NSF Award
2110900
This award will provide support to a Northern Illinois University group working on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC machine and ATLAS, a large particle detector facility, were built as basic science tools using funds from NSF and other agencies around the world. One of their primary objectives was to find the Higgs Boson, the last particle in the historically successful "Standard Model" (SM) that accounts for so much of the existence of, and forces between, known particles forming the matter in the universe. This effort has been successful. The next step in the experiment is to study the properties and characteristics of this newly discovered particle as a laboratory to see if it behaves as the SM predicts or if there are deviations suggesting evidence for new physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that might, for instance, account for the presence of the mysterious "Dark Matter" that makes up so much of the mass of the universe. This group will participate in these studies. The LHC is currently analyzing Run 2 data, at almost twice the energy explored earlier and with significantly increased event samples. It is possible that evidence for BSM physics could emerge at this higher energy and with the higher event statistics from the current run and by means of further upgrades of the LHC and ATLAS to follow.<br/><br/>To facilitate a detailed study of the Higgs Boson and search for other new states of matter, the NIU group will be focusing their studies on Higgs couplings, including self-coupling, in order to determine whether this particle is the sole Higgs boson postulated in the Standard Model, or one of multiple neutral scalar bosons postulated in various BSM scenarios. Much of the analytical effort is focused on searches for pair production of the only Higgs particle discovered so far. Additionally the group has had a long-standing interest in the ATLAS searches for charged Higgs bosons featured in certain extended Higgs models, and in differential cross section measurements of Higgs boson decays into two gamma rays.<br/><br/>The NIU group is also engaged in the Phase 2 Upgrade of the TileCAL, hadronic calorimeter, and experimental subsystem essential for energy and missing energy measurements, and in advanced Fast Track Triggering for the experiment called the FTK, which is central to being able to trigger on important physics objectives as the LHC luminosity increases.<br/><br/>An integral part of the NIU group activity is outreach to K-12 students, teachers, and the general public. Their program includes an active QuarkNet center at NIU that hosts annual one-day masterclasses, week-long workshops, and 6-8-week summer internships. The group is also active in a variety of programs to engage the public, some hosted at NIU and others at nearby Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
