Research Group: Particle Physics Research Centre Number of Students: 1 Length of Study in Years: 3 years Full-time Project: yes
Discuss with supervisor and/or admissions tutor
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.
Basic programming skills required.
SPCS Academics: Ulla Blumenschein