Using the Higgs Boson to Probe and Test the Standard Model at ATLAS

该奖项将为一个由一名PI，一名博士后和两名研究生组成的小组提供支持，以便在瑞士日内瓦的粒子物理实验室CERN的大型强子对撞机（LHC）上进行ATLAS实验。 大型强子对撞机是一台大型复杂的机器，它可以将质子加速到前所未有的能量，从而发现比任何观测到的都更大的基本粒子。 LHC的主要目标之一是找到希格斯玻色子，这是历史上成功的“标准模型”（SM）中的最后一个粒子，该模型解释了宇宙中形成可见物质的粒子之间的大部分相互作用。 虽然怀疑仍然存在，但许多物理学家认为新粒子是SM长期预测的希格斯玻色子。 尽管如此，还需要对其更罕见的衰变模式进行更仔细的测量。 惊喜是可能的，并且可能来自尚未发现的SM之外的影响。 该项目将通过观察希格斯玻色子与另一种粒子配对的事件来集中精力做到这一点。 在这项工作中将寻求对极其罕见的进程进行监测，这需要使用先进的软件和计算工具、现代机器学习技术、数据挖掘和使用复杂的统计工具包。这些技能不仅在粒子物理学和其他STEM领域非常有用，而且在学术界和研究界之外也很有用，因为全国各地的公司、非营利组织和政府组织都在寻求从社交媒体和计算数据库中新获得的大型数据集，以便为客户和公民提供更好的产品和更有用的服务。 这将开始在13 TeV的大型强子对撞机的全部能量潜力，几乎是运行1的两倍，是以前精确研究过的能量的两倍。 这个小组将专注于希格斯玻色子伴随着t夸克，t-tbar对或另一个希格斯粒子的事件。 PI在运行1中具有此类分析的专业知识，这可能使其在处理运行2中可能发生的不同情况时具有一定优势。 该小组将致力于ATLAS快速跟踪器（FTK），该跟踪器将允许新的触发器，从而可以更有效地发现感兴趣的事件。

This award will provide support for a group with one PI, a postdoc and two graduate students to work on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is a large, complex machine that accelerates protons to unprecedented energies, allowing for discovery of elementary particles more massive than any yet observed. One of the LHC's primary objectives was to find the Higgs Boson, the last particle in the historically successful "Standard Model" (SM) that accounts for much of the interactions of particles forming the visible matter in the universe. Though doubts linger, many physicists believe the new particle is the Higgs Boson long predicted by the SM. Nevertheless, more careful measurements of its rarer decay modes need to be made. Surprises are possible, and could result from effects beyond the SM that are yet to be discovered. This project will focus on efforts to do this by looking at events that pair a Higgs boson with another particle. Searches for extremely rare processes as will be sought in this effort require the use of sophisticated software and computing tools, modern machine learning techniques, data mining and the use of complex statistical tool kits. These skills are useful not only in particle physics and other STEM fields, but also outside of academia and the research world as companies, non-profits and governmental organizations across the country look to the large data sets newly available from social media and computing databases to provide better products and more useful services to customers andcitizens.The proposal supports work to be done in Run2. This is about to begin at the full energy potential of the LHC of 13 TeV, almost twice that in Run1 and twice the energy ever studied with precision before. This group will focus on events with a Higgs Boson accompanied by either a t quark, a t-tbar pair or another Higgs. The PI has expertise in such analyses in Run1 that may allow him some advantage in dealing with different conditions likely to occur in Run2. The group will be working on the ATLAS fast tracker (FTK) that will allow new triggers that might allow the events of interest to be found more efficiently.