First measurements of the Higgs boson at record energy

Collaboration Scientists ATLAS at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) have carried out new measurements of the production rate of Higgs bosons at energy 13.6 teraelectron volts (TeV)a record value that the LHC accelerator was able to achieve in its third period of operation Run 3.

The results were first presented at the LHCP conference in May and published in the journal this week European Physical Journal Cwere obtained from the data sample collected during this new LHC operating cycle, which began in July 2022. They represent the first measurements of the production of the Higgs boson at this new energy.

The new results make it possible to study the physics of the Higgs boson at an unprecedented energy of 13.6 TeV and test the performance of the ATLAS detector in the LHC’s third period of operation

The newly published study combines the Analysis of two of the most striking “traces” is created by the Higgs boson when it decays into other particles. In fact, these are the same decay modes that allowed ATLAS to discover the Higgs boson in 2012.

Although the probability of the Higgs boson decaying through these two processes is very small, the ATLAS detector was designed to identify and measure the particles resulting from these processes with great efficiency and precision. This potential is made possible by the physics research community Study the characteristics of the Higgs in detail by analyzing both processes.

The first step of the study is to measure the Production rates of the Higgs boson in the detection range of the ATLAS detector. These measurements in turn provide information about the performance of all detector components.

By analyzing these decay events, the Higgs boson “signal” is expected to appear in the diagrams as accumulation of events -a peak value- with some background values. This peak is at around 125 GeV, the mass value of the Higgs boson.

The new results have made it possible to prove this Performance of the ATLAS detector under the new data acquisition conditions of Run 3, enabling the study of the physics of the Higgs boson at an unprecedented energy of 13.6 TeV.

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Spanish contribution from IFIC

Salvador Marti GarcíaCSIC scientific researcher at the Institute of Corpuscular Physics (CSIC–Universitat de València), contributed directly to this study as an expert in the detector alignment and muon calibration of the ATLAS experiment.

“To observe a characteristic Higgs boson signal above the background, we need to measure with great precision the properties of the particles produced by Higgs decay. Therefore, our detector must be aimed with the highest accuracy, which means it will be achieved A micron level for the most sensitive components of the detector,” explains the researcher. And he adds: “We achieved this thanks to careful work and the experience we have gained over the years.”

On his part Carmen Garcia GarciaCSIC Research Professor at IFIC and leader of the ATLAS group in Valencia, emphasizes: “Our group is very committed to the ATLAS experiment and is involved in the analysis of the physics, the performance studies of the detector and its operation. It’s great.” It gives us satisfaction to see that all our efforts are bearing fruit.

Next Steps

These results represent the first Higgs boson measurements recorded at the new energy of 13.6 TeV, the highest ever achieved in a particle accelerator. They in turn pave the way for ever better measurements.

“Having observed this decay process of the Higgs boson, we can study in detail the properties of the final particles that appear as a product of the decay and check whether they behave as predicted.” Standard model. We also plan to investigate another process that involves and produces Higgs a similar experimental signal“But this will allow us to analyze one of the rarest decay processes of this boson,” Martí-García continues.

Reference:

ATLAS Collaboration et al. “Measuring the and effective cross sections in pp collisions at TeV with the ATLAS detector”. Eur. Phys. J.C, 2024

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