Research with the CMS Detector at the LHC

Particle physics focuses on understanding the most basic building blocks of Nature and the rules that bind them. The CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located near Geneva, Switzerland is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, able to reach the highest particle energies in a laboratory setting. The CMS detector at the LHC is a powerful and sophisticated camera, observing the collisions of protons and recording the byproducts for detailed study by CMS experimentalists.

One of their primary objectives was to find the Higgs Boson, the last particle in the historically successful "Standard Model" (SM) that accounts for so much of the existence of, and forces between, known particles forming the matter in the universe. This effort has been successful. The next step in the experiments is to look for evidence for physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that might, for instance, account for the presence of the mysterious "Dark Matter" that makes up so much of the mass of the universe.

The LHC is currently in the onset of Run 3 with significantly increased event samples. It is possible that evidence for BSM physics could emerge at this higher energy and with the higher event statistics. Through this project, the high energy physics group at Notre Dame University will maximize the discovery potential of the CMS experiment through contributions to data analysis, preparations and operations for the next LHC run as well as data analysis and major contributions to the high luminosity upgrades of the LHC.

The next three years will be a challenging period as the CMS experiment presses forward on three separate fronts: continuing the analysis of the data collected during the past run, preparing for and then beginning to analyze twice as much data from the upcoming run, and beginning the construction for the high luminosity LHC upgrades. Notre Dame activities include contributions across several areas of the CMS detector including the electromagnetic calorimeter, the hadronic calorimeter, trigger, computing, and offline software.

Their physics analysis plans leverage past investments in Higgs and top quark physics, while also establishing new directions for directly and indirectly probing for new physics. The Notre Dame group will continue to leverage their expertise in calorimetry in several Higgs analyses and searches for new phenomena, including Higgs decays to two tau leptons, two photons, or a muon lepton and a tau lepton.

Additionally, they will exploit their contributions to the Phase 1 upgrades of CMS calorimetry for improved performance during the next LHC run. They will also continue to coordinate and manage the optical readout and decoding for Endcap and Barrel Hadron Calorimetry. The group have leadership roles in high-luminosity LHC upgrade projects, including the electromagnetic and hadronic barrel calorimeter upgrades, the endcap calorimeter upgrade, and the addition of a new timing layer detector for CMS.

This project also includes contributions to the Level 1 Track Trigger upgrade and continuing contributions to High Level Trigger operations, Offline and Computing, and Data Preservation.

The group will engage broadly in Education and Outreach through QuarkNet and many other public-facing initiatives. Notre Dame is lead and the managing institution of QuarkNet, which currently consists of 52 Centers in 25 States and Puerto Rico and has been expanded to include experimental programs at national and foreign laboratories. Their outreach efforts include development and implementation of electronic laboratories (e-Labs) for LHC data and Cosmic Ray Data, Masterclasses based on particle physics and astrophysics, and participation in programs that support summer research for undergraduates, high school teachers and high school students.

Through these efforts, they continue to develop and build upon a suite of outreach materials and demonstration projects that bring particle physics to the public on a number of levels, from real physics analysis on LHC Higgs data in the classroom to a particle detector display at the Smithsonian.

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.