Dissertation
The smoking gun: search for a CP-odd Higgs Boson decaying to a heavy CP-even Higgs Boson and a Z Boson in the ℓℓtt¯ and ννb ¯ ¯b final states with the ATLAS Experiment and upgrade of the ATLAS inner tracker for the high luminosity LHC
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2024
DOI: 10.25820/etd.007622
Abstract
The Standard Model (SM) of particle physics is considered one of the most outstanding achievements of modern physics. It has successfully explained the existence of elementary particles and their interactions. Numerous experiments have been conducted to confirm the SM’s predictions. So far, the experimental observations agree with the SM predictions. One of the most significant confirmations came in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the LHC. However, the SM alone cannot address many outstanding questions in modern physics, such as the existence of baryon-antibaryon asymmetry, dark matter, and dark energy (DE) in our universe. Electroweak Baryogenesis (EWB) is one of the most straightforward mechanisms explaining baryon-antibaryon asymmetry. EWB generates the observed asymmetry via the dynamics of the Electroweak symmetry breaking, hence making it tightly related to the properties of the Higgs boson. Since the Standard Model does not satisfy the conditions for baryogenesis, the simplest extension, ”The Two Higgs Doublet Model” (2HDM), which predicts the existence of 5 Higgs-like particles, could potentially explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry when 300 ≤ mA ≤ 700 GeV and mA − mH ≥ 250 GeV where A is the CP-Odd Higgs and H is the heavy neutral Higgs. The analysis presented in the thesis uses the full Run 2 ATLAS dataset of 140 fb−1 to search for a CP-odd Higgs boson A that decays to a Z boson and heavy neutral Higgs H with two final states where the Z decays into leptons or neutrinos and H decays into two beauty quark or two top quarks, A → ZH → lltt/vvbb. The ATLAS experiment is preparing to upgrade the inner tracking (ITk) detector for High-luminosity LHC operation starting in 2029. One of the major components of the ITk upgrade is quality assurance and control (QA/QC), which requires testing and characterizing the micro-strip sensors and front-end electronics for noise. Studies and results of the QA/QC of the silicon microstrip sensor and development/ validation of the front-end calibration scans for the ITk microstrip sensors are presented.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The smoking gun: search for a CP-odd Higgs Boson decaying to a heavy CP-even Higgs Boson and a Z Boson in the ℓℓtt¯ and ννb ¯ ¯b final states with the ATLAS Experiment and upgrade of the ATLAS inner tracker for the high luminosity LHC
- Creators
- Punit Sharma
- Contributors
- Usha Mallik (Advisor)Yannick Meurice (Committee Member)Frederick Skiff (Advisor)Alessandro Tricoli (Committee Member)David Lynn (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Physics
- Date degree season
- Summer 2024
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.007622
- Number of pages
- xxii, 243 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2024 Punit Sharma
- Comment
- This thesis has been optimized for improved web viewing. If you require the original version, contact the University Archives at the University of Iowa: https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/sc/contact/
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 07/11/2024
- Description illustrations
- illustrations, graphs, tables
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 227-243).
- Public Abstract (ETD)
- The world around us is filled with mysteries and puzzles, like why there are more baryons than anti-baryons, what dark matter and dark energy are, and why neutrinos have such small masses. The most accepted theory among physicists is the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, which has successfully explained the existence of elementary particles and their interactions. Numerous experiments have been conducted to confirm the SM’s predictions. One of the most significant confirmations came in 2012 when the Higgs Boson was discovered at the LHC. However, the SM alone cannot address many outstanding questions in modern physics, such as the existence of baryon-antibaryon asymmetry, as observed in astrophysics. One of the ways to check why the baryon- antibaryon asymmetry exists is by looking at the signatures of the early universe at particle colliders like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Protons(p) are made to collide at high energies, and the products of their collisions are recorded using the ATLAS detector. This thesis describes a search for beyond SM particle decays in the proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment between 2015 and 2018. The LHC plans to increase the luminosity from 2029, requiring upgrading the ATLAS detector recording the pp collisions. Studies and results of the silicon microstrip sensor being constructed are presented in this thesis.
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984697941102771
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