# Diffusion as a possible mechanism controlling the production of superheavy
nuclei in cold fusion reactions

T. Cap  M. Kowal<EMAIL_ADDRESS>National Centre for Nuclear
Research, Pasteura 7, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland  K. Siwek-Wilczyńska  Faculty of
Physics, Warsaw University, Pasteura 5, 02-093 Warsaw, Poland

###### Abstract

The fusion probability for the production of superheavy nuclei in cold fusion
reactions was investigated and compared with recent experimental results for
48Ca, 50Ti, and 54Cr incident on a 208Pb target. Calculations were performed
within the fusion-by-diffusion model (FbD) using new nuclear data tables by
Jachimowicz et al. It is shown that the experimental data could be well
explained within the framework of the FbD model. The saturation of the fusion
probability at bombarding energies above the interaction barrier is
reproduced. It emerges naturally from the physical effect of the suppression
of contributions of higher partial waves in fusion reactions and is related to
the critical angular momentum. The role of the difference in values of the
rotational energies in the fusion saddle point and contact (sticking)
configuration of the projectile-target system is discussed.

##  1 Introduction

Superheavy elements with atomic numbers $104\leq Z\leq 113$ were discovered in
cold fusion reactions in which closed-shell 208Pb or 209Bi target nuclei were
bombarded with projectiles ranging from Ti to Zn [1, 2].

The production cross section for superheavy nuclei (SHN) can be considered as
the product of three factors: the cross section for the projectile to overcome
the entrance channel barrier (capture cross section), the probability that the
resulting system fuses and reaches the compound nucleus configuration, and the
probability, that the excited compound nucleus survives fission during
deexcitation.

The optimal conditions for obtaining a given superheavy nucleus result from
various factors. The increase in the symmetry between reaction partners
requires higher bombarding energies to overcome the entrance channel barrier
and enhances the contribution of fast non-equilibrium deep-inelastic (DIC) and
quasi fission (QF) processes preventing fusion. The fusion probability rapidly
drops when the product of projectile and target nuclei atomic numbers
$Z_{1}\times Z_{2}\geq 1600$ [3]. Therefore, the compound nucleus formation
cross section represents only part of the capture cross section.

In cold fusion reactions, merging the strongly bound target and projectile
nuclei leads to a weakly bound compound nucleus. Typically, SHN have higher
thresholds for neutron emission [4] than the heights of the fission barrier
[5], making fission the dominant deexcitation process. At each step of the
deexcitation cascade, neutron evaporation competes with fission, which
additionally reduces the final evaporation residue cross section.

The cross sections for the production of nuclei with $Z\geq 102$ in cold
fusion reactions drop approximately seven orders of magnitude as the
projectile atomic number changes from 20 (Ca) to 30 (Zn). The question what is
the mechanism preventing the synthesis of SHN is still under discussion. A low
survival probability is not enough to explain the extremely low production
cross sections. One way of thinking about the additional hindrance mechanism
is the concept of an internal barrier holding back (counteracting) the fusion
process. Overcoming this barrier by a diffusion process and thermal
fluctuations could help to reach the state of a compound nucleus.

Recently, the probability of compound nucleus formation $P_{CN}$, at energies
around and above the interaction barrier $B_{0}$ was measured for 48Ca, 50Ti,
and 54Cr projectile incident on a 208Pb target [6]. The authors of Ref. [6]
concluded that “the energy dependence of $P_{CN}$ indicates that cold fusion
reactions (involving 208Pb) are not driven by a diffusion process”. This
letter aims to investigate the fusion probabilities for these reactions using
the diffusion approach. Calculations are performed within the $l$-dependent
fusion-by-diffusion model (FbD) [7] using the new nuclear data tables for SHN
by Jachimowicz et al. [4] as input.

##  2 FbD model

The fusion-by-diffusion model in its first form was a simple tool to calculate
cross sections and optimum bombarding energies for a class of $1n$ cold fusion
reactions [8, 9]. A significant development of this model was the
incorporation of the angular momentum dependence, that is, the contributions
from successive partial waves to the reaction cross section [7].

Due to the different time scales of the particular reaction stages, the
partial evaporation residue cross section, $\sigma_{ER}(l)$, can be factorized
as the product of the partial capture cross section
$\sigma_{cap}(l)=\pi{\mkern 0.75mu\mathchar
22\relax\mkern-9.75mu\lambda}^{2}(2l+1)T(l)$, the fusion probability
$P_{fus}(l)$, and the survival probability $P_{surv}(l)$. Thus, the total
evaporation residue cross section for the production of a given superheavy
nucleus in its ground state is

$\sigma_{ER}=\pi{\mkern 0.75mu\mathchar
22\relax\mkern-9.75mu\lambda}^{2}\sum_{l=0}^{\infty}(2l+1)T(l)\times
P_{fus}(l)\times P_{surv}(l),$ (1)

where ${\mkern 0.75mu\mathchar 22\relax\mkern-9.75mu\lambda}$ is the
wavelength, and ${\mkern 0.75mu\mathchar
22\relax\mkern-9.75mu\lambda}^{2}=\hbar^{2}/2\mu E_{c.m.}$. Here $\mu$ is the
reduced mass of the colliding system, and $E_{c.m.}$ is the center-of-mass
energy at which the reaction takes place.

The method of calculating the capture cross section is described in the next
section. The fusion probability is described in detail in section 2.2.

The last factor in Eq. 1, the survival probability, is calculated by applying
classical transition state theory using nuclear data from Ref. [4]. Details
regarding this reaction stage for $1n$ cold fusion reactions can be found in
Ref. [7].

###  2.1 Capture cross section

The capture transmission coefficients $T(l)$ in Eq. 1 are calculated in a
simple sharp cut off approximation, where the upper limit $l_{max}$ of full
transmission, $T(l)=1$, is determined from the empirical systematics of the
capture cross sections for heavy nuclear systems.

Following the experimental results, the entrance channel barrier is not
described by a single value but by a distribution that can be approximated by
a Gaussian shape described by two parameters, the mean barrier $B_{0}$ and the
distribution width $\omega$ [10]. Folding the Gaussian barrier distribution
with the classical expression for the fusion cross section leads to the
formula for the capture cross section

$\displaystyle\sigma_{cap}$ $\displaystyle=$ $\displaystyle\pi
R^{2}\frac{\omega}{E_{c.m.}\sqrt{2\pi}}\Big{[}X\sqrt{\pi}(1+\textrm{erf}(X))$
(2) $\displaystyle+$ $\displaystyle\exp(-X^{2})\Big{]}=\pi{\mkern
0.75mu\mathchar 22\relax\mkern-9.75mu\lambda}^{2}(2l_{max}+1)^{2},$

where $X=\frac{E_{c.m.}-B_{0}}{\omega\sqrt{2}}.$ The empirical systematics of
$B_{0}$, $\omega$, and the normalization factor $R$ were obtained from
analyzing precisely measured fusion or capture excitation functions for about
50 heavy nuclear systems for which the fusion probability is equal or close to
unity [10]. In this paper we use the parametrizations of $B_{0}$, $w$, and $R$
of Ref. [7].

