Here we come with another talk, this time on particle physics. Also this time, we are extremely fortunate to have with us an alumnus of IISc, who is currently pursuing his PhD abroad, and he will be enlightening us about the nuances and intricacies of particle physics. This will be the last talk for this month, and probably we will take a break for some more weeks.

Title: Higgs hunting at the LHC: Using Artificial Intelligence to identify particles

Abstract: The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 by both the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations was yet another confirmation of the predictions made by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics – our most elaborate theory to explain nature – and was regarded by many as the final missing piece of the puzzle. While the Standard Model has survived decades of stringent experimental verification, there are ample observations that point towards deficiencies in the SM and suggest that the SM might be just an approximation to a more complete “theory of everything”. This has led to several hypotheses about physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM), none of which has been verified yet. This talk discusses how delving deeper into Higgs physics could be a potential gateway to BSM physics and how usage of Artificial Intelligence in particle physics has made such studies possible with unprecedented precisions.

Speaker: Spandan Mondal PhD candidate, RWTH Aachen; CMS Experiment, CERN; BS-MS, IISc ‘18.

Date and Time: 14th March, 2021; 5PM IST