Physical Science

In a 2015 study, particle physicists reported the first observed seasonal variation of multiple muon events in the MINOS Far and Near Detectors, where multiple muon events created by cosmic rays were observed to be more numerous in the winter than in the summer. This goes against researchers’ initial hypothesis, because it has long been measured that single muon rates ... Read More

In this project, we aim to programmatically find the most efficient triggers for selecting H++ events for application in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment. Highly efficient triggers are defined as those with high signal efficiency and low background efficiency to give as much signal and as little background as possible. The types of events analyzed were H++, Drell-Yan, and QCD. ... Read More

At present, dark matter theories predict the presence of dark photons. Detection of dark photons could provide insights into the nature of dark matter and its interactions with ordinary matter. Monte Carlo simulations are generated to understand Dark Photon production. Thus, we report the results of various files created. Monte Carlo generation was automated to derive branching ratios for dark ... Read More

The Hoffmeister Series ranks ions found in salts based on their effects on protein solubility. The series ranks them from “salting in” to “salting out”, i.e. how strongly the ions cause proteins to either dissolve or precipitate. It has been believed previously that ions of the same valence will cause a similar effect, however, in fact each ion has a ... Read More

In order to discover results faster, we have worked on simulating specific events through CRAB. CRAB submission to the grid allows multiple online computers to run several jobs simultaneously thus allowing for shorter turnback time. We utilize the outputs by finding limits on our data which assist with the analysis of particle events thus helping with our limit cuts on ... Read More

The doubly charged Higgs boson is a beyond the standard model particle that arises in the Left-Right Symmetric Model. The invariant mass of this particle is a quantity related to the mass that is the same in every reference frame and is conserved, which makes it useful to measure. The same sign invariant mass histograms of a doubly charged Higgs ... Read More

Using the identification of jets originating from b quarks, we eliminate a source of background in our search for the dark photon. These “b-tagged” jets often contain lepton pairs that are similar to the decay of dark photons. A veto against these jets further isolates the dark photon signal, aiding in analysis. The extent to which efficiency changes due to ... Read More

The doubly charged Higgs boson (H++/H--) is predicted in many extensions of the Standard Model. When searching for the doubly charged Higgs, we look for its decay through a distinctive signal of a same sign lepton pair, which can appear in 6 unique combinations, ignoring combinations containing tau leptons. The rate at which each of those 6 appear relative to ... Read More

The phenomenon of dark matter has perplexed physicists for decades, and, in an attempt to find it, some physicists hypothesize a dark sector of particles. These particles interact little with Standard Model particles and have a new force analogous to electromagnetism carried by the dark photon. If this dark photon has enough mass, then it could decay into a tightly ... Read More

Presequence protease (PreP) is encoded by the Pitrm1 gene which is an essential gene in mice and the defect in the Pitrm1 gene is linked to several human diseases. Presequence Protease (PreP) is a 117kDA M16C metalloprotease that cleaves presequence peptides and degrades amyloid ꞵ(Aꞵ). PreP has a C and N domain connected by a linker region together. There is ... Read More

A variety of exotic models predict a doubly charged Higgs-like particle that can be pair-produced in hadronic interactions via a Drell-Yan-like mechanism. The H++ and H-- can each decay to a pair of like-sign leptons (muons or electrons in this study) with TeV-scale mass, providing a distinctive event signature. Within Monte Carlo Drell-Yan events, there is a substantial amount of ... Read More

Previous versions of the codebase developed by the IMSA-CMS group have only allowed for data processing of Monte-Carlo events. The structure of the old codebase was built so that the analyzer object would receive a root file and process all events within the file. To implement the analytics of collision data within the codebase, the analyzer needed to be restructured ... Read More

Proposed beyond the Standard Model theories, such as various SUSY frameworks, posit the existence of non-Standard Model particles detectable in accelerator experiments through distinct event signatures. The object of our analysis concerns two such non-SM theoretical particles: the doubly charged Higgs boson (H^±±), a scalar boson with Drell-Yan and vector boson fusion production mechanisms, and the dark photon (γ_d), a ... Read More

The dark photon is part of a dark sector beyond Standard Model theory that aims to explain dark matter. The dark photon can interact weakly with the Standard Model via kinetic mixing, allowing the dark photon to decay into leptons. These leptons form lepton jets, pairs of opposite-sign, collimated leptons, because of their relativistic boost, gamma, from the dark photon’s ... Read More