Taus at ATLAS
Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States), Sarah M. Demers, High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25) USDOE Office of Science (SC) · 2017
The grant "Taus at ATLAS" supported the group of Sarah Demers at Yale University over a period of 8.5 months, bridging the time between her Early Career Award and her inclusion on Yale's grant cycle within the Department of Energy's Office of Science. The work supported the functioning of the ATLAS Experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and the analysis of ATLAS data. The work included searching for the Higgs Boson in a particular mode of its production (with a W or Z boson) and decay (to a pair of tau leptons.) This was part of a broad program of characterizing the Higgs boson as we try to understand this recently discovered particle, and whether or not it matches our expectations within the current standard model of particle physics. In addition, group members worked with simulation to understand the physics reach of planned upgrades to the ATLAS experiment. Supported group members include postdoctoral researcher Lotte Thomsen and graduate student Mariel Pettee.