###  2.2 Fusion probability

The second factor in Eq. 1, $P_{fus}(l)$, is the probability that after
reaching the capture configuration, the colliding system will eventually
overcome the fusion saddle point and merge, avoiding reseparation. It is
assumed in the FbD model that after sticking, a neck between the target and
projectile nuclei rapidly grows at an approximately fixed mass asymmetry and
elongation [8, 9] bringing the system to the “injection point” somewhere along
the bottom of the asymmetric fission valley. Let us denote the elengation of
the system at the “injection point” by $L_{inj}$. The localization of this
point with respect to the macroscopic conditional saddle (at the elongation
$L_{sd}$) is crucial for the fusion process. If $L_{inj}>L_{sd}$ the system is
still “outside” the barrier separating the “injection point” from the compound
nucleus configuration and must climb uphill to overcome the saddle. If
$L_{inj}<L_{sd}$ the “injection point” configuration is more compact than the
saddle configuration, and the system is already “inside” (behind the barrier).
In this case, the barrier guards the system against reseparation by reducing
the outgoing flux of particles.

In the diffusion approach, transition over the barrier happens by thermal
fluctuations in the shape degrees of freedom. The fusion probability,
$P_{fus}(l)$, may be derived by solving the Smoluchowski diffusion equation.
With the assumption that the internal barrier has height $H(l)$ and is of
inverted parabola form one gets [8]

$\displaystyle P_{fus}(l)=\frac{1}{2}\left\\{\begin{array}[]{lr}1+{\rm
erf}\sqrt{H(l)/T}&:L_{inj}<L_{sd}\\\ 1-{\rm erf}\sqrt{H(l)/T}&:L_{inj}\geq
L_{sd}\\\ \end{array},\right.$ (5)

where $T$ is the average temperature of the fusing system (see [7] for
details).

The energy threshold in Eq. 5 is taken as the difference between the energy of
the fusion saddle point $E_{sd}$ and the energy of the combined system at the
“injection point” $E_{inj}$, corrected by the appropriate rotational energies,

$H(l)=(E_{sd}+E_{sd}^{rot})-(E_{inj}+E_{inj}^{rot}).$ (6)

The energies $E_{sd}$ and $E_{inj}$ are calculated using simple algebraic
expressions that approximate the potential energy surface [7]. The shape
parametrization used to describe the interacting system is that of two spheres
joined smoothly by a third quadratic surface. The corresponding values of the
rotational energies at the injection point $E_{inj}^{rot}$ and the saddle
point $E_{sd}^{rot}$ are calculated assuming the rigid-body moments of inertia
for the respective shapes [7].

The distance between the nuclear surfaces of two colliding nuclei at the
injection point, $s_{inj}$, is the only adjustable parameter of the model. It
defines the onset of the diffusion process, thus, the moment when the
available kinetic energy that remains after passing the entrance barrier is
already transformed into internal degrees of freedom in the over-damped
regime.

Figure 1:  The injection point systematics obtained for the set of $1n$ cold
fusion reactions [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32] using new nuclear data tables [4]. If not
indicated otherwise, targets were 208Pb or 209Bi. The color of the points
indicates the laboratory where the reaction was studied: LBNL (red), GSI
(black), RIKEN (blue). See text for details.

In this paper, we redefine the systematics of this crucial parameter based on
a new set of ground state and saddle point properties of SHN [4]. The new
parametrization of the “injection point distance” is shown in Fig. 1 as a
function of the excess of the center-of-mass energy $E_{c.m.}$ over the mean
barrier $B_{0}$. Each point represents the value of the $s_{inj}$ distance
obtained by fitting Eq. 1 to the experimentally measured $1n$ evaporation
residue cross sections for 27 cold fusion reactions (see Ref. [7] for fitting
protocol details).

It can be seen from Fig. 1 that for energies up to a few MeV above $B_{0}$ the
$s_{inj}$ distance can be well approximated by a straight line given by

$s_{inj}=0.878~{}\textrm{fm}-0.294\times(E_{c.m.}-B_{0})~{}\textrm{fm/MeV}.$
(7)

A similar linear trend of $s_{inj}$ as a function of $E_{c.m.}-B_{0}$ was
reported in Ref. [33] by solving Langevin type equations.

The shaded area in Fig. 1 represents an error corridor of $\pm 1$ fm, which
allows the uncertainty of the calculated fusion probabilities to be
determined. The parametrization given by Eq. 7 should be used for
interpolation rather than extrapolation far beyond the explored range of
$E_{c.m.}-B_{0}$ values, especially if the extrapolation leads below the
physically acceptable limit of the touching configuration $(s_{inj}\approx
0)$. Negative values of this parameter would correspond to a large overlap of
the density distributions at the sticking stage, an effect that is impossible
in nuclear collisions at low kinetic energies. Therefore, in collisions at
energies higher than a few MeV above $B_{0}$, we assume $s_{inj}=0$ (allowing
a deviation in the range of 1 fm).

##  3 Results and discussion

Figure 2:  Fusion probability $P_{fus}(l)$ as a function of temperature $T$
and the barrier height opposing fusion $H(l)$ for angular momenta
$l=0\hbar,20\hbar,40\hbar$, and $60\hbar$. Calculations for 48Ca +208Pb (green
lines), 50Ti +208Pb (blue lines) and 54Ca +208Pb (red lines) fusion reactions.
The color of the surface marks the temperature gradient of the synthesized
system. Labels “outside” and “inside” refer to the “injection point” position
to the saddle (see Eq. 5 and its discussion).

The FbD model with the new “injecton point distance” parameterization and
input data taken from Ref. [4] was used to analyze fusion probabilities for
48Ca, 50Ti, and 54Cr reactions incident on a 208Pb target.

The fusion probability given by Eq. 5 depends on the ratio of the height of
the barrier opposing fusion $H(l)$ and the average temperature $T$ of the
system during the merging process. The fusion probabilities, $P_{fus}(l)$, for
48Ca +208Pb (green lines), 50Ti +208Pb (blue lines), and 54Ca +208Pb (red
lines) reactions as a functions of $H(l)$ and $T$ are shown in Fig. 2 for a
few selected $l$ values.

Let us start the discussion by analyzing the $l=0$ case in which the height of
the barrier is simply the difference between the asymmetric conditional saddle
point energy and the energy of the combined system of the projectile and
target nuclei separated by the distance $s_{inj}$ (see Eq. 6). As the
available energy increases, the “injection point distance” decreases (see Fig.
1), leading to a lowering of the barrier height, and thus to the rapid growth
of the fusion probability (see Fig. 2). When the separation distance reaches
zero at the energy corresponding to $T\approx 0.6-0.8$ MeV, the fusion
probability reaches the maximum in all three analyzed reactions. Further
energy increase does not change the height of the barrier ($s_{inj}$ remains
equal to zero) but heats the system up and thus affects the fusion
probability. For 48Ca +208Pb reaction, the touching configuration is behind
the asymmetric saddle point (as seen from the entrance channel perspective;
“inside” regime in Fig. 2). In this case, the rising temperature increases the
flux of particles escaping through the asymmetric saddle point and thus
slightly reduces the fusion probability (see $L_{inj}<L_{sd}$ case in Eq. 5).
For 50Ti and 54Cr projectiles, the touching configuration is “outside” the
barrier and the fusion probability slowly increases with the increase of the
incindent energy ($L_{inj}\geq L_{sd}$ case in the Eq. 5).

