Elementary Particle Physics with ATLAS

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This award will support a group of four highly experienced PI's to work on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, the European particle physics laboratory. The LHC machine and ATLAS detector were built using funds from the NSF and from other agencies around the world. It proved its worth three years ago when scientists discovered the Higgs Boson, the last particle in the historically successful "Standard Model" (SM) that accounts for so much of the known matter in the universe. In spite of its success, the Standard Model still leaves a number of questions about the fundamental structure of the universe unanswered, giving rise to research exploring Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). This award will allow the PI's to continue their leading role in studies of the Higgs width and couplings, properties that have so far established it as the SM object anticipated. It will also support their continuing search for BSM that could materialize at the higher energy experiments that are currently underway. The group supports a vigorous broader impact program. The centerpiece of this is a large, modular, multi-panel exhibit of ATLAS and the LHC. This has been used at major science festivals in NYC and Washington DC, and will be sent to other festivals around the country. They also plan to continue their leadership role in the ATLAS Zooniverse project, which allows the public to view and analyze ATLAS events. This project will be leveraged by the group's expertise in the operations of the ATLAS trigger, responsible for selection of the interesting reactions that occur in ATLAS. This becomes increasingly key to the physics potential of the LHC in Run2. In this run the LHC will operate at 13 TeV, almost double its currently highest energy of 8 TeV. In addition to conventional approaches to the trigger, and to enhancing sensitivity to new physics, the group will attempt prototyping new strategies such as "data scouting" that can fill holes in traditional off-line data analysis pipelines. They will also work on including the transverse momentum trigger, the trigger menu, trigger software, statistical methods and tools, analysis tools, pileup simulation techniques, and event visualization tools. They also plan detailed study of silicon detector properties using the infrastructure they have developed for the ATLAS upgrade.