Category Archives: LLP

15 years in ATLAS

ATLAS, Berlin, CERN, Copenhagen, Denmark, DESY, France, Geneva, Germany, Humboldt Universität, LHC, LLP, LMU, Munich, Niels Bohr Institue, Outreach, Physics, Switzerland

Fifteen years ago, Tuesday 8 March 2005 at 9:57am, I received my CERN account, to start working for the ATLAS Experiment.

What started as an internship – chosen because of a lack of courses in the field I originally planned to pursuit, the physics of macromolecules – in the high-energy-physics group at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, turned into a stay at CERN during the Summer Student Programme and a Master’s thesis about the electron identification with the ATLAS transition-radiation tracker (internal) together with studies on a precision measurement of the W-boson mass.

During my PhD at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY in Zeuthen and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and various short stays at CERN I was mainly working on the commissioning of the ATLAS pixel detector (internal) and data-driven algorithms to determine the W+Jets background in events with pair-produced top quarks, and was involved in the startup of the German National Analysis Facility.

Going back to the Niels Bohr Institute as a postdoc, I started working on searches for unconventional signatures and long-lived particles and got stuck with that ever since.

I started out looking for heavy, charged long-lived particles, an analysis I continued also after moving to LMU Munich in 2014.  Since then, I had the pleasure of leading two ATLAS physics subgroups – supersymmetry with R-parity-violating and long-lived signatures as well as exotics with unconventional and exotic Higgs decays – and joined a community effort in documenting the current status and harmonise searches for long-lived particles at the LHC. Amongst other things, I am currently also working on searches for Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns as signatures of strongly coupled Hidden Sectors and just finished my habilitation.

Besides physics analysis, especially looking for long-lived particles, I was always interested in science communication and education and have been involved in outreach projects since 2006. Highlights were and are certainly the design of the ATLAS LEGO model in 2011, the creation of the ‘Build Your Own Particle Detector‘ programme in 2013 and running it since, the coordination of the ATLAS contribution to the 2019 CERN Open Days, and the still ongoing work on a new ATLAS Visitor Centre. Since 2018, I am also an Education & Outreach coordinator for the ATLAS Collaboration.

I hope to have quite a few more years within ATLAS and other collaborations …

Habilitation

ATLAS, CERN, LLP, LMU, Munich, Physics

Yesterday, I officially finished my habilitation at LMU Munich by picking up my diploma.
So from now on it’s not just Dr. rer. nat. it’s also Dr. habil.

My last deed in the process, I did already on 5 February with a scientific debate about my main research topic: “Searches for new physics in signatures of long-lived particles”. Hopefully soon, following some more paperwork, I will also have my venia legendi and be a Privatdozent for experimental physics at LMU Munich.

Spring conferences

Aachen, ATLAS, CERN, Germany, LHC, LLP, Physics

March is spring-conference time and ATLAS has presented some very nice results at the Moriond meeting in La Thuile over the past couple of days (and so have other experiments). Along with these results and the related publications we’ve been putting out several Physics Briefings highlighting some of the most interesting results and a summary piece.

In parallel, I’m at the spring meeting of the German Physical Society in Aachen this week. Our annual week with hundreds of talks and updates on particle physics in Germany and in general, this year enriched by talks on didactics and artificial intelligence.

On Tuesday I gave an invited-talk on “Searches for long-lived particles as signs of new physics at the LHC”, trying to convince a more people to join the hunt for long-lived particles ;)

LLP and SUSY workshops

CERN, Geneva, LLP, Physics, Stockholm, Sweden

Spring time is (apparently) workshop time.

Last week I spent three days at the 3rd LHC Long-lived Particle workshop at CERN where the status and plans for searches for long-lived particles (LLPs) at LHC and elsewhere have been presented and discussed. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to put out a white paper, summarising current LLP search coverage, ways to improve it and a unified ‘language’ (set of simplified models) for sensitivity studies and reinterpretations.

This week I went to Stockholm for the 2018 ATLAS Supersymmetry Workshop to meet with a large fraction of the ATLAS SUSY community to (again) discuss the status quo as well as plans and ideas for the future (in terms of supersymmetry searches within ATLAS, also including a few LLP searches). Great location (institute and city) and nice workshop …

Long-lived particles in Trieste

Italy, LHC, LLP, Physics, Trieste

Just returned from our very nice workshop on ‘Searches for long-lived particles at the LHC‘ in Trieste. Three intense days of reports, discussions and new ideas related to searches for exotic long-lived particles at the LHC and beyond, and me having the pleasure to give the closing talk on Friday. Given the tight schedule there was unfortunately not much time to actually see Trieste, but here’s a few impressions …