Searching for exotic Higgs boson decays using a low mass double b-tagger

Khader, Mazin Woodrow

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/104862 Copy

Description

Title

Searching for exotic Higgs boson decays using a low mass double b-tagger

Author(s)

Khader, Mazin Woodrow

Issue Date

2019-04-19

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Martinez Outschoorn, Verena I

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Pitts, Kevin T.

Committee Member(s)

• Shelton, Jessie
• Cooper, Stephen L

Department of Study

Physics

Discipline

Physics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Higgs
• Exotic Higgs
• High Energy Physics
• Particle Physics, Associated Production
• Double B-Tagging
• g->bb Calibration
• Merged Search

Abstract

This dissertation presents the development, calibration, and application of a newly developed double b-tagger for use in the context of exotic Higgs decays. After the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider, an effort to measure its properties in detail has ensued. Current measurements only constrain non- Standard Model or “exotic” Higgs decays to about < 26%. Allowing the Higgs to decay into new particles could remedy some outstanding problems in the Standard Model like dark matter or the matter/anti-matter asymmetry in the universe. Thus, an exciting window of opportunity exists for new physics. The exotic Higgs decays investigated in this work have the Higgs decay into a new spin-zero particle, a. The a-boson then decays into a pair of b-quarks. For low a masses, the b-quarks from the same parent a tend to be collimated. This results in signatures that previous ATLAS reconstruction techniques could not efficiently find. With a newly developed tagger, the H → 2a → 4b search in the low mass regime was able to be performed.

Graduation Semester

2019-05

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/104862

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2019 Mazin Woodrow Khader

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