CTEQ Summer School Funding

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

This award will provide funding for the Coordinated Theoretical-Experimental Project on QCD (CTEQ) Summer Schools for the next three years. CTEQ is a collaboration dedicated to the effects of the strong interaction on phenomenological processes at colliders. These effects are crucial in extracting results from most collider experiments. For example, understanding the properties of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) requires understanding its production in proton-proton collisions, and that requires understanding how quarks, antiquarks and gluons fit inside of protons. It is this understanding that the CTEQ Collaboration provides. Understanding Higgs decays to quarks also depends on this knowledge. The results of the CTEQ Collaboration are essential in both experimental and theoretical particle physics and are heavily used. The Summer Schools operated by CTEQ are a training ground for numerous physicists to continue the Collaboration. They are truly international - the 2014 School is in Beijing and the 2015 School is in Pittsburgh. Over 1000 physicists have attended the CTEQ Schools, which consist of nine days of lectures and discussion. Each school has 50-100 students attending. The impact on the field is profound, and many collaborations have been generated by this close interaction. Every year, many students claim a financial hardship in attending, and receive fellowships. This award will go to support students in attending the Schools. The funding will fully support 10 students, or partially support many more.