Search for Higgs Bosons and Supersymmetric Particles in Tau Final States
- Univ. of Freiburg (Germany)
Elementary particle physics tries to find an answer to no minor question: What is our universe made of? To our current knowledge, the elementary constituents of matter are quarks and leptons, which interact via four elementary forces: electromagnetism, strong force, weak force and gravity. All forces, except gravity, can be described in one framework, the Standard Model of particle physics. The model's name reflects its exceptional success in describing all available experimental high energy physics data to high precision up to energies of about 100 GeV. An exception is given by the neutrino masses but even these can be integrated into the model. The Standard Model is based on the requirement of invariance of all physics processes under certain fundamental symmetry transformations. The consideration of these symmetries leads naturally to the correct description of the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces as the exchange of interaction particles, the gauge bosons. However, this formalism has the weakness that it only allows for massless particles. In order to obey the symmetries, a way to introduce the particle masses is given by the Higgs mechanism, which predicts the existence of the only particle of the Standard Model which has yet to be observed: the Higgs boson. In spite of the success of the Standard Model, it has to be considered as a low energy approximation of a more profound theory for various reasons. For example, the underlying theory is expected to allow for an integration of gravity into the framework and to provide a valid particle candidate for the dark matter in our universe. Furthermore, a solution has to be found to the problem that the Higgs boson as a fundamental scalar is sensitive to large radiative corrections driving its mass to the Planck scale of 1019 GeV. Several models have been proposed to address the remaining open questions of the Standard Model. Currently, the most promising extension of the Standard Model is Supersymmetry, which provides elegant solutions to the named problems by introducing a supersymmetric partner to each Standard Model particle. The superpartners of the matter particles are called squarks and sleptons, while the superpartners of the interaction particles are called gauginos. The mass eigenstates of the gauginos are referred to as charginos and neutralinos, according to their electric charge. Since the predicted supersymmetric particles have not yet been observed, Supersymmetry, if it exists in nature, has to be broken in such a way that the masses of Standard Model particles and of their superpartners differ. During the last decades, the energies accessible to experiments has steadily increased. The Tevatron Accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, with the two multipurpose experiments D0 and CDF, provides currently the highest center-of-mass energy ever reached in experiments using collisions of protons and antiprotons (√s = 1.96 TeV). The study of the particle collisions allows probing of predictions of the Standard Model and its extensions, e.g. Supersymmetry.
- Research Organization:
- Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359
- OSTI ID:
- 948187
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-THESIS-2008-68; TRN: US0901591
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
ANTIPROTONS
BOSONS
ELECTRIC CHARGES
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMILAB ACCELERATOR
FERMILAB COLLIDER DETECTOR
FERMILAB TEVATRON
HIGGS BOSONS
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PHYSICS
PROTONS
RADIATIVE CORRECTIONS
SPARTICLES
STANDARD MODEL
SUPERSYMMETRY
Experiment-HEP