Bridging grant application for ATLAS-Canada; Prompt and Long-Lived Particles - Searching for new physics at the Energy Frontier

加拿大 ATLAS 过渡补助金申请；

• 批准号: SAPPJ-2020-00024
• 负责人: Danninger, Matthias
• 金额: $ 8.74万
• 依托单位: Simon Fraser University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Subatomic Physics Envelope - Project
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=718770
• 关键词: Bridging; grant; application; ATLAS; Canada

The proposed research program will act as a bridge to my participation in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. As a new faculty member in Canada at Simon Fraser University, this initial NSERC Discovery Grant will fund the initiation of my new research program, which will then continue with funding made available by a renewal of the NSERC ATLAS-Canada project grant during the 2021 competition. This application describes the program that I will initiate during this year (request for one year) and that I expect to carry out within the next five years. These funds will allow me to establish an outstanding research program, address imminent challenges ahead of the next LHC data taking period (starting 2021), and enhance Canada's role in one of the world's most highly regarded scientific endeavors. The Standard Model is like Newtonian physics - a success story: it describes all visible matter in the Universe and all forces (with the exception of gravity), and it describes how elementary particles acquire a mass (Higgs mechanism). All predictions have been verified by experiment with excellent precision for more than 50 years. The last piece to this puzzle was added in 2012: the Higgs boson discovery by the ATLAS and CMS experiments. Now we test the limits of this SM in order to find an inconsistency and ascertain clues about physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). One promising way to reveal such clues is to push to high energies, where we expect a new theory to reveal itself. The LHC is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built and provides a unique opportunity to explore this high-energy frontier. My primary objective here will be to use the ATLAS detector to search for signs of long-lived new particle (LLP) signatures in order to shed light on the universe's biggest remaining mysteries: why matter prevailed over antimatter in the early universe and what dark matter is. Searching for these particles is highly challenging, as they tend not to interact with other matter, making them elusive to detection. The overwhelming majority of searches for new physics at the LHC have been performed under the assumption that the new particles decay promptly, i.e., very close to the proton-proton interaction point. However, particles in the SM have lifetimes () spanning an enormous range of magnitude, from the Z boson (10-25s) through to the proton (>1034y) and electron (stable). Similarly, BSM models typically predict new particles with a variety of lifetimes. BSM LLPs may have macroscopic, detectable displacements between their production and decay points within the detector. Their unusual signatures offer excellent prospects for the discovery of new physics at particle colliders during the next data-taking period. At the same time, standard reconstruction algorithms may reject events or objects containing LLPs precisely because of their unusual nature, and dedicated searches are needed to uncover LLP signals.

拟议的研究计划将成为我参与欧洲核子研究中心大型强子对撞机 (LHC) 的 ATLAS 实验的桥梁。作为加拿大西蒙弗雷泽大学的一名新教员，最初的 NSERC 发现补助金将资助我新研究项目的启动，该项目随后将在 2021 年竞赛期间通过续订 NSERC ATLAS-加拿大项目补助金来继续提供资金。该申请描述了我将在今年启动（请求一年）并预计在未来五年内实施的计划。这些资金将使我能够建立一个出色的研究计划，解决下一个大型强子对撞机数据采集期（从 2021 年开始）之前迫在眉睫的挑战，并增强加拿大在世界上最受推崇的科学事业之一中的作用。 标准模型就像牛顿物理学——一个成功的故事：它描述了宇宙中所有可见物质和所有力（重力除外），并描述了基本粒子如何获得质量（希格斯机制）。所有预测均已通过 50 多年来极其精确的实验得到验证。这个谜题的最后一块是在 2012 年添加的：ATLAS 和 CMS 实验发现的希格斯玻色子。 现在我们测试这个 SM 的极限，以便找到不一致的地方并确定有关超越标准模型 (BSM) 的物理线索。揭示这些线索的一个有希望的方法是推动高能量，我们期望一种新的理论能够揭示出来。大型强子对撞机是迄今为止最强大的粒子加速器，为探索这一高能前沿提供了独特的机会。我的主要目标是使用 ATLAS 探测器来寻找长寿新粒子 (LLP) 特征的迹象，以揭开宇宙中最大的未解之谜：为什么物质在早期宇宙中战胜了反物质，以及暗物质是什么？是。寻找这些粒子非常具有挑战性，因为它们往往不与其他物质相互作用，从而难以被检测到。 大型强子对撞机上对新物理学的绝大多数搜索都是在新粒子迅速衰变的假设下进行的，即非常接近质子-质子相互作用点。然而，SM 中的粒子的寿命 () 跨越了巨大的量级范围，从 Z 玻色子 (10-25s) 到质子 (>1034y) 和电子（稳定）。同样，BSM 模型通常会预测具有不同寿命的新粒子。 BSM LLP 在其产生点和探测器内的衰变点之间可能存在宏观的、可检测的位移。它们不寻常的特征为下一个数据采集期间在粒子对撞机中发现新物理提供了良好的前景。与此同时，标准重建算法可能会拒绝包含 LLP 的事件或对象，因为它们具有不寻常的性质，并且需要专门的搜索来发现 LLP 信号。