Prof. Valentinetti participated in experiments using high energy particle beams and his research activity has developed mainly in two sectors. The first, concerning data analysis, began with the activity carried out within the ATLAS collaboration. The other, mainly instrumental in nature, carried out in parallel with the previous one, concerns the development and study on bench and on beam of detectors (ATLAS, SLIM5, VIPIX and SUPERB).
Currently Prof. Valentinetti also participates in the FOOT (FragmentatiOn Of Target) collaboration, experiment which aims to study the nuclear fragmentation processes that occur during hadrontherapy treatments.
1. ATLAS experiment (CERN):
- Design, construction and maintenance of the LUCID detector in Phase I and its subsequent Phase II upgrade.
- Luminosity measurements at the LHC accelerator and evaluation of the main systematics.
- Readout electronics.
- Background estimation in the ttH search channel (Higgs plus top and anti-top quarks).
2. Research on active pixel signature detectors for use in next generation of large accelerator experiments. Study of CMOS MAPS matrices made in 130 nanometer STM technology. Creation of a complete readout and acquisition system for testing activities on particle beams.
3. FOOT experiment.
1) Since 2008 she has been a member of the ATLAS Collaboration, one of the two CERN experiments responsible for the first observation of the Higgs boson, a discovery for which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013. Prof. Valentinetti started her work in the luminosity monitor project of the ATLAS experiment, then in its initial phase (LUCID). The detector, entirely designed and built by the Bologna research group, was tested and installed at ATLAS and has been providing its data to the entire collaboration since September 2008. Prof. Valentinetti was responsible for the calibration and stability of the LUCID detector from 2010 to 2012, Run Coordinator of the Forward Detectors at CERN in 2015-2016, LUCID TDAQ expert from 2015 to 2017, Data Quality Monitor Expert of luminosity from 2015 for LUCID and since 2017 for the entire ATLAS collaboration. Prof. Valentinetti had roles of responsibility in the analysis of the data collected in the numerous beam test campaigns of the LUCID detector. She then took care of the front-end electronics and the evaluation of the algorithms which, implemented directly on the readout card, provide both online and integrated luminosity measurement for the entire collaboration. Since November 2009, when the accelerator finally entered service, Prof. Valentinetti has been responsible for analyzing the data collected by LUCID in order to verify the correct functioning of the detector and measure the brightness of the proton beam used. Since 2017, Professor Valentinetti has become responsible for the data analysis of all ATLAS luminosity monitors in order to evaluate the main systematics inherent to this measurement. Prof. Valentinetti is currently participating in the design and construction of the new LUCID luminosity detector for Phase II.
Prof. Valentinetti also participated in the Standard Model Working Group within which she carried out research on the W+jets backgrounds in the Higgs decay channel H->WW*->llqq using a completely data driven method. The technique was subsequently used in participation in the analysis of the Higgs production channel with a top-anti top pair (ttH channel).
2) Regarding the technical part, in 2008 she became part of the SLIM5 collaboration, a research and development project financed by the INFN within group 5 for the creation of thin tracking systems in the field of high energy physics. The experiment produced a thin silicon tracker, with first level trigger capability on the tracks, using CMOS active monolithic pixel (MAPS) and thin stripe detectors, interfaced to an associative memory system for the reconstruction of the trajectories. In this context she worked on the acquisition and trigger electronics of the demonstrator tested on the beam in September 2008.
In 2009 she became part of the VIPIX collaboration, a natural continuation of SLIM5, within which a thin pixel tracker based on vertical integration technologies was built. A first version of this detector was tested on the beam in September 2011, while a second version was tested in November 2012. Once again Professor Valentinetti took care of the data acquisition system.
The expertise acquired in the various experiments on the data acquisition system was also used in the SUPERB collaboration within which the group to which the professor belongs was responsible for the design and development of the prototype of the vertex detector of the experiment, in synergy with the VIPIX experiment.
3) Currently, thanks to her skills in the development of data acquisition systems for large experiments, Prof. Valentinetti has won a PRIN tender for the development of a new vertex detector for the FOOT experiment. In particular she is responsible for the development of the front-end card for the readout system and for the trigger and data aquisistion system.
