RUI: Searches for New Physics with the CMS Detector at the LHC

This award supports the Siena group as part of the CMS collaboration, one of the four general-purpose detectors at the Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator in the world. The work, largely done by undergraduate students, will be on three fronts: searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model, open data, and outreach and education. The group is contributing to a mature analysis searching for forbidden decays of the top quark, the heaviest known elementary particles, and has recently proposed using the CMS detector to look for particles coming from outside of the detector, possibly from dark matter annihilations. The group makes regular contributions to the data preservation and open access efforts, primarily by helping organize workshops to teach others how to access and analyze these rich datasets. Lastly, the Siena group has a history of exciting outreach efforts including building cloud chambers for high schools and maintaining a website that allows others to access simplified data and computational exercises for use in the classroom. The scientific work will be on 3 fronts: 1) the search for Baryon-number violating decays of the top quark. This search involves reconstructing a top-quark from the fully hadronic decay mode and then looking for a partner top-quark which has decayed to two jets and a charged lepton, the latter of which violates both baryon- and lepton-number conservation. A similar search with B mesons is being finalized using data from the BaBar dataset. 2.) An indirect detection of Dark matter. This group proposes using the CMS detector to search for muons traveling up from the ground and produced by the annihilation of dark matter particles that are gravitationally bound in the Earth. 3) Open data. The group will continue to contribute to data preservation and open access efforts by organizing and facilitating workshops and writing the required tutorial documents to teach others how to analyze the open datasets. Furthermore, in his role as co-coordinator of the US-CMS MREFC-EPO effort the PI will organize an annual summer internship program for underrepresented minority undergrads, placing them with institutions contributing to the CMS upgrade. Building on the past education and public outreach effort the PI will continue this work while encouraging Siena students to do the same by building Peltier-powered cloud chambers for local schools and will revive a latent workshop program for high school teachers. Data and resources for python instruction will be provided for teachers who want to introduce real data in the classroom. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.