The inclusion of the higher partial waves affects the entire potential energy
surface topology and influences the competition between the existing symmetric
and asymmetric saddle points. In particular, the symmetric saddle, being more
compact and having a lower moment of inertia, is more sensitive to the
increase of the angular momenta. Above a certain $l$-value, the symmetric
saddle begins to dominate and becomes the main point to overcome in the fusion
process for all studied systems. In this case, the solution of the
Smoluchowski diffusion equation can also be applied to calculate the fusion
probability. However, the barrier height $H(l)$ should be calculated with
respect to the symmetric saddle point. The barrier height increases with the
increase of the $l$-value due to the difference in the rotational energies in
the symmetric saddle and “injection” points. Therefore, the contribution of
higher partial waves to the fusion cross section is suppressed. The systematic
decrease of the fusion probability with the increase of the $l$-value observed
in Fig. 2 for all three reactions might be viewed as a manifestation of the
well-known effect of the critical angular momentum.

As one can see in Fig. 2, the dominant contribution to the analyzed cold
fusion reactions comes from near-central collisions. The more peripheral
collisions are less favorable and lead to the re-separation of the system at
the beginning of the nuclear reaction, rather than merging of target and
projectile nuclei.

Figure 3:  Capture cross section $\sigma_{cap}$ (top panels) and averaged
fusion probability $P_{fus}$ (bottom panels) for the reactions: 48Ca+208Pb -
panels (a), (b), 50Ti +208Pb - panels (c), (d), 54Cr +208Pb - panels (e), (f).
Solid lines show the FbD model calculations of $\sigma_{cap}$ and $P_{fus}$.
Dashed lines in the top panels show calculated $\sigma_{cap}$ scaled by the
indicated suppression factors. The arrows indicate the value of the mean
entrance channel barrier, $B_{0}$, for each reaction. The error corridors
resulting from the $s_{inj}$ systematics uncertainty are shown as shaded areas
in the bottom panels. Points represent relevant experimental data taken from
Refs. [6, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38]. If not shown, error bars are smaller than the
symbol sizes.

To study the effective fusion probability for a given reaction, one can define
the quantity

$P_{fus}=\frac{1}{(2l_{max}+1)^{2}}\sum_{l=0}^{l_{max}}(2l+1)\times
P_{fus}(l),$ (8)

which is the fusion probability “averaged” over all angular momenta
contributing to the fusion cross section.

In Fig. 3 we present a comparison of the FbD model predictions with the
experimental data. The top panels show the capture cross sections for each of
the reactions (i.e. cross sections for overcoming the entrance channel
barrier) calculated using Eq. 2. Model calculations are compared with
experimental data taken from Ref. [6, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38]. The arrows in
panels (a), (c), and (e) indicate the values of the mean entrance channel
barriers $B_{0}$, calculated using the empirical parametrization [7], $173.0$,
$191.2$, and $208.3$ MeV for 48Ca, 50Ti, and 54Cr respectively.

The experimentally measured fission-like cross sections shown in the top
panels of Fig. 3 lie below our calculations (solid lines). The deviation
increases with increasing projectile atomic number. As proposed in [6], we
estimated scaling factors, $S$, for our calculations to reproduce the
experimental results in the energy range above $B_{0}$. These factors are 0.96
for 48Ca+208Pb, 0.55 for 50Ti+208Pb and 0.24 for 54Cr+208Pb (in [6] the
respective factors are 0.75, 0.48 and 0.22). Scaled capture cross sections are
shown as dashed lines in Fig. 3.

Our scaling factors are in reasonable agreement with the results presented in
Ref. [6], where they were estimated as a deviation from the CCFULL model based
on the coupled channels formalism [39]. The capture cross section suppression
might be associated with mass-asymmetric fast non-equilibrium processes, such
as QF or DIC, appearing just after the interacting system passes the entrance
channel barrier. It should be emphasized that both in this work and Ref. [6],
the obtained scaling factors are model-dependent.

Calculated average fusion probabilities (see Eq. 8) for 48Ca, 50Ti, and 54Cr
reactions on a 208Pb target are shown in the lower panels of Fig. 3. Full
points in panels (b), (d), and (f) represent upper limits on the compound
nucleus formation probabilities $P_{sym}$ taken from Ref. [6]. $P_{sym}$ is
derived as the ratio of the measured symmetric-peaked fission cross section
$\sigma_{sym}$ to the capture cross section taken as the measured total
fission-like cross section $\sigma_{fis}$ divided by the appropriate scaling
factor $S$ ($P_{sym}=\frac{\sigma_{sym}}{\sigma_{fis}/S}$, see Eq. 1 in the
supplementary material for [6]).

For the 50Ti+208Pb reaction additional experimental points (open triangles in
Fig. 3(d)) taken from [38] are shown. These data were derived by measuring the
angular distribution of mass-symmetric fission.

The calculated average fusion probabilities (Eq. 8, solid lines in panels
(b),(d), and (f)) are in good agreement with the experimental data for all
studied reactions. A rapid decrease of the fusion probability in the energy
region below $B_{0}$ reported in [38] for the 50Ti+208Pb reaction is
reproduced in our calculations (see Fig. 3(d)). Unfortunately, the data for
other reactions are limited in this energy region.

For each reaction, the maximum value of $P_{fus}$ is reached for an energy a
few MeV above $B_{0}$ (when $s_{inj}\approx 0$). Thus, the steady decrease of
$P_{fus}$ with increasing energy is due to the dependence of $H(l)$ on the
angular momentum only (see Fig. 2).

Finally, in Fig. 4, we show the FbD model calculations of compound nucleus
formation cross sections, defined as

$\sigma_{fus}=\pi{\mkern 0.75mu\mathchar
22\relax\mkern-9.75mu\lambda}^{2}\sum_{l=0}^{l_{max}}(2l+1)T(l)P_{fus}(l)=\sigma_{cap}\times
P_{fus}.$ (9)

The model calculations (solid lines) are compared with the symmetric-peaked
fission cross sections measured in [6], but not given in that paper.
Therefore, we deduced $\sigma_{sym}$ values from the data using the relation
$\sigma_{sym}=P_{sym}\times(\sigma_{fis}/S)$ (see Fig. 4 in Ref. [6] and Fig.
5 in the corresponding supplementary material). Although the comparison of
$\sigma_{sym}$ with $\sigma_{fus}$ is not entirely unequivocal, it seems
adequate. Qualitatively, one can see very similar behavior of the calculated
and experimental cross sections as a function of the center-of-mass energy.
Some additional subtle effects related to the deformation of the 54Cr
projectile might be expected. However, as we have checked (by analyzing
collisions at the tip to tip and equatorial configurations; dashed lines in
Fig. 4), the results for extreme orientations in the entrance channel are
within the error corridor resulting from the systematics of $s_{inj}$.

Figure 4:  Calculated compound nucleus formation cross sections,
$\sigma_{fus}$, for 48Ca +208Pb, 50Ti +208Pb, and 54Ca +208Pb fusion
reactions. Points are derived from the experimental data presented in Ref.
[6]. Dashed lines show calculations for two extreme orientations of target and
54Cr projectile in the entrance channel: tip to tip (bottom line) and body to
body (upper line). The arrows indicate the value of the mean entrance channel
barrier, $B_{0}$, for each reaction. See text for details.

