Dr. Jim Birchall
Professor (retired)
PhD, University of Birmingham, 1969
Contact:
Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2
Canada
Phone: +1-204-474-6205
FAX: +1-204-474-7622
Email: birchall 
physics.umanitoba.ca
Research interests:
My interests are in the measurement of symmetry breaking in nuclear and particle physics. Broken symmetries give information on a small part of the nuclear force that is difficult otherwise to measure. Past and present experiments include:
- The first measurement of charge symmetry violation in neutron-proton scattering, performed at TRIUMF, to investigate the mechanism of charge symmetry breaking due to short range components of the nuclear force.
- A measurement of parity violation in proton-proton scattering at TRIUMF to help determine the elusive weak meson-nucleon coupling constants.
- Qweak, a measurement of parity violation in electron-proton scattering at very low momentum transfer at Jefferson Lab. in Newport News, Virginia. Qweak will be a sensitive test of the Standard Model and whether new physics will be required to describe the results. I have concentrated on the simulation of systematic errors in this very challenging experiment. The experiment is set to run from the spring of 2010. I will be on leave at Jefferson Lab. in 2010-2011.