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Experimental particle physics research at Texas Tech University

The high energy physics group at Texas Tech University (TTU) concentrates its research efforts on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and on generic detector R&D for future applications. Our research programs have been continuously supported by the US Department of Energy for over two decades, and this final report summarizes our achievements during the last grant period from May 1, 2012 to March 31, 2016. After having completed the Run 1 data analyses from the CMS detector, including the discovery of the Higgs boson in July 2012, we concentrated on commissioning the CMS hadron calorimeter (HCAL) for Run 2, performing analyses of Run 2 data, and making initial studies and plans for the second phase of upgrades in CMS. Our research has primarily focused on searches for Beyond Standard Model (BSM) physics via dijets, monophotons, and monojets. We also made significant contributions to the analyses of the semileptonic Higgs decays and Standard Model (SM) measurements in Run 1. Our work on the operations of the CMS detector, especially the performance monitoring of the HCAL in Run 1, was indispensable to the experiment. Our team members, holding leadership positions in HCAL, have played key roles in the R&D, construction, and commissioning of these detectors in the last decade. We also maintained an active program in jet studies that builds on our expertise in calorimetry and algorithm development. In Run 2, we extended some of our analyses at 8 TeV to 13 TeV, and we also started to investigate new territory, e.g., dark matter searches with unexplored signatures. The objective of dual-readout calorimetry R&D was intended to explore (and, if possible, eliminate) the obstacles that prevent calorimetric detection of hadrons and jets with a comparable level of precision as we have grown accustomed to for electrons and photons. The initial prototype detector was successfully tested at the SPS/CERN in 2003-2004 and evolved over the last decade. In 2012-2015, several other prototypes were built to further reduce leakage fluctuations, improve Cherenkov light yield, increase fiber attenuation length, and other related phenomena. During this grant period, we graduated two students with Ph.D. degrees, and five undergraduate students from our labs went on to prestigious graduate programs in the US and Europe. Also, the TTU HEP team has participated in the QuarkNet program every year since 2001. We are dedicated to working with area teachers and students at all levels and to training the next generation of scientists. Over 20 high school teachers have participated in our program since its inception.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Three-family particle physics models from global F-theory compactifications

We construct four-dimensional, globally consistent F-theory models with three chiral generations, whose gauge group and matter representations coincide with those of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, the Pati-Salam Model and the Trinification Model. These models result from compactification on toric hypersurface fibrations X with the choice of base $\mathbb P^{3}$. We observe that the F-theory conditions on the G 4 -flux restrict the number of families to be at least three. We comment on the phenomenology of the models, and for Pati-Salam and Trinification models discuss the Higgsing to the Standard Model. A central point of this work is the construction of globally consistent G 4 -flux. For this purpose we compute the vertical cohomology H V (2,2) (X) in each case and solve the conditions imposed by matching the M- and F-theoretical 3D Chern-Simons terms. Finally, we explicitly check that the expressions found for the G 4 -flux allow for a cancelation of D3-brane tadpoles. We also use the integrality of 3D Chern-Simons terms to ensure that our G 4 -flux solutions are adequately quantized.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Fermi Bubbles under Dark Matter Scrutiny Part II: Particle Physics Analysis

The analysis of the gamma-ray photons collected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope reveals, after removal of astrophysical background, the existence of an excess towards the Galactic center. This excess peaks around few GeV, and its origin is compatible with the gamma-ray flux originating from Dark Matter annihilation. In this work we take a closer look on this interpretation; we investigate which kind of Dark Matter, and which type of interactions with the Standard Model fields are able to reproduce the observed signal. The structure of the paper is twofold. In the first part, we follow an effective field theory approach considering both fermionic and scalar Dark Matter. The computation of the relic density, the constraint imposed from the null result of direct searches, and the reliability of the effective field theory description allow us to single out only two viable dim-6 operators in the case of fermionic Dark Matter. In the second part, we analyze some concrete models. In particular, we find that the scalar Higgs portal can provide a simple, concrete and realistic scenario able to explain the GeV excess under scrutiny.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Fast inference of Boosted Decision Trees in FPGAs for particle physics

