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School of Physical and Chemical Sciences

Search for a massive Higgs Boson with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC

Research Group: Particle Physics Research Centre
Number of Students: 1
Length of Study in Years: 3 years
Full-time Project: yes

Funding

Discuss with supervisor and/or admissions tutor

Project Description

Several hypothetical extensions of the Standard-Model of particle physics  predict the existence of additional heavier Higgs bosons. The project aims to perform a search for the production of a heavy pseudo-scalar Higgs, A, decaying into a Z boson and a lighter Higgs boson, in proton-proton collisions recorded at the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The project will focus on the most promising channel, where the Z boson decays into electrons or muons and the Higgs boson decays into b-quarks. A particular emphasis will be put on  reducing the dominating systematic uncertainties by  improving the identification of b-quarks and  the modelling of the largest background source,  the associate production of Z bosons and b-quarks. The student will also develop a multivariate discriminant, to optimize the sensitivity  of the search. Eventually, the student will carry out the direct search for  a heavy pseudiscalar Higgs boson in the recorded collision data.

Requirements

Basic programming skills required.

SPCS Academics: Ulla Blumenschein