##  4 Conclusions

The presented results show that the compound nucleus formation cross sections
and related fusion probabilities for 48Ca, 50Ti, and 54Cr incident on a 208Pb
target can be well reproduced within the framework of the FbD model.

The experimentally observed dependence of the fusion probability on the energy
can be reproduced using the diffusion approach. In the energy range below
$B_{0}$, the fusion probability growth comes from the reduction in the height
of the internal barrier opposing fusion with increasing bombarding energy. The
fusion probability saturation above $B_{0}$ results from suppression of the
contributions from higher partial waves and can be linked to the critical
angular momentum. The difference between rotational energies in the fusion
saddle and the contact (sticking) configuration at the beginning of the fusion
process plays a major role in compound nucleus formation at energies above
$B_{0}$.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M.K. was co-financed by the National Science Centre under Contract No.
UMO-2013/08/M/ST2/00257 (LEA COPIGAL).

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# Enhancing HEP research in predominantly undergraduate institutions and
community colleges

Matt Bellis  Department of Physics & Astronomy, Siena College, Loudonville NY
12211, USA Bhubanjyoti Bhattacharya  Department of Natural Sciences, Lawrence
Technological University, Southfield MI, 48075, USA  David DeMuth  Department
of Science, Valley City State University, Valley City ND, 58072, USA  Julie
Hogan  Department of Physics & Engineering, Bethel University, St. Paul MN,
55112, USA  Kathrine Laureto  Accelerator Division, Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory, Batavia IL, 60510, USA  Sudhir Malik<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Department of Physics, University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, Mayagüez PR, 00682,
USA  Ben Pearson  Department of Engineering & Physics, Northwest Nazarene
University, Nampa ID, 83686, USA

###### Abstract

The long-term success of HEP lies in expanding inclusiveness beyond national
labs and academic research institutions to a vast community of predominantly
undergraduate institutions (PUI) and community colleges (CC). Institutions
such as PUIs and CCs offer an early starting point in the pipeline that can
mitigate issues of lack of diversity and underrepresented participation of
different groups in HEP. However, there are many underlying systemic,
structural, and cultural challenges that need to be addressed collectively.
Experimental collaborations are largely populated by national labs and
research-focused academic institutions (non-PUIs). The faculty at PUIs and CCs
have a high teaching load that is detrimental to their research participation.
In addition, there is a lack of guidance, access, and tough competition for
securing research funding. The students also suffer from a lack of research
infrastructure and technical equipment that can only be found at national labs
and larger universities. There are existing successful efforts to enhance the
HEP research experience of students and faculty members. This paper discusses
ways to leverage these to provide more research opportunities and establish a
sustainable national program targeting specifically the issues faced by
communities at PUIs and CCs. The need for research mentoring and skill
building for faculty members is also laid out. The changes discussed in this
paper would make a direct impact on the current spectrum of challenges.

Submitted to the Proceedings of the US Community Study

on the Future of Particle Physics (Snowmass 2021)

##  1 Introduction

The spectrum of challenges for doing HEP research at PUIs[1] are common to all
areas of research, though the details might differ. A lot has been already
researched and documented about these problems [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. The
field of HEP worldwide has been led by the National Labs and non-PUIs,
complemented by participation from universities and labs of similar nature. On
the experimental side the need for expensive state-of-the-art facilities like
particle accelerators and complex particle detectors leads to a highly
collaborative nature of the field that makes it unique and presents several
challenges. The funding for basic sciences has been plateauing for over two
decades. In parallel, the influx of young scientists outnumbers those who
retire from the system, making fewer resources and jobs available.

Many young postdocs and graduating Ph.D. students leave the field after
investing years of time into HEP research, as academic opportunities at
research-focused institutes are too few and therefore highly competitive. An
interesting survey by the American Institute of Physics reveals that lack of
funding and difficulty obtaining employment are significant factors that
influence career choices made by physicists [9]. A small number of those
driven to both teach and research, however, find employment at PUIs as an
attractive academic career. However, as mentioned before, this comes with
specific challenges including limited time for research due to higher teaching
loads, lack of funding for research (whether start-up funds or federal
grants), and an obvious lack of Ph.D. students who are the backbone of
committed research programs. In the case of HEP this is even more accentuated,
as there are very few PUIs participating in HEP experiments. In this paper we
discuss these challenges and the motivation to mitigate them, with a focus on
HEP. It should be noted that these challenges are not unique to HEP and mirror
other scientific fields with researchers at PUIs.

##  2 Benefits of performing research at PUIs and CCs

It is natural to question whether or not cutting-edge research can be done at
a PUI or CC, given the high teaching load and the expertise disparity between
undergrads and grad students. With finite resources, does it make sense to
funnel some of those resources to PUIs? Given the collaborative nature of HEP
experiments, as well as the HEP theoretical community, it is difficult to
pinpoint whether or not any one person or one institution is indispensable to
the end goal of discovering New Physics and so we choose not to focus on that.
Instead, we make a strong argument that PUIs and CCs engage a fundamentally
different student population and often provide a very different set of
experiences for the students when compared to larger research institutions. It
is important for any scientific field to reflect the broader society in which
it operates, otherwise it is in danger of being disconnected from that
society, leading to a lack of support.

There are a number of reasons why a student might attend a PUI or CC. The CCs
tend not to offer a residential experience and have a lower cost per credit
hour than other colleges. This attracts students who are looking to save
money, perhaps because they are in a lower economic bracket or because they
are unsure of exactly what they want to do at a 4-year institution and need
the time to figure it out. CC students are also often holding down jobs while
they take classes. These non-traditional students can still be just as
passionate about science as their peers at other colleges and universities and
should have access to teachers who are regularly engaged with Big Science,
writ large.

Students who choose a 4-year liberal arts college, may do so for similar
economic reasons, but are also often drawn to the small class size and the
advertised closer connection with their professors. They can be overwhelmed by
the large classes in many research and state universities or may need to stay
close to home for any number of reasons. Again, these students can be
incredibly passionate about science and are at a “pivot-point” in their lives
as they decide what they want to do after college. Do they get a job? Pursue
grad school? Both? Connection with professors who are actually doing the type
of research they are considering can help them make the best informed
decision. Having the opportunity to work on this type of research can be life-
changing for any undergrad. But if these opportunities only take place at
larger research institutions, we are potentially excluding, or at least
minimizing, a particular cross section of individuals.

Across many STEM fields, there is an interest in plugging the “leaky
pipeline”, whether that is women or POC (persons of color) or students with
disabilities or other URMs (under-represented minorities). There is no one
approach that will solve this problem, but it does mean that we need to
provide students with positive experiences, both in and outside of the
classroom, such that they develop the confidence that they can succeed in that
field and that they want to succeed in that field. To that end, we want expose
as many students as possible to the opportunities in HEP work as early as
possible in their education. PUIs provide a prime opportunity to offer
research experiences that can mitigate these leaky pipelines. Faculty at PUIs
are particularly encouraged to reach out to individual students in an informed
manner and are often trained to engage with DEI issues. Because their time is
not divided with supervising responsibilities to graduate students, they have
opportunities and incentives to nurture URM students who might need that extra
encouragement.

It is also important to recognize that faculty at CCs and PUIs are often
encouraged to work with or teach to students who are not interested in a
career in HEP research or even in a STEM field. In some cases, faculty at
these schools, which often have smaller pools of majors from which to draw,
will have research students from the Engineering or Computer Science
departments, particularly if they have funding. The students that work with
these faculty have amazing experiences that they take to their subsequent non-
HEP careers.

