LHC Physics Center

1) What I will be working on:

Higgs PAG, Tracking POG, Muon POG

• Search for H -> bb
• Hadron tracking efficiencies
• muon fake rates

2) List of achievements during your fellowship

• Co-lead the search for H -> bb, with results on the full 2011 dataset submitted for publication in PLB.
• Measurement of muon fake rates using full 2011 dataset (MUO-10-004), in CWR now, to be submitted for publication.
• Ongoing work on hadron tracking efficiencies using D decays.

3) Official roles (job titles) in CMS (if applicable)

Co-convener, H -> bb sub-group, Higgs PAG

4) Challenges you have encountered and your solutions to them

The primary challenge in coordinating the H -> bb sub-group is that almost all active people are based away from CERN. The center of gravity of our meetings is always on EVO, rather than in the room at CERN. Since a significant and growing portion of this effort is based, or rotates through, the LPC, the fellowship has enabled me to solve part of this problem in a very efficient way, by providing travel funds that would not otherwise be available to me, as I do not have a separate reason to be at Fermilab (I am not on CDF or D0, for example).

5) Your estimation of the impact that your work is having on CMS, indicating how the LPC Fellowship has facilitated this (if it has)

I believe that my work has made a significant impact on the Higgs search at low mass. Our result is significantly better than the competing ATLAS analysis scaled to the same luminosity, and we are highly competitive with the H -> tautau search in CMS, which (I believe) was never expected. See point 4 for how the fellowship has enabled my work.

6) List of internal CMS Analysis Notes, external CMS Physics Analysis Summeries, journal publications, and (completed) Analysis Review Committees during the period of the fellowship

• AN-11-240
• AN-11-430
• HIG-11-012
• HIG-11-031 (submited to PLB)
• MUO-10-004 (in CWR)

7) List of internal CMS talks, conference talks for CMS and seminars/colloquia since becoming an LPC Fellow.

• "Search for the standard model Higgs boson at CMS," Joint Theory-Experimental Seminar, Brookhaven National Laboratory, October, 2011.
• "CMS Higgs Combination," Higgs Hunting Workshop, Orsay, France, July, 2011.

My internal CMS talks are directly related to my position as co-convener of the H -> bb group, of which I have given many over the past year.

8) The importance of the travel budget to you and your travel pattens since becoming a fellow. Please provide the approximate amount of time (in percent) spent at CERN/LPC/Home institute/conferences/other since becoming a Fellow. (This information will be used partly to justify the 20K/per year travel budgets)

I spend approximately 50% of my time at my home institute (I did not request a teaching buyout from the LPC), 25% at CERN and 25% at FNAL.

9) Ways in which the LPC Fellows program could be improved.

I have not come up with any strong ideas on how to improve the program.

10) Your overall satisfaction with the LPC Fellows program and whether it should be continued (beyond FY2012 for which we have already secured the funds.)

I am highly satisfied with the program.