Challenges and first results venturing into uncharted territory with forward proton tags

by Dr Pedro Silva (CERN)

Tuesday 18 Oct 2022, 13:00 → 14:00 Europe/Brussels

The Precision Proton Spectrometer (PPS) was for the LHC Run 2 by the CMS and TOTEM Collaborations. It is a powerful tool for advancing new measurements with proton tags and BSM searches. The commissioning of this new detector  involves understanding different aspects of forward proton reconstruction (alignment and optics calibrations, radiation damage, pileup contributions and validation using standard model candles).

In this seminar I'll illustrate how PPS can be used by focussing on a generic search for associated production of a Z boson or a photon with an additional unspecified massive particle X in proton-tagged events from proton-proton (pp) collisions at √s =13 TeV, recorded in 2017.  The so-called missing mass spectrum is analysed in the 600–1600 GeV range and a fit is performed to search for possible deviations from the background expectation. No significant resonant deviations in data with respect to the background predictions have been observed. Model-independent upper limits on the visible production cross section of pp → pp + Z/γ + X are set.

 

Zoom Link

Meeting ID: 959 2359 8030

Meeting passcode: 405246

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