Search for the Higgs Boson at the ATLAS Experiment
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Warwick
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
Over a century of study has led physicists to develop the Standard Model theory (SM) of the building blocks of matter and the forces among them. This combines the strong force which binds quarks into nuclei, the weak force which explains radioactivity and the electromagnetic force which holds electrons in atoms. To date, it is the most accurately tested scientific theory, verified to a few parts per billion! Given this amazing success you may wonder why scientists have any doubts about the theory. However, one piece is missing: understanding the generation of mass. Despite all of the SM's testable predictions, it cannot predict any particle's mass (and by extension cannot explain your or my weight). This challenge inspires theories ranging from tweaks of the SM, to more outlandish, but possibly true, theories which require a plethora of new particles, possibly accounting for dark matter. In 1964 Peter Higgs, now Edinburgh professor emeritus, proposed an elegant solution to the mass generation problem requiring only one new particle. This 'boson' grabs hold of other particles and the stronger it holds on, the heavier they become. The eponymous Higgs boson has been a holy grail of fundamental science ever since. Although the Higgs boson was devised to generate mass, its own mass is unspecified. Scientists worldwide have searched for it unsuccessfully, ruling out large mass ranges and driving the search to increasingly high energies. Evidence from other precision data now predicts that if the SM Higgs boson exists, it can be found at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Centre for Particle Physics (CERN) which will collide protons in a 27km underground ring at unprecedented energies in 2008. There, we should find the long-awaited SM Higgs boson or, possibly, a boson with unexpected properties revealing that more complex dynamics occur in nature, prompting an entire re-think or extension of the SM. If it exists, my proposed programme will discover the SM Higgs boson in the experimentally favoured low mass range. If not, I may find nature's Higgs surrogate. My careful study will identify which of these scenarios is realised. I will search data from the ATLAS experiment at LHC, analysing 10 billion catalogued collisions, a task likened to finding one phone number in a 1000 directories. However, this is no random search since we know how to look for this 'number': we can do the equivalent of finding out the person's surname by looking for known characteristics of the Higgs boson in data! Theoretical understanding of the boson and experimental skill will pinpoint it in the midst of the maelstrom of activity in energetic proton collisions. I will build and lead a team in the Oxford ATLAS group to find the Higgs boson in its decay to two tau leptons or bottom quarks. With careful analysis of the data, these will provide distinctive experimental fingerprints. Simulations show that these decays will yield the five statistical standard deviations 'gold standard' of convincing discovery. The combination of the group's expertise and my in-depth experience from the USA's Tevatron collider will provide a firm foundation for each member of the team to study one element of the signature. For example by homing in on datasets which contain signatures of known particles which decay like the Higgs boson, the identification algorithms can be honed. Finding the tau lepton or bottom quark requires algorithms which I will base on my experience of precision measurements in the bottom quark sector. These studies will characterise the ATLAS hardware enabling us to search the phonebooks of nature which the experiment provides. We cannot be sure that the Standard Model Higgs boson exists, but we can be certain that the hunt for the Higgs will be a fascinating journey whose destination may prove Peter Higgs right, or even more excitingly, that nature is richer and more complex than he imagined.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Sinead Farrington (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
A A10 - Abdinov A11 - O A12 - Abi A13 - B A14 - Abolins A15 - M A16 - AbouZeid A17 - OS A18 - Abramowicz A19 - H A20 - Abreu A21 - H A22 - Acerbi A23 - E A24 - Acharya A25 - BS A26 - Adam A27 - E A28 - Adamczyk A29 - L A30 - Adams A31 - DL A32 - Addy A33 - TN A34 - Adelman A35 - J A36 - Aderholz A37 - M A38 - Adomeit A39 - S A40 - Adragna A41 - P A42 - Adye A43 - T A44 - Aefsky A45 - S A46 - Aguilar-Saa
Search for resonant WZ production in the WZ -> lvl ' l ' channel in root(s)=7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector
A A10 - Abdinov A11 - O A12 - Abi A13 - B A14 - Abolins A15 - M A16 - AbouZeid A17 - OS A18 - Abramowicz A19 - H A20 - Abreu A21 - H A22 - Acerbi A23 - E A24 - Acharya A25 - BS A26 - Adam A27 - ER A28 - Adamczyk A29 - L A30 - Adams A31 - DL A32 - Addy A33 - TN A34 - Adelman A35 - J A36 - Aderholz A37 - M A38 - Adomeit A39 - S A40 - Adragna A41 - P A42 - Adye A43 - T A44 - Aefsky A45 - S A46 - Aguilar-Sa
Search for Pair Production of a New b ' Quark that Decays into a Z Boson and a Bottom Quark with the ATLAS Detector
Aad G
(2010)
Search for new particles in two-jet final states in 7 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2014)
Search for new phenomena in photon + jet events collected in proton-proton collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for long-lived, multi-charged particles in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Search for a supersymmetric partner to the top quark in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum at sqrt[s] = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2011)
Search for an excess of events with an identical flavour lepton pair and significant missing transverse momentum in $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2012)
Search for pair-produced heavy quarks decaying to W q in the two-lepton channel at ( s ) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2012)
Search for resonant top quark plus jet production in t t ¯ + jets events with the ATLAS detector in p p collisions at s = 7 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2011)
Charged-particle multiplicities in pp interactions measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in New Journal of Physics
Aad G
(2012)
Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the H ? W W ( ? ) ? l ? l ? decay mode with 4.7 fb - 1 of ATLAS data at s = 7 TeV
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for new phenomena in events with three charged leptons at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2012)
Search for supersymmetry in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in v[s]=7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
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)
Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2011)
Measurements of underlying-event properties using neutral and charged particles in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=900$ GeV and $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in The European Physical Journal C
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
(2012)
Electron performance measurements with the ATLAS detector using the 2010 LHC proton-proton collision data
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2012)
Search for first generation scalar leptoquarks in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Search for strong gravity signatures in same-sign dimuon final states using the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2010)
Readiness of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter for LHC collisions
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2011)
Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV using 35 pb - 1 of ATLAS data
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Dynamics of isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Nuclear Physics B
Aad G
(2011)
Measurement of the W charge asymmetry in the W ? µ ? decay mode in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Observation of spin correlation in tt¯ events from pp collisions at vs=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2012)
Search for heavy vector-like quarks coupling to light quarks in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Search for diphoton events with large missing transverse momentum in 7 TeV proton-proton collision data with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Measurement of the W ? t ? t cross section in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Search for contact interactions in dilepton events from pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2011)
Search for dilepton resonances in pp collisions at vs=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2013)
Evidence for the spin-0 nature of the Higgs boson using ATLAS data
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Measurement of the high-mass Drell-Yan differential cross-section in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2012)
Search for top and bottom squarks from gluino pair production in final states with missing transverse energy and at least three b-jets with the ATLAS detector
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2012)
Search for gluinos in events with two same-sign leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at sqrt[s]=7 TeV.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2010)
The ATLAS Inner Detector commissioning and calibration
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2011)
Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the decay channel H ? Z Z ( ? ) ? 4 l with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for displaced muonic lepton jets from light Higgs boson decay in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Related Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Award Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PP/E003699/1 | 30/09/2007 | 31/05/2011 | £431,354 | ||
| PP/E003699/2 | Transfer | PP/E003699/1 | 31/05/2011 | 29/09/2012 | £118,160 |
| Description | Higgs boson searches for tau leptons yielded observation in 2015. |
| Exploitation Route | Fundamental science understanding. |
| Sectors | Other |