Exotics@UCL

One of the key objectives of the Large Hadron Collider is the search for Physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). Operating at the energy frontier the LHC is in a unique place for such searches. UCL has a leading involvement in an a number of areas:

• New physics can be a resonance manifest as a localize increase of events over a smoothly falling background. The UCL team is searching for resonances in a variety of jet topologies with focusing on the most energetic Gauge (W, Z) bosons, Higgs bosons, and jets with a focus on b-hadon decays, our speciality. Pioneered X->HH->bb searches and X->bb searches at three mass scales: High, medium, and low.
• New physics can also be manifest as a general excess of events over a broad region. The UCL team has searched for non-resonant physics in dijet events and initiated the hunt for an enhanced rate of non-resonant SM HH->bbbb, one of the most important processes to measure in the HL-LHC program.
• The nature of dark matter (DM) is one of the great mysteries and pressing question of our time. The UCL team is looking for the production of dark matter particles at the LHC as well as mediators resonances that couple DM to SM particles.
• Particles like DM couple very weakly, this can lead to long-lived particles with a spectacular signature decaying in the outer parts of the ATLAS detector.
• Rather than designing dedicated searches, the hunt can also be tackled by making precision measurements and evaluating the potential impact of BSM physics on them, compared to SM expectations. UCL leads an effort to recast SM measurements to this purpose, using a package we developed called Contur. We also make these measurements! (See Standard Model@UCL.)

For more information, contact Jon Butterworth, Mario Campanelli, Nikos Konstantinidis, Andreas Korn, or Tim Scanlon