Many liberal arts colleges have significant “core curriculum” or “general
education” requirements. This means that science students are required to take
some number of humanities courses and humanities or business majors are
required to take some number of science or quantitative courses. This is a
fantastic opportunity to convey the excitement of and wonder of our work to
non-majors, almost all of whom will someday be voters who will weigh in on how
taxes are spent and what projects should be funded. One of the authors
(Bellis) teaches a course called “Quarks, Quanta, and Quasars”, aimed at non-
science majors. 60+ students have gone through the course in the 3 terms it
has been run, all of whom got to learn about developments in quantum
computing, dark matter and dark energy, the Large Hadron Collider, and many
more topics. This material can, of course, be taught by faculty who are not
actively engaged in research, but the material hits different (as the kids
say) if the instructor has a personal connection to the work.

It should also be pointed out that because of the small class-sizes and the
makeup of the student body, faculty at PUIs and CCs provide a different
perspective on teaching and mentoring to their collaborators at larger
institutions. They are often either required or strongly encouraged to engage
more in DEI workshops, LGBT+ and Ally training, or guidance in dealing with
mental health issues. This cross-pollination of ideas can take place either in
informal settings or more formal collaboration projects. It is perhaps not a
coincidence that two of the authors on this whitepaper, faculty at PUIs,
(Bellis, Hogan) are co-conveners of the CMS MREFC (Major Research Equipment
and Facilities Construction) Underrepresented Minority Internship program and
that one of them (Hogan) is also a co-convener of the CMS Mentorship program.
Related, because most CCs and PUIs emphasize a commitment to teaching in the
classroom, these faculty can bring their experiences with education research
to the broader collaboration’s training opportunities, such as the CMS Data
Analysis School.

The diversity of the student body and student experience seem to suggest that
there is a real value-added in engaging faculty at PUIs and CCs in HEP work,
both theory and experiment. However, there are challenges for the faculty at
these institutions. Later sections of this paper explore those challenges as
well as opportunities to meet those challenges.

##  3 Challenges for research at PUIs and CCs

The challenges of establishing a successful research program at a PUI fall
along three general fronts: research funding, participation in large
collaborations, and the institutional culture of a PUI.

###  3.1 Research funding

The most significant and direct challenge to the ability to perform research
in HEP while being a faculty at PUI is acquiring research funding. The nature
of HEP research can be experimental or theoretical and each has its own flavor
of hurdles. The nature of experimental HEP is collaborative, driven by the
need for expensive accelerator facilities, complex detector apparatuses, and
extensive computing infrastructure. Participation in HEP experiments requires
funding for certain essential activities like travel to the experimental site,
wages for summer research, and annual contributions to the operation and
maintenance of the experiment. At some PUIs funding is also required for the
faculty member to have dedicated time available to perform research and pursue
professional development, such as attending workshops and conferences. Funding
for postdocs and students is a huge asset to a research program, and is often
indispensable. Buying equipment like laptops for the research group and a
small lab setup might also be a requirement. Support for almost all of these
cannot be found at a typical PUI, where start-up funding is rare. These
factors necessitate writing grants to federal agencies which are most likely
the only source of HEP research funding.

For HEP there are funding opportunities from NSF [10] called “Facilitating
Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions” that are very critical for
young faculty members at PUIs. This funding opportunity requires additional
writing in the form of an impact statement, and the proposal is subjected to
the same rigorous peer review [11] as a regular research grant. This implies
that PUI faculty members are competing for funds from the same source as their
non-PUI peers. Since experience shows that postdoc support is rare for faculty
at PUIs, funding proposals are typically written individually by the faculty
member. Faculty at PUIs also have a much higher teaching load compared to
colleagues at non-PUIs. All of these issues makes the process of acquiring
grants much more challenging for faculty at PUIs compared to those at non-PUIs
who are required to do less writing and typically prepare proposals in large
groups.

In general, the NSF programs such as Elementary Particle Physics (theory and
experiment) do not have a history of supporting course buyouts, leaving it to
the faculty member to negotiate a teaching load that still allows time for
research. This is usually not in the form of a reduced course load, but
perhaps consideration in avoiding preparing for multiple new courses.

###  3.2 Large experiment participation

A typical HEP collaboration has hundreds of international collaborators from
several universities. These universities represent the best institutes from
respective countries. It is a highly competitive environment within a
collaboration to make your mark, be it detector work or physics analysis.
Since every project within the experimental collaboration involves multiple
institutes it is very important to make sure that one’s individual
contribution is clearly acknowledged. An experiment does not care much for the
teaching load of a collaborating faculty and this is what puts PUI faculties
at a great disadvantage. It is very hard to compete and contribute
individually at the level of collaborators from R1 universities who typically
teach 2 courses or less per year. Scientists from labs and research institutes
do not teach by design of their full time research jobs. Lab scientists also
rarely compete for grants with their university faculty counterparts. At HEP
experiment one is expected to do a few months of service work (like data
taking, detector maintenance, upgrade activities and computing operations). In
addition one has to do physics analysis which typically take 2-3 years from
start to publish. With high teaching load, lack of postdoc and grad student
support, a PUI faculty can barely keep up with research activity. Traveling to
experimental site is possible only during university holidays but needs grant
support. Though remote technology has assisted in many ways but for
experimental work a physical presence at experimental site is essential and
expected. LHC experiment collaborators are required an entry fee for a new
institution joining an experiment and than an annual membership fee [12, 13,
14]. If one has a federal grant it covers these fees automatically. The fee
enables one to be a default author on all publications from these experiment.

###  3.3 Institutional culture

There are many challenges for pursing research as a faculty at a PUI due to
the very nature of its setup as an institution and this has been described in
details [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. While HEP research has many commonalities with
other fields of research it does have its own very specific challenges and
they add a layer of its flavor to all common challenges with other areas of
research.

####  3.3.1 Focus of student research

Both theoretical and experimental HEP deal with fundamentals of nature and
have years of preparation time in terms of studying physics and math to be
able to contribute at the level of research. In other words, there is big gap
of time between start of learning to the start of research. Experimental HEP
has an advantage that it involves lots of instrumentation and students as
young as undergrads can contribute to it in some form of labor or small
software projects. In other words, involving undergrads and Master students in
research at a PUI is seen mostly as a teaching process and less of them giving
back to the faculty in research. A direct help like a PhD student or postdoc
would do, is not easy or expected. This places the faculty in a very difficult
situation where on one side one has to perform at the level of R1 and lab
collaborators but with minimal useful help locally at PUI. However, it is
still experience for undergrads and Master students as it prepares a STEM
workforce in the due process and federal agencies like NSF do give a great
value to these efforts. In fact NSF-RUI research proposals solicitation
requires an impact statement which points essentially to the difference the
research makes for these students.

Background education through coursework can be a challenge for students
attending a PUI, especially those PUIs with a small physics department or
where physics is part of a larger umbrella department such as Natural
Sciences. Physics groups at PUIs often carry a disproportionately large amount
of service burden of preparing non-physics majors compared to those at R1
institutions.

