CAREER: Exploring the Higgs Portal with Exotic Decays and New Strategies for Muon Triggering and Readout in ATLAS

继在瑞士日内瓦欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机（LHC）上发现希格斯玻色子之后，高能物理学家的一个主要科学目标就是描述这种新粒子的特性。希格斯玻色子本身就是通往新物理学的潜在门户，它提供了粒子物理学标准模型与新现象之间的联系，比如可能存在的自然力的特征或暗物质的证据。通过这个职业奖，马丁内斯和她的研究团队将在ATLAS实验中从分析和技术上解决这些问题。UIUC小组正在开发和实施新的分析工具，以寻找希格斯玻色子衰变成一对对假设的自旋为零的新粒子，这些粒子随后衰变成已知的粒子，如b夸克、电子和μ子，这些粒子可以在ATLAS探测器中直接观察到。这在战术上具有挑战性，因为尽管希格斯粒子的质量很大，但寻找自旋为零的粒子的质量很低，而观测到的粒子的能量也同样很低。此外，这些事件预计非常罕见，要找到它们需要在大型强子对撞机上进行数年的高强度碰撞。为了提高ATLAS探测器观察这些粒子的技术能力，UIUC小组正在与ATLAS同事合作开发新的电子设备升级实验，以允许有效触发和记录这些粒子。Martinez Outschoorn为她的同伴项目“粒子冒险”带来了丰富的推广和教育经验，该项目将在UIUC物理系的本科生和研究生志愿者的帮助下，将4-8年级的中小学生（包括来自代表性不足和风险群体的儿童）与物理联系起来。这个创造性的项目以互动的方式将粒子物理学的概念带入学校教室，并为年轻学生提供了与当地和欧洲核子研究中心工作的物理学家互动的机会。

Following the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, a primary scientific goal of high energy physicists has been to characterize the properties of this new particle. The Higgs itself is a potential portal to new physics, providing connections between the Standard Model of particle physics and new phenomena, such as signatures of possible new forces of nature or evidence of dark matter. Through this CAREER Award, Martinez Outschoorn and her UIUC research team will address such issues both analytically and technically in the ATLAS Experiment. The UIUC group is developing and implementing new analytical tools to search for Higgs bosons decaying into pairs of hypothetical new spin-zero particles, which subsequently decay into known particles such as b-quarks, electrons and muons that can be observed directly in the ATLAS detector. This is tactically challenging, because although the Higgs Mass is large, the masses of the sought for spin-zero particles are low and the energies of the observed particles are similarly low. Additionally, these events are expected to be very rare, and to find them requires high intensity colliding beams at the LHC over several years. To enhance the technical capabilities of the ATLAS detector to observe these particles, the UIUC group is collaborating with ATLAS colleagues in the development of new electronics upgrades to the experiment, to allow for the effective triggering and recording of these particles. Martinez Outschoorn brings significant experience in outreach and education to her companion program called the "Particle Adventure", which will connect elementary and middle school students in grades 4-8, including children from underrepresented and at-risk groups, to the excitement of physics with the aid of undergraduate and graduate student volunteers from the UIUC Physics Department. This creative project brings concepts of particle physics into school classrooms in an interactive way and provides opportunities for young students to interact with physicists at work both locally and at CERN.