Search for Second Generation Leptoquarks using Advanced Data Analysis Methods

Northern Illinois University, Dekalb IL

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal is a request to support a PI from Northern Illinois University who proposes to search for second-generation leptoquarks at the D-Zero experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron. The PI will work closely with graduate and undergraduate students, and explore the further development and application of sophisticated approaches to data analysis. Leptoquarks are fractionally charged particles that carry both lepton and quark quantum numbers and arise naturally in several well motivated theoretical models that go beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. The PI is an active member of the D-Zero collaboration and played a major role, using advanced multivariate methods, in establishing the world's best limits on the existence of first generation scalar leptoquarks. Subsequent searches for second and third generation leptoquarks at the Tevatron have revealed no signals. However, it is important to continue the search. Should the search for leptoquarks prove successful the impact of their discovery would be immediate and profound. Were they to be discovered, leptoquarks would be the first fundamentally new states of matter to be uncovered since the discovery of quarks. Detailed measurements of leptoquark properties would impose severe constraints on theoretical models. Run II, which is in progress at Fermilab, promises a substantial increase in the quantity of data relative to that obtained during Run I. This presents a tremendous opportunity to mount a concerted effort to find leptoquarks, assuming that they exist with masses within reach of the Tevatron, using analysis techniques that make optimal use of data. Whether or not the leptoquarks are found, the project has a broader significance in that it would provide a valuable education in experimental physics and training for the students involved. The data analysis methods to be used are fairly new, extraordinarily versatile and powerful. The PI's younger colleagues would receive not only a thorough grounding in current physics but also practical training in advanced methods that find important applications in a diverse range of fields.