Re-interpretable searches for new physics at ATLAS

A PhD studentship is available on the ATLAS experiment at CERN with the University of Warwick Particle Physics group.

When performing physics analysis on ATLAS data, analyses have typically followed one of two philosophies. Searches for new physics typically utilise calibrated detector-reconstructed physics objects, aiming to maximise the analysis' sensitivity to specific signatures of physics beyond the standard model. These results can, however, be challenging to re-interpret in the context of new theoretical models. Measurements of known Standard Model distributions, on the other hand, are typically corrected to remove the effects of the detector and are defined in terms of the stable particles which interact with the detector. These "particle level" measurements provide a more natural interface between the experimental and theoretical communities. There have been recent strides in utilising particle-level results in searches for new physics, both in the theory-data interface [1] and in the measurements themselves [2]. The student will work on expanding these studies to new observables utilising the full ATLAS 13 TeV dataset.

Contact Dr Tim Martin: T dot A dot Martin at warwick dot ac dot uk

[1] https://contur.hepforge.org/
[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.03263