Experimental Particle Physics Rolling Grant 2006-2011
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
This research is aimed at understanding the properties of the basic building blocks of the Universe (the elementary particles) and the nature of the fundamental forces which govern the interactions of these particles. In so doing, deep insights will be gained about the origin and evolution of the Universe, especially in the first moments after the Big Bang. The Lancaster research programme covers all the main types of accelerator facilities and is based on hadron collider physics with the Tevatron (Fermilab) and LHC (CERN) machines, the observation of long baseline neutrino oscillations in Japan and, in the longer term future, high energy electron-positron collisions at the International Linear Collider (ILC). All of this work will be underpinned by Lancaster's expertise in characterising and understanding the properties of heavily irradiated silicon particle detectors, in operating high performance computing facilities on the Grid and in writing offline event reconstruction software. The hadron collider physics is expected to reveal detailed properties of B hadrons (containing heavy b-quarks) including the mixing of neutral B mesons containing strange quarks, and CP violation which is related to the existence of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Searches for new physics at the LHC will focus on understanding the origin of mass (and the role of the Higgs boson), the existence of new symmetries of nature (e.g. supersymmetry) and extra spatial dimensions. The neutrino oscillations programme is expected to provide important information about the masses of and the amount of mixing amongst the three known species of neutrinos. If the appearance of electron neutrinos can be observed in a muon neutrino beam then it may be possible, in a further phase of the research, to establish the existence of CP violation in the neutrino sector of the Standard Model. This could have wide reaching implications for the understanding of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. The electron-positron collider (the ILC) will enable a continuation of some of the research performed at the LHC but with a facility of greater precision and versatility. It could be especially crucial for the elucidation of the properties of the Higgs boson and supersymmetry if they exist as well as being an abundant source of top quraks.
Organisations
Publications
Aad D.
(2011)
Luminosity determination in pp collisions at vs = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2011)
Search for a heavy particle decaying into an electron and a muon with the ATLAS detector in sqrt[s] = 7 TeV pp collisions at the LHC.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2014)
Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV proton-proton collision data
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the Z/? * boson transverse momentum distribution in pp collisions at s = 7 $$ \sqrt{s}=7 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2011)
Search for contact interactions in dimuon events from p p collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
A search for prompt lepton-jets in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2011)
Search for supersymmetric particles in events with lepton pairs and large missing transverse momentum in $\sqrt{s}=7~\mbox{TeV}$ proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS experiment
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2011)
Search for heavy long-lived charged particles with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for microscopic black holes in a like-sign dimuon final state using large track multiplicity with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Search for a multi-Higgs-boson cascade in W + W - b b ¯ events with the ATLAS detector in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2011)
Measurement of the transverse momentum distribution of Z / ? ? bosons in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2011)
Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to t + t - pairs in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2010)
Observation of a centrality-dependent dijet asymmetry in lead-lead collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] =2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2014)
Search for microscopic black holes and string balls in final states with leptons and jets with the ATLAS detector at s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2013)
Search for pair-produced massive coloured scalars in four-jet final states with the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 7\ \mbox{TeV}$
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2013)
Search for nonpointing photons in the diphoton and E T miss final state in s = 7 TeV proton-proton collisions using the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2011)
Measurement of the Z ? t t cross section with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Search for dark matter in events with a Z boson and missing transverse momentum in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Flavor tagged time-dependent angular analysis of the B s 0 ? J / ? ? decay and extraction of ? G s and the weak phase ? s in ATLAS
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the low-mass Drell-Yan differential cross section at s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics