One of the major intellectual achievements of the 20th century was the development of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. This model succeeded in classifying all of the elementary particles known at the time into a hierarchy of groups having similar quantum properties. The validity of this model to date was confirmed by the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. However, the Standard Model as it currently exists, leaves open many questions about the universe. These include why matter dominates over anti-matter in the Universe (CP violation), the values of the masses of the fundamental constituents, the quarks and the leptons, the size of the mixings among the quarks, and separately among the leptons, and the properties of dark matter. Most explanations require the presence of new particles, symmetries or forces, which we call Beyond the Standard Model Physics (BSM). This project is designed to pursue searches for BSM physics.
The LHC is the premier High Energy Physics particle accelerator in the world and is currently operating at the CERN laboratory near Geneva Switzerland, one of the foremost facilities for answering these BSM questions. The Syracuse University group is a collaboration member of LHCb, an experiment designed specifically to study the decays of hadrons containing b or c quarks at the LHC. The goal of LHCb is to identify new physics in nature by examining the properties of hadrons containing these quarks. New physics, or new forces, can be manifest by particles, as yet to be discovered, whose presence would modify decay rates and CP violating asymmetries of hadrons containing the b and c quarks, and thus allow new phenomena to be observed indirectly.
The Syracuse group plays a leading role in the physics analysis of LHCb. Their ongoing analyses shed light on important aspects of our understanding of the Standard Model, including CP asymmetry which could explain the preponderance of matter in the universe as opposed to antimatter. Additionally, the group is one of the lead institutions in the design, development, and construction of a new tracking detector subsystem for LHCb called the UT, which will increase the data throughput of the experiment by an order of magnitude, allowing the LHCb experiment to probe BSM physics more deeply. The UT is a state of the art silicon tracking detector, which will play a crucial role in providing fast momentum measurements of particles, many of which are from b and c hadron decays of interest.
The broader impacts of this work span several areas, from student research experiences for grads and undergrads, to a very active QuarkNet Center and Masterclass programs for high school teachers and students. For many years a steady stream of undergraduates has been working in the group's laboratories, where it is a tradition to ensure that graduate students have direct engagement in both instrumentation development as well as data analysis. Undergraduate and graduate students will be direct participants in the fabrication and testing of the UT detector that is under construction. The upgrade work will be integrated into the Syracuse QuarkNet program to involve high school teachers and high school students. This detector is an integral part of the LHCb Upgrade and is essential for LHCb to continue to produce cutting edge physics results. Young and nontraditional researchers will be integral participants in this exciting program of research.
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.
