Search for Dark Matter in Final States Containing Semi-visible Jets from Proton-proton Collisions at [square Root]s
Author: Colin Terrence Fallon
Publisher:
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"This dissertation presents a novel search for new physics using the full Run 2 dataset of 137.6 fb-1 collected by the Compact Muon Solenoid during proton-proton runs of the Large Hadron Collider. The new physics in question is dark matter production in a unique signature called semi-visible jets. Semi-visible jets are produced when a new massive mediator particle emerges from the proton-proton interaction. This mediator then decays to unstable dark matter particles which hadronize and produce a mixture of standard model particles and stable dark matter particles. The stable dark particles are only detectable as missing transverse momentum, and the standard particles are detectable as jets. This produces a signature where two jets are produced, one of which is aligned with the total missing transverse momentum. The search is presented in two phases: a classical cut-based search which uses a series of cuts based on event kinematics to select events which look like the signal signature, and a machine learning based search which uses a technique called boosted decision trees to identify semi-visible jets in a more powerful but model-dependent way. No evidence for Physics Beyond the Standard Model is observed in either search. The classical search excludes the possibility that the mediator could have a mass between 1.5 TeV and 3.98 TeV, while the model-dependent search excludes mediators with masses between 1.5 TeV and 5.08 TeV. Additionally, ranges of other signal parameters are excluded"--Page viii.