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。通过该奖项支持的芝加哥大学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）上进行最高碰撞能量的实验来研究这些问题。这些研究关系到在大爆炸后短短一秒钟内对宇宙最基本的理解，以及为什么我们现在看到的宇宙。芝加哥小组正在为大型强子对撞机的主要探测器之一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。活动集中在解决几个主要受众的连贯主题：研究社区（REU计划和最近的ICHEP 2016），邻里（恩里科费米暑期实习生计划），公众（电影纪录片）和多样性和包容性（扩大你的视野计划，物理学本科女生会议）。 该组织位于芝加哥南区，为服务不足和代表性不足的少数民族社区参与科学带来了重要机会。 芝加哥小组所做的具体技术贡献包括领导快速跟踪触发器（FTK）的开发和强子量热仪（TileCAL）的升级，以使ATLAS能够在非常高的光束碰撞率下有效运行，这是推进实验科学目标所必需的。 该小组的分析贡献集中在几个重要领域，包括研究含有顶夸克，B夸克和轻夸克的最终状态，这将大大促进FTK，TileCAL和喷流子结构工具开发的小组。 这些将提供进入希格斯物理学，重点是希格斯衰变到B bar最终状态，并寻找奇异的物理过程，如暗物质和高质量di-jet最终状态的新物质状态。

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.