####  3.3.2 Teaching responsibilities

The additional teaching and often service-teaching burden that faculty at PUIs
face, has several undesired consequences. First, physics faculty at PUIs have
a disproportionately large teaching burden. Whereas at an R1 institution
faculty may have the responsibility of performing research with up to 60% of
their time, at a typical PUI faculty are limited to roughly half that. Second,
faculty at smaller institutions often have to devote an unfairly large amount
of time toward preparing and teaching non-particle physics courses. This draws
their attention away from both particle physics research, as well as advanced
courses that would be considered bread-and-butter for a student of particle
physics, such as special relativity and quantum physics. Third, smaller
institutions that have established engineering and professional degrees appear
to recruit and retain only a handful of physics majors every year. As such,
often upper-level physics courses at smaller institutions are either
underenrolled or can only be offered at lengthy intervals by creating a larger
enrollment pool from students spanning different years of college experience.
Last but not least, PUIs often lack the resources to offer an advanced version
or part II of upper-level classes that are, on the other hand, regularly
available to students at R1 institutions.

The above challenges have a direct and adverse impact on student access to
particle physics, often in the form of a lack of background preparation. This
is especially acute for students interested in particle theory research, as
many of the theoretical and computational tools necessary for graduate-level
research in particle theory are taught in advanced physics and mathematics
courses. The absence of these courses in the required undergraduate curriculum
leaves the average physics major at a PUI unexposed to some of the fundamental
tools necessary for continued success in pursuing a career in particle physics
research.

Despite the above challenges to particle physics training and education,
students from PUIs often pursue successful research careers in particle
physics. In large part, the success of students who attend PUIs can be
attributed to their enhanced interaction with faculty members when compared
with the students attending R1 institutions.

####  3.3.3 Research support

Another significant challenge for HEP research at PUIs, particularly
experimental HEP research, is lack of institutional support for research
programs with significant external collaboration. Most research within a
physics department at a PUI happens in local labs with small-scale equipment
purchased and maintained by the PI. But large HEP experiments are hosted at
national or international laboratories, and their operation and maintenance is
funded collectively by the different countries involved in the project. The
concept of an “authorship fee” (or even a collective ”author list”!) is
difficult to understand by colleagues and administrators who are not familiar
with HEP research structures. New faculty at PUIs will likely face more
difficulty communicating research needs to their institutional leaders than
new faculty at non-PUIs, such as the need for time to prepare a strong funding
proposal during the first year of teaching.

Similarly, access to host laboratories for HEP experiments often requires
legal agreements between the laboratory and the home institution of each
researcher. Faculty at PUIs typically cannot benefit from long-standing
agreements between a well-established HEP group and a laboratory and have the
extra hurdle of explaining to university administration and legal teams why
these agreements or contracts are important for their research.

###  3.4 Specific challenges for CCs

Community colleges are affordable and typically have more open admission
policies than 4-year institutions. Approximately 40% of undergraduate students
in the United States are currently enrolled in CC, and a large proportion of
those students are from demographics typically underrepresented in STEM fields
[15, 16]. CC is a great place for students to start their path towards higher
education. Nearly 80% of CC students indicate their goal is to earn a
bachelor’s degree [16]. However, CC students face many challenges that
unfortunately lead to nearly 70% of students dropping out before completing
their degree [17].

CC students don’t always take the same traditional path that many students at
4-year institutions take, graduating high school then going on to start at a
4-year college. CC students are often returning to school after time off or
starting at a nontraditional age. Students who fall into these categories are
likely to have other responsibilities, such as family commitments or work,
that put them at a higher likelihood of leaving school [18]. Just over 60% of
full-time students and 72% of part-time students work at the same time they’re
enrolled [15]. Another challenge for many CC students is that they haven’t
received sufficient academic preparation [18]. Without preparation, students
can quickly fall behind, become discouraged, and withdraw from the CC.

Having access to and participating in STEM research increases a CC students’
chances of working toward a higher degree [19]. This poses a particularly
difficult challenge because research tends to happen outside normal class
hours. The extra time commitment needed for research reduces the number of CC
students who are available to participate due to their responsibilities
outside school.

##  4 Paths toward broader research access

There are several actions that funding agencies, collaborations, and the HEP
community can take to expand research opportunities at PUIs, which have an
important role to play in preparing students and providing new career avenues
within HEP. Students and postdocs in HEP would have broader career options
within academia if HEP research at PUIs becomes more accessible, given the
limited number of faculty positions available each year at non-PUIs.
Undergraduate students at PUIs would also gain more opportunities to learn
about particle physics and engage in early research, which is increasingly
important for admission to graduate programs. Figure 1 shows that most people
responding to the Snowmass Early Career community survey were first exposed to
particle physics during their undergraduate education. Particle physics
faculty at PUIs can bring this exposure to a new group of students,
potentially more diverse than their non-PUI peers, that have chosen to pursue
undergraduate education at these smaller institutions. Since PUIs offer
tremendous potential to tap a diverse pool of candidates for the future STEM
work force, it is important that HEP community and funding agencies
strengthens participation by PUIs in HEP.

Expanded access to research opportunities would also benefit CC students. Data
indicate that a large percentage of CC students want to excel in CC and move
on to earn bachelor’s degrees, but only a small percentage of students are
able to for a number of reasons mentioned in section 2.4. Participating in
research increases a CC student’s chances of success. Research opportunities
need to be made accessible to CC students who juggle many responsibilities
during their enrollment and don’t have a significant amount of time to
dedicate solely to research.

Figure 1: Question 8 from the survey. ”Where were you first exposed to the
subject of High Energy Physics and Astrophysics (HEPA)

The challenges PUIs face when engaging in HEP research could be alleviated if
collaborations, funding agencies, and the HEP community followed one or more
of the following paths toward broader research access.

###  4.1 Research funding

Two changes to research funding opportunities would significantly improve
access to HEP research at PUIs: more opportunities from the Department of
Energy, and increasing flexibility for connections between faculty at PUIs and
nearby non-PUIs with HEP research groups.

Particularly for participation in large experimental collaborations, faculty
members and students must have a home institution that is “known” to the
experiment. Even if a faculty member at a PUI acquires research funding,
perhaps through a program such as the National Science Foundation’s “Research
at Undergraduate Institutions”, unless their institution is recognized as a
member of the experiment participation is not possible. Affiliation with a
nearby non-PUI HEP research group can help solve this access problem.

Affiliation with a non-PUI group also makes it more likely that a PUI faculty
member will be able to acquire funding, and begin or continue research in the
experiment while a proposal is reviewed. Such a connection provides something
of a “safety net” for the PUI faculty member’s proposal, since they can
collaborate on projects with graduate students and postdocs at the non-PUI.
This affiliation can take the form of a “visiting scientist” appointment, an
adjunct faculty appointment, or similar. Access to the experiment, such as
computing accounts, come through the non-PUI group.

The non-PUI group benefits from an additional mentor for students, and may
build connections with potential incoming graduate students. Cross-pollination
of ideas and expertise between the PUI and non-PUI groups can improve the
creativity and scientific impact of both, particularly by retaining talented
researchers at PUIs that would otherwise leave the field. The SEC community
survey queried whether or not non-PUI faculty members felt their institutions
could participate in such an affiliation. The results, shown in Fig. 2,
suggest that many non-PUI groups are open to helping improve research access
for their PUI peers, through several need examples or guidance on how to set
up such an affiliation.

