Research in Elementary Particle Physics

粒子物理学考虑了从亚原子到宇宙尺度的广泛的科学问题。由该奖项支持的芝加哥大学研究小组通过在瑞士日内瓦欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机(LHC)上以最高的可用碰撞能量进行实验来研究这些问题。这些研究与在宇宙大爆炸后极短的时间内对宇宙最基本的层次的理解有关，也与我们为什么会看到现在的宇宙有关。芝加哥小组正在为大型强子对撞机的主要探测器之一的ATLAS实验做出重大的技术和分析贡献。研究、教育、推广和多样性的整合也是芝加哥集团使命的一个重要方面。活动的重点是针对几个主要受众的连贯主题：研究社区(REU计划和最近的ICHEP2016)、邻里(Enrico Fermi暑期实习生计划)、普通公众(电影纪录片)以及多样性和包容性(扩展你的视野计划，物理专业女本科生会议)。该组织位于芝加哥南区，为服务不足和代表性不足的少数族裔社区提供了参与科学研究的重要机会。芝加哥小组做出的具体技术贡献包括领导快速径迹触发器(FTK)的开发和强子量热仪(TileCAL)的升级，使ATLAS能够在推进实验科学目标所必需的非常高的光束碰撞率下有效地运行。该小组的分析贡献集中在几个重要领域，包括对含有顶夸克、b夸克和轻夸克的终态的研究，FTK、TileCAL和该小组开发的JET子结构工具将极大地促进这一研究。这些将提供进入希格斯物理学的途径，重点是希格斯衰变到b终态，并搜索奇异的物理过程，如暗物质和高质量双喷流终态中的物质的新态。

Particle physics considers a vast range of scientific questions, from subatomic to cosmic scales. The University of Chicago Group supported through this award investigates such questions through experimentation at the highest available collision energies at the Large Hadron Collider (the LHC) at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. These studies are relevant to the understanding of the Universe at its most fundamental level in the fleeting fraction of a second just after the Big Bang, and to why we see the Universe as we do now. The Chicago group is making significant technical and analytical contributions to the ATLAS experiment, one of the major detectors at the LHC. The integration of research, education, outreach and diversity is also an essential aspect of the Chicago group's mission. Activities focus on coherent themes that address several primary audiences: the research community (REU programs and the recent ICHEP2016), neighborhood (Enrico Fermi Summer Interns Program), the general public (film documentaries) and diversity and inclusion (Expanding Your Horizons Program, Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics). The group's location on Chicago's South Side brings important opportunities for engaging underserved and underrepresented minority communities in science. The specific technical contributions being made by the Chicago group include leading the development of the Fast Track Trigger (the FTK) and upgrades of the hadron Calorimetry (the TileCAL), to allow ATLAS to operate effectively at the very high beam collision rates that are necessary to advance the scientific goals of the experiment. The group's analytical contributions are focused in several important areas, including studies of final states containing top quarks, b quarks and light quarks, which will be greatly facilitated by the FTK, the TileCAL, and jet substructure tools developed by the group. These will provide access to Higgs physics, with emphasis on Higgs decays to b bar final states and searches for exotic physics processes such as dark matter and new states of matter in high mass di-jet final states.