Search for Second Generation Leptoquarks using Advanced Data Analysis Methods

这项提议是为了支持来自北方伊利诺伊大学的一位PI，他建议在费米国家加速器实验室的Tevatron的D-零实验中寻找第二代细夸克。PI将与研究生和本科生密切合作，探索复杂的数据分析方法的进一步发展和应用。轻子夸克是带有轻子和夸克量子数的分数带电粒子，在几个超越粒子物理标准模型的理论模型中自然产生。PI是D-Zero合作的积极成员，并在使用先进的多元方法建立世界上第一代标量leptoquark存在的最佳限制方面发挥了重要作用。 随后在Tevatron上对第二代和第三代细夸克的搜索没有发现任何信号。 但是，重要的是要继续寻找。 如果对细夸克的研究证明是成功的，它们的发现将产生直接而深远的影响。如果它们被发现，那么轻夸克将是自夸克发现以来第一个被发现的全新物质状态。细夸克性质的详细测量将对理论模型施加严格的限制。费米实验室正在进行的第二次实验，相对于第一次实验获得的数据量，有望有实质性的增加。这提供了一个巨大的机会，让我们共同努力寻找细夸克，假设它们的质量在Tevatron的范围内，使用最佳利用数据的分析技术。无论是否发现了leptoquark，该项目都具有更广泛的意义，因为它将为相关学生提供实验物理学和培训方面的宝贵教育。 所使用的数据分析方法是相当新的，非常通用和强大。PI的年轻同事不仅将获得当前物理学的全面基础，而且还将获得在各种领域中找到重要应用的先进方法的实践培训。

This proposal is a request to support a PI from Northern Illinois University who proposes to search for second-generation leptoquarks at the D-Zero experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron. The PI will work closely with graduate and undergraduate students, and explore the further development and application of sophisticated approaches to data analysis. Leptoquarks are fractionally charged particles that carry both lepton and quark quantum numbers and arise naturally in several well motivated theoretical models that go beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. The PI is an active member of the D-Zero collaboration and played a major role, using advanced multivariate methods, in establishing the world's best limits on the existence of first generation scalar leptoquarks. Subsequent searches for second and third generation leptoquarks at the Tevatron have revealed no signals. However, it is important to continue the search. Should the search for leptoquarks prove successful the impact of their discovery would be immediate and profound. Were they to be discovered, leptoquarks would be the first fundamentally new states of matter to be uncovered since the discovery of quarks. Detailed measurements of leptoquark properties would impose severe constraints on theoretical models. Run II, which is in progress at Fermilab, promises a substantial increase in the quantity of data relative to that obtained during Run I. This presents a tremendous opportunity to mount a concerted effort to find leptoquarks, assuming that they exist with masses within reach of the Tevatron, using analysis techniques that make optimal use of data. Whether or not the leptoquarks are found, the project has a broader significance in that it would provide a valuable education in experimental physics and training for the students involved. The data analysis methods to be used are fairly new, extraordinarily versatile and powerful. The PI's younger colleagues would receive not only a thorough grounding in current physics but also practical training in advanced methods that find important applications in a diverse range of fields.