Affiliations between a PUI faculty member and a non-PUI HEP group can also
provide the PUI faculty member with authorship in the experimental
collaboration, as long as the PUI faculty member has been awarded research
funding from a national agency. This is simplest when the PUI faculty member
and the non-PUI group are funded through the same agency, such as the National
Science Foundation. When the non-PUI group is funded through the U.S. Dept. of
Energy and the PUI faculty member is not, extra manual intervention is
required each year to properly account for the PUI faculty member when the
agencies contribute per-author fees to the experiment. If the DOE were to
provide a funding avenue for PUIs, this would effectively double the number of
non-PUI groups with whom a PUI researcher could easily affiliate. Funding PUI
research would be a novel way to improve the agency’s ability to “create a
vibrant scientific ecosystem” [20] in the United States. In what follows we
provide a list of programs that are of value and should be considered for
continued funding by federal agencies to increase research participation at
PUIs and CCs.

Figure 2: Survey data on connections between PUIs and non-PUIs.

Faculty and students at PUIs can also participate in research taking place at
non-PUIs and national labs via programs that provide summer research
opportunities for those without other sources of funding. One example is the
DOE Visiting Faculty Program (VFP). The Visiting Faculty Program (VFP) is a
DOE-sponsored program that aims to increase the research competitiveness of
faculty at institutions typically underrepresented in the research community
(non-R1/R2, unless URM campus) [21]. For 10 weeks during the summer, a faculty
member and up to two graduate or undergraduate students collaborate with a
scientist/engineer at one of the DOE national labs on a research project of
mutual interest [21].

The VFP offers many benefits to faculty, students, and laboratory staff.
Participating faculty members and undergraduate students receive stipends
during the 10-week period. In addition, the host laboratory covers the cost of
housing and travel to and from the lab. The team can continue work on their
research project for up to three consecutive summers through the VFP. This is
particularly helpful for long term projects that can’t be completed in one
summer. The VFP fosters collaboration and builds lasting relationships between
DOE laboratory staff and faculty. Both faculty and participating students
benefit from exposure to state-of-the-art technology and equipment at lab
facilities, features they likely don’t have access to at their home
institutions. Students are able to network with lab scientists/engineers,
learn valuable professional development skills, and gain hands-on research.
The VFP reaches a broad group of faculty and students that are
underrepresented in the research community. This is crucial to expanding the
diverse recruiting network and helping attract the future workforce for the
national labs.

Another example is internship programs that connect summer students to the
major experiments. In 2021, member of the CMS experiment began an effort to
engage students at non-CMS institutions in upgrade projects funded as part of
the MREFC effort. This led to the CMS MREFC-EPO Underrepresented Minority
Internship, scheduled to run in Summer 2022. Five (5) students, all of whom
are Black or Hispanic, will work with groups at Boston University, Purdue
University, and University of Kansas. This experience would not have happened
at their home institutions, and while they have the opportunities to apply to
traditional REUs, this type of targeted program is often necessary to reach
students who might not see themselves engaging in this research. The CMS could
absolutely have run this effort without any PUI involvement, but as was
mentioned before, the effort is spearheaded by two co-conveners who are
faculty at PUIs (Bellis, Hogan) and have brought a particular perspective and
emphasis to the work, making it a priority.

Similarly, faculty at PUIs and CCs who are part of a larger effort, whether
theory or experiment, are often plugged in to opportunities in the broader
community. For example, IRIS-HEP***https://iris-hep.org/ and DIANA-
HEP†††https://diana-hep.org/ are two NSF-funded projects aimed at improving
the software tools used in the HEP community. Both have sponsored
undergraduate fellowships available to anyone in the country. A well-motivated
undergrad with a working knowledge of Google can seek out fellowships like
these, but the reality is often quite different. Undergrads can be overwhelmed
by the options available to them and can have an event horizon that ends at
the borders of their campus. It takes a guiding mentor to point them in the
right direction and this is where a faculty mentor can have an outsized
impact, even if it is just passing along the right opportunties to students.
But if the faculty member is not connected to the broader community efforts
through collaborative research, it is hard to stay aware of these
opportunities.

Finally, grantsmanship is a key element that determines the success of a
research program. Yet, often little grantsmanship training and support is
currently available to a large section of the HEP community – graduate
students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty members at PUIs.
Federal funding for programs that support grant-writing workshops will be able
to bridge this gap and increase participation in HEP research. Under such
programs, researchers who have been successful in securing grants will be
paired with students and early-career professionals, creating a network of
professionals invested in broadening access to HEP grants. Such a program can
be modelled after the Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST)
initiative of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – a program originally
developed to strengthen the biomedical research workforce [22].

###  4.2 Large experiment participation

Large experimental collaborations could adopt various methods of expanding
access for small groups of researchers like those at PUIs. The primary need is
for membership in collaborations to be accessible for small institutions with
limited funding. The governing bodies of large experiments could:

  * •

Reevaluate large fixed “entry fees” per institution, if they exist. Such fees
place a disproportionate burden on PUIs that lack resources compared to non-
PUIs. An entry fee structure that scales based on the number of Ph.D. holders
in the institution would be more equitable. One option might be a “single PI”
membership.

  * •

Consider implementing “light” membership forms that are low cost but not time
limited. Faculty members at PUIs likely care more about access to the
experiment and laboratory facilities for themselves and their undergraduate
students than full authorship on all collaboration papers. Existing membership
forms that do not incur costs to the institution often have a time limitation
which makes them ill-suited to long-term collaboration.

  * •

Provide financial support mechanisms for PIs to travel to important full-
experiment meetings. Faculty members at PUIs often have much less travel
support than non-PUI peers.

  * •

Continue to improve options for remote participation in service tasks,
especially operational shift work. When full membership in a collaboration
requires a certain quota of shift work per institution, small groups at PUIs
are at a significant disadvantage because travel to a host laboratory is
typically not possible during the academic year.

###  4.3 Institutional culture

Because of the nature of PUIs and liberal arts colleges where teaching and a
student-centered experience is emphasized, faculty must work hard to find time
to do research and to be very efficient in that research. The trade-off is
that they are regularly engaging with best practices in pedagogy and
mentoring. There are some specific actions that the community and funding
agencies could take which would have an outsized impact on PUI faculty.

  * •

Currently the practice of using grant funds to buy out of teaching duties is
generally discouraged by NSF and DOE. While this is perhaps understandable for
faculty at research institutions, at PUIs, faculty are often teaching 3 or 4
course per semester. Allowing faculty to request funds to support reassigned
time, for example in NSF RUI (Research at Undergraduate Institutions) would
have a huge impact.

  * •

While the situation is improving and we acknowledge those collaborators who
are particularly supportive, the community would benefit from a more global
shift in the perception and acknowledgement that undergraduate research
experiences are key to engaging a broader section of the student population.
Related, an awareness that PUI faculty have much to offer experiment-wide
training and educational activities.

  * •

Because faculty at PUIs are often incentivized to stay current with
educational research and best-practices, they often have something to offer
their collaborators, particularly in helping train graduate students and post-
docs to be better teachers. This could help those individuals be better
prepared for the job market. One suggestion would be to find opportunities for
grad students or post-docs to teach at formal collaboration events (e.g. CMS
Data Analysis School) and also find ways to provide constructive feedback to
help them improve their teaching.

