Alfredo Gurrola III
Physics Graduate Student
at Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
B.S. Physics - Texas A&M University
B.S. Mathematics - Texas A&M University
Currently working on PhD in High Energy Physics
Research
I am currently working on the detection of Supersymmetry(SUSY) in the coannihilation region of parameter space and its implications for Dark Matter. At the moment, my contribution to the project involves the simulation of SUSY events using the ISAJET event generator. At the detector level, we are using PGS to simulate the detector effects. Although the analysis of the kinematic parameters is general, our main concern at the moment is the possibility for detection at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our study depends heavily on the ability to reconstruct hadronically decaying taus with high enough efficiency. Therefore, I am also working on tau identification. In particular, we are interested in tau cone definitions and the effect of underlying events (soft interactions) on tau identification efficiencies. Other research projects include the effects of super LHC luminosities on tracking and tau identification. One of the main discriminators for SUSY searches is missing transverse energy produced by the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) for a particular model. Furthermore, the higgs full mass reconstruction is highly sensitive to the missing energy resolution. Therefore, it is very important to reconstruct the missing energy at the LHC with the best possible scale and resolution. I have recently started working on making missing energy corrections for the case of τ particles. The collaboration for this project includes Teruki Kamon, Chi Nhan Nguyen, Alexei Safonov and myself. My final project involves relic density measurements at the LHC using supercritical string cosmology, which changes the dark matter allowed regions of SUSY parameter space. The phenomelogy in these regions of parameter space is slightly different than the phenomenology for the coannihilation region.
Tau Identification with Underlying Events
Super Critical String Cosmology
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