[Triumf-seminars] TRIUMF Colloquium today at 14:00

[TRIUMF Seminars]

Date/Time: Mon 2016-02-22 at 14:00

Location:  Auditorium          

Speaker:   Rachel Yohay (UC Davis)

Title:     Search for Exotic Decays of the Higgs Boson with CMS Data: Analysis, Detector Operations, and Future Plans

Abstract: The CMS and ATLAS detectors at Run I of the LHC were instrumental to the discovery of the 125 GeV Higgs boson via its Standard Model predicted decays.  At the outset of Run II of the LHC, it is an open question whether new dynamics accompanies the Higgs, and there are indeed theoretical motivations for a more complicated Higgs sector. Now that the mass of the Higgs boson is known, searches for its decay to exotic states not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics can help clarify the nature of new physics, if it exists.  This talk presents the results of a CMS search for the decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to lighter Higgs states that ultimately decay to tau leptons.  In addition to the data analysis, the critical job of operating the CMS detector--in particular, the silicon pixel detector--is presented in detail.  The talk concludes with a discussion of how a new ATLAS inner silicon tracker can be designed to best exploit the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) beam intensity upgrade, and thus enable further searches for exotic Higgs decays to benefit from the unprecedented HL-LHC dataset.



______________________________

General TRIUMF seminar information available at http://www.triumf.ca/home/upcoming-events/about-seminars-lectures