  * •

The authors noticed that the Snowmass Climate Survey did not ask about
“Teaching” as part of the desired skills that one might acquire as part of
their HEP education. This points to a potential blind spot by the community or
that “learning how to teach” is not an important skill. A broader community-
wide shift in valuing good teaching would be welcome.

  * •

PUI administrators may not always appreciate the benefit of having faculty
participate in research activities with large, external collaborations, even
when those faculty are funded. Coordinated communication from experimental
leaders that is directed to PUI administrators, extolling the features of high
energy physics research alongside highlighted participation would go a long
way to contributing to tenure and promotion for PUI faculty.

  * •

Developing a sense of community among the PUIs and CCs who are doing this work
would be helpful. This could manifest as special session at APS or DNP or
similar meetings, or even dedicated workshops for faculty members to share
experiences and brainstorm on how to make the most of their connections.

###  4.4 Specific ideas for community colleges

Programs such as the Visiting Faculty Program (VFP) and Community College
Internships (CCI) provide significant benefits to the CC faculty and students
who participate in them. These programs are specifically designed for faculty
and students at institutions, such as community colleges, that receive much
less research funding than R1/R2 universities. The VFP and CCI can help
strengthen relationships between CC and DOE national labs which in turn, could
increase the number of CC that join large collaborations with national labs
and other research institutions. This would be highly beneficial to CC
students and faculty as well as laboratory staff.

The CCI is an internship program specifically for CC students. Through the
program, students hone their technical skills and participate in research
projects at DOE national labs. During the internship, students work closely
with lab scientists and engineers. One key benefit of this program is that
there are flexible internship dates to accommodate the needs of CC students
juggling many commitments. The CCI has 10-week internship terms over the
summer, fall, and spring. During the spring and fall terms, students can opt
to follow a ”flex-schedule” that is adaptable to meet their availability [23].
Another perk of the CCI is that the students receive a stipend for the 10-week
term. This means that students won’t have to choose between a job and research
experience, the CCI provides both.

During the CCI, students work closely with lab staff, building relationships
that could lead to additional internships and potentially future full-time
positions. Students also have the opportunity to participate in professional
development workshops, lab tours, and scientific lectures/seminars [23]. As
studies have shown, CC students significantly benefit from participating in
research during their time in school [19]. The CCI program has had an average
of 78 students participate each year from 2014 - 2020 [23]. While it is
fantastic to see this level of engagement, this program should be more widely
advertised, where possible, so a larger number of students can benefit from
the valuable experience the CCI provides.

##  5 Examples of PUI research programs

Bhujyo Bhattacharya leads a theoretical particle physics research group at
Lawrence Technological University (LTU) in Southfield, Michigan. With research
funding from the National Science Foundation through an RUI grant,
Bhattacharya engages undergraduate students in particle physics research
projects. At a small institution like LTU, the biggest challenges revolve
around the availability of resources. Advanced physics classes, such as
quantum mecahnics and electromagnetism, are not offered on a regular basis.
Furthermore, due to lack of interest (low enrollment), only one-semester
versions of these courses are offered. This makes it challenging for the
students who work with Bhattacharya to gain enough background knowledge to
begin research. Bhattacharya overcomes these challenges by introducing
students to research even in his first year classroom. LTU’s College of Arts
and Sciences has received funding for Inclusive Excellence from the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). As a senior personnel in this grant,
Bhattacharya uses funds from this grant to create Course-based Research
Experience (CRE) project for his first-year introductory-physics students.
Students working with Bhattacharya create “Computational Essays” to
demonstrate a physics principle. This process provides students training in
computational methods – they develop coding skills that prove to be extremely
beneficial for preparing students for NSF-funded research projects in
theoretical particle physics.

Julie Hogan is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Bethel University in Saint
Paul, Minnesota. She and a cohort of undergraduate research students
participate in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. Hogan’s research
program was launched out of postdoctoral work at Brown University, and she
remains a CMS author via affiliation with Brown. Following an access crisis
while attempting to bring students onto the CERN site in summer 2018, Bethel
University has become a ”Cooperating Institute” in CMS, which allows Bethel
students to register properly as CERN users and to be listed under Bethel
University on any papers. Through support from the NSF RUI program, Hogan’s
students have traveled to Fermilab and CERN to work on upgrades to the CMS
silicon strip tracker for the High-Luminosity LHC and searches for vector-like
quarks using deep neural networks. The group’s favorite research activity is
rendering new CMS simulation events into LEGO bricks for a ”particle flow”
algorithm tutorial offered at the Fermilab LHC Physics Center during (pre-
pandemic) summers. The students have presented their work at conferences,
earned credit as authors on vector-like quark search papers, and several have
now gone on to graduate study in physics, math, or data science. Bethel’s
challenge over the next two years, when their Cooperating Institute membership
will expire, is to navigate a more sustainable method of continuing CMS
research into the future.

Matt Bellis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and
Astronomy at Siena College, located just outside of Albany, NY. Bellis and the
Siena students are part of the CMS collaboration through a collaboration with
Cornell University and are listed as Cornell members in the CMS database. This
is a limited membership and Bellis and his students only receive authorship on
papers to which they have directly contributed, though other options are being
explored. Bellis is supported through an NSF RUI grant and engages students in
research on rare decays of the top quark, supporting the CMS open data effort,
and novel approaches to education and outreach. The work and experiences from
this research have filtered into the classroom in the form of an introductory
programming course for all freshman physics majors, an upper-level nuclear and
particle physics course, and a course designed for non-science majors: Quarks,
Quanta, and Quasars. Siena has participated in CMS research since 2013 and
more than 20 students have been supported by NSF grants on this work. While
some have gone on to grad school for particle physics (with 1 PhD so far and 1
to finish in 2022), the majority have gone on to grad school or jobs in
medical physics, data science, civil engineering, mechanical engineering,
atmospheric science and more, proving that particle physics research is a
superb training ground for a wide variety of career goals.

##  6 Conclusion

Employment in HEP fields at R1 Universities and National Labs is quite
saturated. In order to foster a more vibrant and diverse HEP community,
opportunities and support for undergraduate research need to be expanded. One
way to accomplish this goal is through improved inclusion and integration of
PUIs and CCs in the HEP community. These undergraduate-focused programs
typically cater to a different cross-section of the student population and
with their focus on education, are a wonderful compliment to the research-
driven universities and labs.

PUIs and CCs face a variety of challenges that inhibit their ability to more
fully participate in and contribute to the HEP community. These include, but
are not limited to a lack of infrastructure or support system, a lack of
funding, and large teaching loads. However, many of these challenges can be
mitigated with some creative collaboration, additional training, and
adjustments to funding.

Funding agencies could have a massive impact on enhancing HEP research at PUIs
and CCs by expanding or creating additional funding opportunities for these
programs. Large collaborations could consider ways to mitigate barriers
prohibiting more full engagement with PUIs and CCs. The HEP community as a
whole could better recognize and advocate for the value that PUIs and CCs
bring to the community.

In short, the HEP community would benefit greatly from more fully engaging
with and supporting PUIs and CCs.

### Acknowledgements

Contributions are based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation
under Grant No. PHY-1913923 (MB), PHY-2013984 (BB), and PHY-1806415 and
PHY-2110972 (JH).

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