ATLAS Upgrade 2018 Phase-II Construction

Lead Research Organisation: University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

The objective of this project is to construct elements of the ATLAS Phase-II Upgrade for operation at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). The increased luminosity delivered, around a factor of 10 more than the will be delivered by 2023, by the HL-LHC to ATLAS will significantly enhance the physics programme. The Large dataset collected will allow ATLAS to make precision studies of the Higgs sector, the Standard Model of particle physics, and to extend the mass scales accessible to searches for signatures of new physics well into the TeV region. This will allow ATLAS to address many of the fundamental questions in particle physics:

Is the Higgs mechanism for generating fermion and weak gauge boson masses linked, as is implied by the Standard Model?

Does the Higgs mechanism limit the cross-section of vector boson scattering in the Standard Model at high energies, or is there new physics involved in electroweak symmetry breaking?

Why is the Higgs boson much lighter than the Planck Mass (the hierarchy problem)?

Is there a weakly interacting particle with mass of the order of the electroweak scale that could explain dark matter?

Is supersymmetry (SUSY), a symmetry between bosons and fermions, realised in nature?

Planned Impact

See attached impact document

Publications

10 25 50

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Aaboud M (2018) A search for pair-produced resonances in four-jet final states at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields

 
Description ATLAS Collaboration 
Organisation European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Department CERN LHC ATLAS
Country Switzerland 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Construction, maintenance and operation of SCT tracking system, Level 1 Calorimeter Trigger, High Level Trigger and Computing & Software. Analysis of physics data.
Collaborator Contribution Construction, maintenance and operation of ATLAS experiment. Analysis of physics data.
Impact 812 peer reviewed journals articles (as of January 2019) on results of analysis of ATLAS data, including the discovery of the Higgs boson. Capability and skills development: Around 40PhD students per year many of whom move into industry, commerce and the public sector after graduating. ATLAS PhD students typically acquire very high levels of expertise in areas such as detector development, electronics, software design and big data analytics, and these skills, together with the experience of working in a large international collaboration, make our students highly sought-after by employers in the wider economy as well as within academia. STFC Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) in Data Intensive Science (DIS), in which ATLAS-UK physicists have been playing a leading role over the past two years. Our training of students and PDRAs, through these Centres, directly supports the first two pillars of the government's Industrial Strategy, as well as one of the Eight Great Technologies identified by the government, by helping to prepare the UK workforce for opportunities in the rapidly growing data science driven market sectors. The bespoke training programmes offered by these CDTs has been designed with input from industry partners and these partners are actively involved in the delivery of training. Public engagement: The hugely-positive publicity surrounding the LHC and particularly the discovery of the Higgs boson by ATLAS and CMS in 2012 have demonstrated the general public's great interest in this area. The importance of experiments with the scale and vision of ATLAS in inspiring a scientifically and technologically literate culture seems indisputable. Dissemination is a routine activity for ATLAS-UK physicists. Examples include frequent talks to students at schools across the UK and at events such as the Cheltenham Science Festival, interviews for local, national and international media, social media posts, podcasts, and exhibits at events, such as the Royal Society Summer Exhibition. ATLAS-UK Physicists have been playing a leading role in many Particle Physics Masterclasses organized annually across the UK, including the largest one at RAL with over 700 students per year. A key activity in these Masterclasses is the search for the Higgs boson in ATLAS data, which uses a simplified version of the ATLAS Event Display software developed by ATLAS-UK physicists, and which is used globally. Several episodes of Horizon (BBC2) have focused on ATLAS and featured ATLAS-UK physicists. The resources employed in the outreach activities include the time and enthusiasm of all those involved in the project, be they students, PDRAs, engineers or academics. In addition, we have close relations with the CERN press office and have worked well with STFC staff on this too. There have been many recent visits to CERN by MPs, MSPs and Government Ministers.
 
Description ATLAS Collaboration 
Organisation European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
Country Switzerland 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN, including R&D toward upgrades of the CERN LHC Facility
Collaborator Contribution International laboratory hosting an experiment
Impact These include the discovery of the Higgs boson, many publications and preliminary results, machine learning technology integrated into teaching resources for undergraduate and graduate students.
 
Description ATLAS Outtreach 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A journey into the ATLAS detector - How elementary particles are detected
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52OYi4q6VdA&autoplaylist=1
 
Description Oxford Physics Society Talks Michaelmas 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Talk about particle physics in ATLAS
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021