PHYSICS DISSERTATION DEFENSE: Nicole Hartman
Ph.D. Candidate: Nicole Hartman
Research Advisor: Michael Kagan and Su Dong
Date: October 27th, 2022
Time: 2 PM
Location: PAB 102/103
Zoom Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/92874318892
Zoom Password: email nickswan [at] stanford.edu (nickswan[at]stanford[dot]edu) for password
Title: A search for non-resonant di-Higgs production in the four b-quark final state with the ATLAS detector
Abstract: The Standard Model (SM) characterizes the fundamental building blocks of nature, with its experimental characterization culminating with the discovery of the Higgs boson a decade ago. While subsequent Higgs measurements have thus far confirmed the SM predictions, a critical test for our understanding of electroweak symmetry breaking is to study the shape of the Higgs potential by measuring the Higgs self-coupling — which can be probed by searching for events with two Higgs bosons (HH). This talk presents a search for HH production with each Higgs subsequently decaying into two b-quarks. The extremely small predicted HH signal, coupled with a complex background that cannot be effectively simulated, makes this analysis an ideal test bed for machine learning applications. This talk will also present the developments in novel algorithms for b-quark jet identification and background estimation that build on recent advancements in machine learning and have been crucial to the HH analysis.