We describe the implementation of Boosted Decision Trees in the hls4ml library, which allows the translation of a trained model into FPGA firmware through an automated conversion process. Thanks to its fully on-chip implementation, hls4ml performs inference of Boosted Decision Tree models with extremely low latency. With a typical latency less than 100 ns, this solution is suitable for FPGA-based real-time processing, such as in the Level-1 Trigger system of a collider experiment. These developments open up prospects for physicists to deploy BDTs in FPGAs for identifying the origin of jets, better reconstructing the energies of muons, and enabling better selection of rare signal processes.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Final Report for Studies in Elementary Particle Physics

This is the final report of DOE Grant DE-FG05-92ER40709 awarded to the Virginia Tech high energy physics group. It covers the period February 1, 2010 through April 30, 2013. The high energy physics program at Virginia Tech supported by this grant is organized into three tasks: A for theory (Profs. Tatsu Takeuchi and Djordje Minic), B for heavy flavor physics with the Belle and Belle II experiments (Prof. Leo Piilonen), and N for neutrino physics (Profs. Jonathan Link and Piilonen).

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Research in Theoretical Particle Physics

This document is the final report on activity supported under DOE Grant Number DE-FG02-13ER42024. The report covers the period July 15, 2013 – March 31, 2014. Faculty supported by the grant during the period were Danny Marfatia (1.0 FTE) and Hume Feldman (1% FTE). The grant partly supported University of Hawaii students, David Yaylali and Keita Fukushima, who are supervised by Jason Kumar. Both students are expected to graduate with Ph.D. degrees in 2014. Yaylali will be joining the University of Arizona theory group in Fall 2014 with a 3-year postdoctoral appointment under Keith Dienes. The group’s research covered topics subsumed under the Energy Frontier, the Intensity Frontier, and the Cosmic Frontier. Many theoretical results related to the Standard Model and models of new physics were published during the reporting period. The report contains brief project descriptions in Section 1. Sections 2 and 3 lists published and submitted work, respectively. Sections 4 and 5 summarize group activity including conferences, workshops and professional presentations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Theoretical Particle Physics Research Program

This is the final technical report for DOE grant DE-FG02-13ER41997. It contains a brief description of accomplishments: research project that were completed during the period of the grant, research project that were started during the period of the grant, and service to the scientific community. It also lists the publications in the funded period, travel related to the grant, and information about the personal supported by the grant.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Research in Elementary Particle Physics

The Experimental High Energy Physics group in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Louisiana State University (LSU) is composed of faculty, postdocs and students. We perform research in experimental neutrino physics at the Intensity Frontier (DUNE, ProtoDUNE and T2K). The group continues their principal research efforts on the T2K and DUNE projects to measure neutrino oscillation parameters and study neutrino properties.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Toward the Frontiers of Particle Physics With the Muon $g\textrm{-}2$ Experiment

The Muon $g\textrm{-}2$ Experiment (E989) at Fermilab has a goal of measuring the muon anomaly ($a_\mu$) with unprecedented precision using positive muons. This measurement is motivated by the difference between the previous Brookhaven $a_\mu$ measurement and Standard Model prediction exceeding three standard deviations, which hints at the possibility of physics beyond the Standard Model. Muons are circulated in a storage ring, and the measurement requires a precise determination of the muon anomalous precession frequency (spin precession relative to momentum) from the resulting decay positron time and energy measurements collected with calorimeters. The average magnetic field seen by the muons needs to be known with high precision, and so the storage ring magnetic field is shimmed to be very uniform and is continually monitored with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) probes. Detailed Muon Campus beamline and muon storage ring simulations are also required for quantifying beam dynamics and spin-related systematic effects in the determination of the muon anomalous precession frequency, e.g. muon losses during the measurement window. At the time of the conference, the experiment has recently commenced Run-3, and the release of Run-1 physics results is planned for 2020.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Particle physics. Positrons ride the wave

Here, experiments reveal that positrons — the antimatter equivalents of electrons — can be rapidly accelerated using a plasma wave. The findings pave the way to high-energy electron–positron particle colliders.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