ASP Online Seminars: Observation of the electroweak production of two same-sign W bosons in proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector

by Dr Chilufya Mwewa (Brookhaven National Laboratory (US))

Tuesday 16 Feb 2021, 14:30 → 16:00 GMT

Abstract:

In August 2010, I participated in the African School of Physics held in Stellenbosch, South Africa. It was there that I heard about CERN for the very first time. I have since completed a masters degree and PhD in experimental particle physics, working on the ATLAS experiment at CERN. 

In this talk, I will highlight my PhD work in which I studied the electroweak production of two same-charge W bosons via Vector Boson Scattering (VBS). VBS provides a good platform to study electroweak symmetry breaking because it requires the presence of the Standard Model Higgs boson for unitarity to hold at high center of mass energies of colliding protons. The scattering of two same-charge W bosons has a very low cross-section but has good sensitivity to VBS, making it one of the best channels in which to probe electroweak symmetry breaking. This talk will focus  on the analysis procedure that led to a 6.9sigma observation of this rare process by ATLAS.  

 

ASP_20210216_ChilufyaMwewa_ElectroWeak.mp4

MWEWA_ASPSeminar.pdf

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