and has steadily worked on the project since then, expects it to begin taking the data in 2026. “It’s been a long time coming,” he remarked. “The Mu2e apparatus we will be taking data which has many parts that needed to be engineered and built.”

At least two of Dr. Popp’s York College undergraduate mentees have gone on to PhD programs directly from York and are thriving.