Volume 8.

This book describes the first application at CMS of deep learning algorithms trained directly on low-level, “raw” detector data, or so-called end-to-end physics reconstruction. Growing interest in searches for exotic new physics in the CMS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has highlighted the need for a new generation of particle reconstruction algorithms. For many exotic physics searches, sensitivity is constrained not by the ability to extract information from particle-level data but by inefficiencies in the reconstruction of the particle-level quantities themselves. The technique achieves a breakthrough in the reconstruction of highly merged photon pairs that are completely unresolved in the CMS detector. This newfound ability is used to perform the first direct search for exotic Higgs boson decays to a pair of hypothetical light scalar particles H→aa, each subsequently decaying to a pair of highly merged photons a→yy, an analysis once thought impossible to perform. The book concludes with an outlook on potential new exotic searches made accessible by this new reconstruction paradigm.

This thesis reports on the search for dark matter in data taken with the ATLAS detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The identification of dark matter and the determination of its properties are among the highest priorities in elementary particle physics and cosmology. The most likely candidate, a weakly interacting massive particle, could be produced in the high energy proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The analysis presented here is unique in looking for dark matter produced together with a Higgs boson that decays into its dominant decay mode, a pair of b quarks. If dark matter were seen in this mode, we would learn directly about the production mechanism because of the presence of the Higgs boson. This thesis develops the search technique and presents the most stringent production limit to date.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the field of Higgs boson physics. It offers the first in-depth review of the complete results in connection with the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and based on the full dataset for the years 2011 to 2012. The fundamental concepts and principles of Higgs physics are introduced and the important searches prior to the advent of the Large Hadron Collider are briefly summarized. Lastly, the discovery and first mensuration of the observed particle in the course of the CMS experiment are discussed in detail and compared to the results obtained in the ATLAS experiment.

A fascinating tour of particle physics from Nobel Prize winner Leon Lederman. At the root of particle physics is an invincible sense of curiosity. Leon Lederman embraces this spirit of inquiry as he moves from the Greeks' earliest scientific observations to Einstein and beyond to chart this unique arm of scientific study. His survey concludes with the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God Particle, which scientists hypothesize will help unlock the last secrets of the subatomic universe, quarks and all--it's the dogged pursuit of this almost mystical entity that inspires Lederman's witty and accessible history.

This volume provides a detailed description of the seminal theoretical construction in 1964, independently by Robert Brout and Francois Englert, and by Peter W. Higgs, of a mechanism for short-range fundamental interactions, now called the Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism. It accounts for the non-zero mass of elementary particles and predicts the existence of a new particle - an elementary massive scalar boson. In addition to this the book describes the experimental discovery of this fundamental missing element in the Standard Model of particle physics. The H Boson, also called the Higgs Boson, was produced and detected in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of CERN near Geneva by two large experimental collaborations, ATLAS and CMS, which announced its discovery on the 4th of July 2012.This new volume of the Poincaré Seminar Series, The H Boson, corresponds to the nineteenth seminar, held on November 29, 2014, at Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris.

This book describes the searches that lead to the discovery of a Higgs boson performed at CMS, one of the two main experiments at the CERN LHC. After an overview of the theory and of the CMS experiment, all search channels are described, with emphasis on the ones with the best sensitivity. The statistical methodology used to analyse and the outcomes of the searches and the discovery results are then presented in detail.