16.06.2022; Vortrag
Seminar: Photons to search for new phenomena with the ATLAS detector
01069 Dresden
Following the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the search for New Physics beyond the Standard Model is a key priority of the LHC physics program.
This seminar will focus on searches using photons in the final state, an experimental signature that benefits from the excellent performances of the ATLAS liquid-argon (LAr) electromagnetic calorimeter, and that also brings access to observables relevant to a large variety of models of New Physics. Among these, several channels bring promising sensitivity to fundamental open problems in physics, and could help understanding the origin of Dark Matter.
A selection of ATLAS studies will be presented, with an emphasis on a recent search for new resonances decaying into pairs of photons, and its interpretation in terms of constraints on the production of Axion-Like Particles (ALP) at the LHC. ALPs are light and weakly-interacting particles that gather interest as possible Dark Matter mediators. With a search range covering ALP masses from 10 to 70 GeV, this result has filled a long-standing gap between constraints arising from B decays and those from searches at the LHC.