Research Training Group: Physics of the Heaviest Particles at the LHC
Welcome to the website of the DFG Research Training Group "Physics of the Heaviest Particles at the LHC".
Second Funding Period Approved for the Research Training Group: Physics of the Heaviest Particles at the LHC
The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) has approved the application of the RWTH Aachen University for the prolongation of the Research Training Group (RTG) 2497 "Physics of the Heaviest Particles at the LHC". The RTG 2497 has been established for a first funding period in 2019. The second funding period has been approved in November 2023. Funding will be provided till end of September 2028. The aim of the RTG is to promote doctoral researchers, encourage their early scientific independence, and prepare them for the complexities of the job market in and outside academia.
The main topic of the RTG 2497 is "the physics of the heaviest particles at the Large Hadron Collider". Due to its high energy range and large statistics, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) plays a special role in elementary particle physics. The LHC has already made a number of discoveries possible, the most important of which is the discovery of the Higgs boson. The RTG 2497 is designed to study the heaviest known and proposed particles. The focus is on the Higgs boson as a possible key to new physics, the top quark as the heaviest quark, which presumably has connections to spontaneous symmetry breaking, as well as plausible, yet undiscovered, heavy particles predicted by theoretical models extending the Standard Model. The purpose of this RTG is in particular to improve the fundamental understanding of the structure of the Higgs mechanism by investigating the properties of the Higgs boson. Furthermore the special role of the top quark, both as a source of important background processes and as a link to new physics, will be exploited. Finally, the full potential of the LHC with regard to the discovery of heavy dark matter particles will be exploited.
The spokesperson of the RTG 2497 is Prof. Michal Czakon. The principal investigators of the second funding period are: Profs. Kerstin Borras, Michal Czakon, Johannes Erdmann, Martin Erdmann, Lutz Feld, Robert Harlander, Michael Krämer, Alexander Schmidt and Malgorzata Worek.
Press Release by RWTH Aachen University
Our Research Training Group (RTG) proposal has been approved by the DFG (German Research Foundation) and will start in October 2019. The RTG is carried out jointly by the Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology, Physics Institute III A and Physics Institute I B.
Spokesperson of the RTG is Prof. Michal Czakon. The principal investigators are Profs. Kerstin Borras, Michal Czakon, Martin Erdmann, Lutz Feld, Robert Harlander, Thomas Hebbeker, Michael Krämer, Alexander Schmidt and Prof. Dr. Malgorzata Worek.
The RTG is centred around LHC research. It builds on the particular strengths of the scientific groups at the RWTH Aachen University and the tradition of close collaboration between theory and experiment. The experimental groups are part of the CMS collaboration and have contributed substantially to the detector construction, its upgrades, computing and data analyses including deep learning methods. The theoretical group covers a broad range of topics from precision calculations in quantum chromodynamics to the phenomenology of supersymmetry and dark matter. The RTG is designed to study the heaviest particles both known and theorised. The focus will be on
- the Higgs boson, as a potential window to New Physics;
- the top quark, as the heaviest of the quarks with likely relation to spontaneous symmetry breaking;
- yet undiscovered heavy new particles from exotic models and dark matter candidates.
In particular, the purpose of the RTG is to enhance the fundamental understanding of the structure of the Higgs mechanism by studying the Higgs boson properties such as the couplings of the scalar to fermions, gauge bosons, and to itself. Furthermore, the special role of the top quark both as a source of dominant background processes and a link to New Physics will be exploited. At the same time, top-quark cross sections will be used to perform Standard Model tests and to extract fundamental parameters. Finally, the potential of the LHC will be fully explored as far as discovery of extended supersymmetric models and heavy dark matter particles is concerned.
More information can be found in the press release by the DFG.