Department
Physics & Engineering
Location
Bethel University
Start Date
25-10-2023 3:00 PM
End Date
25-10-2023 5:00 PM
Description
The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS) at the CERN Large Hadron Collider records proton-proton collision data in order to study the particles and forces that exist in very high energy conditions. The 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson was a triumph for the field of particle physics, but pointed toward the probably existence of unknown high-mass particles. Vector-like quarks (VLQs) are a possible type of high-mass fermions, and their decays to lighter particles create exciting detector signatures. This search utilizes deep machine learning to both identify decay products of VLQs in the detector and to separate potential signal events from background. The results do not show evidence of VLQs but stretch CMS sensitivity to these particles forward by a significant amount in our chosen final state. This work was recently published in the Journal of High Energy Physics and featured 6 Bethel student coauthors who participated via the Bethel Edgren Scholarship, summer research, and senior thesis research.
Recommended Citation
Hogan, Julie, "Search for pair production of vector-like quarks in CMS Run 2 data" (2023). Day of Scholarship. 17.
https://spark.bethel.edu/dayofscholarship/fall2023/oct25/17
Included in
Search for pair production of vector-like quarks in CMS Run 2 data
Bethel University
The Compact Muon Solenoid experiment (CMS) at the CERN Large Hadron Collider records proton-proton collision data in order to study the particles and forces that exist in very high energy conditions. The 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson was a triumph for the field of particle physics, but pointed toward the probably existence of unknown high-mass particles. Vector-like quarks (VLQs) are a possible type of high-mass fermions, and their decays to lighter particles create exciting detector signatures. This search utilizes deep machine learning to both identify decay products of VLQs in the detector and to separate potential signal events from background. The results do not show evidence of VLQs but stretch CMS sensitivity to these particles forward by a significant amount in our chosen final state. This work was recently published in the Journal of High Energy Physics and featured 6 Bethel student coauthors who participated via the Bethel Edgren Scholarship, summer research, and senior thesis research.