Particle Physics Consolidated Grant 2019 - 2022

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This grant supports particle physics data analysis from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) general purpose detector at the Large Hadron Collider CERN and the maintenance and operation of the Silicon Tracker, a detector sub-system that enables us to reconstruct the momentum of charged particles. Exploiting the CMS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, where CMS with ALTAS discovered the Higgs Boson in 2012, will bring greatly enhanced understanding of the "Standard Model" of particle physics, particularly in the area of top-quark physics, searching for as yet undiscovered gauge bosons and supersymmetric particles, and ultimately shedding further light on the "Higgs" boson which is connected with the origins of mass. In particular we will use the huge datasets produced by CMS to study the production and properties of the top quark, a standard model particle with unique properties. We will not only make precise tests of the standard model by studying processes such as single top quark production in association with a Z boson but we can use the increasingly large data sets to begin to search for unexpected enhancements in highly suppressed channels involving Flavour Changing Neutral Currents (FCNC); seeing these would be exciting evidence of the breakdown of the standard model.This grant provides support for academic staff who are contributing to the design and construction of an entirely new replacement silicon tracking detector for CMS, to be installed in the mid 2020's which will make available for the first time a trigger based on the momenta of individual tracks in every event arising from the proton-beam collisions.