This program of research aims to better understand the Universe at the smallest scales by probing nature's basic symmetries and their relation to the origin of mass. The 2012 discovery of a Higgs boson with mass close to 125 GeV represents both the crowning achievement of the Standard Model of particle physics and a hint beyond it - how can a light Higgs boson possibly survive huge, destabilizing quantum effects without new, undiscovered physics? Further, dark matter is known to exist from astronomical observations; however, the particle properties of dark matter remain shrouded in mystery. The combined activities of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) group address such basic questions puzzling science - the origin of mass and the particle nature of dark matter - and have the potential for surprising discoveries that may change the way we understand our physical world.
This award will provide support for the UIC group's work on the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, a particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The group will be studying precision measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson; studies of the top quark including searches for resonant as well as non-resonant top pair-production up to the very highest Lorentz boosts and offering a unique view on the naturalness of the broken electroweak sector; and search for evidence of Supersymmetry.
Technically, the group has been a long-term contributor to both the Silicon Tracker and Trigger systems for CMS and is currently playing leading roles in upgrades to the Pixel Tracking Detector, essential to the reconstruction of events and particularly those containing heavy quarks, and to the Level-1 Trigger, which is critical to the recording of the rare events of special interest to the CMS program of discovery science.
The mature QuarkNet outreach program of the UIC group fosters collaboration between high school teachers and the UIC group members, strengthening teaching and learning in Chicago-area high schools. As these high schools serve predominantly minority students, this project aims to increase the number of students from historically underrepresented groups that major in STEM disciplines. Additionally, UIC's student body reflects the ethnic and racial diversity of Chicago, making it one of the important minority-serving Research 1 institutions. The diversity of the UIC undergraduate population gives the institution and the UIC group a unique opportunity to increase the number of minority students that choose to pursue an academic and research career. As a central element of its program, the UIC group will initiate a new broader impacts component, aimed at increasing the retention and graduation rates of minority physics majors.
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.
