Special Physics Colloquium

Dr. Tim Andeen, Columbia University

"Advancing ATLAS: Exploring New Energies at the LHC"

3:00pm, RLM 11.204

Abstract: This winter, particle physicists are actively preparing for the first 13 TeV collisions in the LHC at CERN. Our discovery of the Higgs boson was the outstanding success of the 8 TeV LHC, but what comes next? With the Standard Model complete the discovery of new physics could be just beginning. In this colloquium I will describe the tools and the motivation for our search for new particles and new physics. I will discuss the excitement surrounding current and future searches for new physics, as well as critical upgrades to the ATLAS detector. My focus will be on searches for exotic new particles that may be important in understanding the Higgs boson and play a prominent role in theories of physics beyond the Standard Model. I will also present detector upgrades that will allow the ATLAS experiment to keep pace with the increasing interaction rate of the LHC and improve the our ability to record collisions that might contain new physics.