Orlando Soto is a faculty member at the University of La Serena and a researcher in experimental high-energy physics. He holds a Master of Science in Electronic Engineering from the Federico Santa María Technical University and a Ph.D. in Science, with a concentration in physics, from the same institution.
He has worked on the characterization of photodetectors called “Multipixel-photon counters” (MPPCs) that are part of the calorimeter for the GlueX experiment at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), among other developments and collaborations related to the electronics of that particle accelerator. He has studied the hadronization process using the CLAS spectrometer in “semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering” (SIDIS) fixed-target experiments: specifically, he has studied the production of eta mesons through collisions of electrons with heavy nuclei. He has also conducted research on hardware development using scintillation material in conjunction with MPPCs to create prototypes of hodoscopes and radon detectors. After completing his PhD, he worked as a researcher in the INFN group, LNF section, in Italy, analyzing CLAS12 data, focusing his research on hadron production in SIDIS with protons and neutrons. He also participated in the calibration of the CLAS12 RICH detector. After three years, he returned to Chile to work as a faculty member in Experimental High-Energy Physics at the University of La Serena.
Research and development areas:
– Detector development and data analysis
– Collaboration with the Atlas experiment (at the Large Hadron Collider), conducting radiation tests for the Charge Monitoring System as part of the Atlas Phase 2 upgrade.
– Development of a simple prototype of the Water Cherenkov Detector (WCD) as part of his collaboration with The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO).
