C. Sean Sutton

Professor of Physics

Specialization: Underground particle physics and astrophysics

Professor C. Sean Sutton is researching double beta decay (2n2b and 0n2b). Initially the research was with 100Mo at a site in Osburn, Idaho, with a U.S. collaboration (LBL-MHC-UNM-INEEL). His current work is with the NEMO (Neutrino Experiments with Molybdenum) collaboration that involves more than 40 collaborators from eight countries. His research involves 100Mo and 82Se in the current NEMO 3 and the forthcoming SuperNEMO experiments. These experiments are based in the Frejus Underground Laboratory located in the French Alps. In the spring of 2005 a fire in the Frejus tunnel shut down the experiment, but by August 2005 it was up and running again. In the past, some of Sutton’s time has been spent with accelerator experiments developing particle detectors for the BaBar calorimeter at Stanford Linear Accelerator and color transparency measurements in the experiment EVA 850 at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

Apart from Mount Holyoke College fellowships, Sutton has also had three fellowships from the Laboratoire de l'Accelerateur Lineaire-Orsay, France, as well as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho. These have been supported by the High Energy Physics division of the Department of Energy. He has also had fellowships from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the Siemens Corporate Research and Technology Laboratory.

Sutton teaches Advanced and Introductory Mechanics, Optics, Quantum Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Electrodynamics, Statistical Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics, Relativity, Electronics, Experimental Methods, the Five College Advanced Laboratory, Waves and Particles, and Mathematical Methods and Astronomy.

Before joining Mount Holyoke College, Sutton was an assistant professor in physics at Smith College.

Sutton’s research has been published in the Physics Teacher, Physics Review Letters, Astrophysical Journal, Nuclear Instruments and Methods A, Nuclear Physics A, European Physics Journal A, American Nuclear Society Transactions, Physics Review Letters B, Physics Review C, Zeitschrift Physics C, JEPT Letters, Publication of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and Computers in Physics.