Elementary Particle Physics and Medical Physics
(949) 824-6944
Professor Mandelkern earned his B.A. from Columbia University, Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1967), and M.D. from the University of Miami (1975). He has held visiting positions at the Centre d'Etudes Nucleaire in Saclay, France, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, Switzerland (CERN), the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England and has collaborated in elementary particle physics experiments at national laboratories in the United States as well as in Europe and Asia. He is certified by the American Board of Nuclear Medicine and directs a research program in Positron Emission Tomography at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. He is Professor of Radiological Sciences and Clinical Professor of Radiological Sciences at UCLA. Professor Mandelkern works in experimental elementary particle physics and in medical physics and human physiology.
He is involved in several elementary particle physics experiments in collaboration with UCI physics professor Jonas Schultz. These are Fermilab experiments E835 and E862 and the BABAR experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. E835 is a study of charmonium, an atom-like system of heavy quarks, and related phenomena. The goal of this experiment is a better understanding of the strong interactions as described by quantum chromodynamics. E862 has made the first definitive observation of anti-hydrogen atoms formed in high energy collisions between antiprotons and ordinary atoms. The next step in the antihydrogen program is the determination of spectroscopic properties of antihydrogen including the Lamb shift. The goals of the BABAR experiment at the SLAC B Factory are the demonstration of CP violation in B meson decay and the study of the weak interactions of heavy quarks.
Professor Mandelkern is active in research in Positron Emission Tomography (PET), a physiological imaging technique in which pharmaceuticals labeled with positron emitting radionuclides are used to produce functional images of human tissues. His PET projects include studies of cognitive processes in the normal brain and development of techniques for obtaining and analyzing images.
Professor Mandelkern has taught at all levels of the curriculum and takes a special interest in the Biomedical Physics program and Physics 147, a full-year course in the Physics of Biology and Medicine.
Representative Publications:
Study of the eta_c(1S0) state of charmonium formed in pbar p annihilations and a search for the eta_c'(2S0). T. Armstrong et al. Physical Review D52, 4839 (1995).
Nuclear techniques for medical imaging:Positron emission tomography. Mark A. Mandelkern. Ann. Rev Nucl. Part. Sci. 1995 .45:205-54.
Observation of atomic antihydrogen. G. Blanford et al. Physical Review Letters 80, 3037 (1998).
Measuring the antihydrogen Lamb shift with a relativistic antihydrogen beam. G. Blanford et al. Physical Review D57, 6649 (1998).