RUI: Searches for New Physics with the CMS Detector at the LHC

Siena University, Loudonville NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Switzerland, is the largest machine that humanity has ever constructed and allows scientists to study matter and energy on the smallest scales. The goal of these efforts is to answer questions about how our Universe came into exisitence and how it evolved to look the way it does today. The PI is a member of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, one of the large particle detectors at the LHC that collects data produced by the collisions of 40 million protons every second. The CMS collaboration consists of 3000 scientists the world over that study all the different particles that come out of these collisions in an effort to understand precisely how they were produced and whether or not there are indications of new Physics: cracks in our current understanding of Nature or glimpses of new and exciting theories. This project looks for new physics through the search for as-yet-unobserved decays of the top quark, one of the particles that make up the list of fundamental particles known to date. The PI will be conducting an analysis to search for baryon-number violating (BNV) decays of the top quark. The top quark is the most massive fundamental particle yet discovered, and while it was first observed 20 years ago, it is only relatively recently that experiments have begun to collect enough data to study them in detail. This analysis is related to another as-of-yet unobserved phenomenon, proton decay. Some theories suggest that the same protons that are found in every atom will eventually decay away and these theories are invoked to try to explain why our Universe is dominated by matter and does not consist of equal amounts of matter and antimatter. Any sign of BNV decays, whether in top quarks or protons or other particles, would instantly change how we understand fundamental particle interactions. A preliminary analysis was performed with the first set of data from CMS, but in the next couple of years, we will have 10x the data to work with and so we will be much more sensitive to any signs of new physics. In parallel, the PI will continue to work on innovative outreach techniques, such as making real experimental data from CMS and other experiments available to teachers and the general public, simplifed so that anyone can use it and learn from it. The PI will also continue to host high school teachers for workshops where they build cloud chambers, one of the earliest particle detectors, for use in their classrooms.