Experimental Study of Heavy Flavor and CP Violation with the LHCb Experiment at the CERN LHC Collider

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

This research program involves a study of proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A major goal of the study is to search for and examine possible evidences for new particles and laws of nature beyond those described in the so-called Standard Model, which represents our current understanding of the fundamental constituents of matter and the laws that govern their interactions. The Standard Model is believed to be incomplete, as it fails to account for some important findings and questions, such as the apparent imbalance of matter with respect to antimatter in the universe and strong evidence for dark matter, inferred from astronomical observations. This project will involve performing precise measurements of differences in behavior of matter particles compared with their antimatter counterparts, the results of which may reveal information on the origin of the observed matter-antimatter imbalance in nature, which is crucial to understanding how the universe evolved to its current state. In addition to these fundamental research goals, the funding for this research program enables the training of the next generations of scientists and engineers at all levels, including undergraduates, PhD. graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and engineers working at the frontier of particle physics research with the state of the art data analysis and computing techniques, electronics instrumentations and particle and radiation detection techniques. This research is carried out with the LHCb particle detector at the LHC collider at the CERN laboratory. The specific focus of the research is on studies of reactions involving particles that contain the bottom quark or the charm quark. These studies allow for precise tests of the Standard Model, which may reveal possible deviations from its predictions. The findings, together with expected results from experiments at the energy frontier, could help uncover new laws of nature and point the way to the structure of new physics beyond the Standard Model. The research program also involves the upgrade of the LHCb detector, which is required for operations at higher luminosity of the LHC collider. The detector upgrade effort is focused on the design of electronics instrumentation for extracting and recording electrical signals from a silicon strip tracking system located just upstream of the LHCb magnet.