LHC Physics Center

What I will be working on:

I will study the pair production of Higgs bosons in the four bottom-quark final state to search for new physics in the full Run-2 dataset. I will examine non-resonant production via the gluon fusion and the vector boson fusion production modes. In particular, this search gives us experimental access to explore the Higgs boson self-coupling and the coupling between two vector bosons and two Higgs bosons. I will also work on a new resonant production analysis, that, for the first time at the LHC, includes resonant decays into a Higgs boson and a new scalar. In addition, as a contribution to the 2021 Snowmass Energy Frontier studies, I will investigate the prospects for searches for new resonances with multi-Higgs topologies with four and six bottom-quarks in the final state in future proton-proton colliders. I will also dedicate part of my time to the algorithm development, and the FPGA firmware implementation, of a novel Level-1 tau=>3mu trigger for the HL-LHC using machine learning techniques. This trigger will exploit the rich information from the new muon detectors and the upgraded trigger processing capabilities proposed for the Phase-2 upgrade. This work will pave the way to significantly improve the CMS sensitivity to search for tau=>3mu decays.

My role in CMS past and present:

I began my journey in CMS when I was an undergraduate student in 2013. First, I studied the radiation levels on the front-end electronics of the HCAL forward detector in HL-LHC luminosity scenarios using FLUKA simulations. In 2014, I visited CERN and the LPC to work on the novel measurement of the top-quark mass from the associated b-jet energy spectrum using 2012 data, and to participate in the HCAL QIE10 chip testing task force for the Phase-1 upgrade. As a graduate student at the University of Florida (2016-present), I worked on the optimization, and publication, of the search for resonant Higgs boson pair production in the four bottom-quark final state using 2016 data. After that, I worked on the development of the Run-2 strategy for Higgs boson pair production searches and the implementation of machine learning techniques to maximize their sensitivity. I have also contributed to the operation of the L1 trigger by serving as endcap muon track finder (EMTF) expert on-call during 2018 data-taking. My upgrade work so far has consisted of developing Phase-2 L1 endcap tau=>3mu triggers using combinations of trigger objects produced in the new Global Muon Trigger (GMT) system.