Tobias Pook

This book addresses the need for model independent searches for new discoveries in particle physics beyond the standard model with emphasis on the current status of such searches at the LHC and on future experimental improvements involving new tools such as machine learning techniques.

I give a summary of BSM searches performed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments with an focus on heavy gauge bosons, extra dimensions and quantum black holes. The presented results use data collected during 2012 when the LHC operated at an center of mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV.

I give a summary of BSM searches performed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments with an focus on heavy gauge bosons, extra dimensions and quantum black holes. The presented results use data collected during 2012 when the LHC operated at an center of mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the most powerful particle accelerator in history and it continues to be in operation today. The LHC consists of a 27-km ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to accelerate the particles that are to be collided. The LHC was designed to collide protons with protons at a center-of-mass energy of 14 TeV. The LHC has already delivered proton–proton collision at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV since the beginning of full operations in 2010, and significantly large datasets have already been recorded by the LHC-based experiments. Separately, the LHC also collides heavy ions for the study of dense strongly interacting matter, with collisions of lead ions with lead ions or protons.

In the previous chapters, the model independent methods applied at collider experiments (CDF, D0; H1; ATLAS, CMS) were presented. Now we compare and evaluate these efforts.

A brief overview of the current status of the field of high energy physics is described in this chapter, with a very short introduction to the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, and the motivation that physicists have for hypothesising new physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) with examples of some of the more popular BSM theories. Further, a short discussion on the current experimental searches for BSM physics is presented, providing the context for the discussion on the motivation for developing a general model independent search strategy for new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Looking forward, there are exciting opportunities to perform general model independent searches for new physics phenomena and improve upon the existing methods employed for such searches by including several recent developments, some of which are discussed here. Progress on anomaly detection methods using machine learning techniques can contribute significantly to the development of general model independent search approaches going forward.

Having motivated the need for conducting general model independent searches for new physics at collider-based experiments in the previous chapter, this chapter contains a description of the concept of such an approach along with comparisons to the dedicated search analyses that are conducted to target specific BSM models, discussing both the benefits and drawbacks of the different approaches and then emphasising the complementary nature of the two approaches.

General model independent search analyses have been performed at collider experiments that were running in the past. This chapter focuses on the implementation of the general model independent search strategy in such analyses, particularly on the analyses conducted at the CDF and D0 experiments at the Tevatron and also at the H1 experiment at HERA.

Particle physics appears to be entering a new era again. Since the 1960s, it has often been the case that there have been certain compelling theoretical predictions, such as predictions for new fundamental particles, and particle colliders with higher and even higher energies were constructed leading to the discoveries of the predicted particles. This has been the case over the years leading to, most recently, the discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, we are now at a stage when there is no particular compelling theoretical prediction to go after, with the lack of any major hints of new physics phenomena following the discovery of the Higgs boson.