Time4Discovery: Searching for long-lived particles with novel use of timing information in Run 3 of the LHC

Despite its remarkable success in predicting and describing experiments with the smallest constituents of matter over the past decades, the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics fails to explain e.g. dark matter, neutrino masses, the baryon asymmetry and the apparent fine-tuning of the Higgs mass.

I propose to develop novel high-precision timing algorithms to substantially improve the experimental sensitivity to attractive scenarios of beyond-SM physics at CERN´s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).The interest in searches for new long-lived particles (LLPs) has grown steadily in recent years as their challenging signatures could have been missed so far at the LHC.

By exploiting the untapped potential of the high-precision timing capabilities of the ATLAS detector, a suite of searches targeting such LLPs will bring substantial sensitivity gains also with modest increases in the dataset in Run 3 of the LHC (2022-2025).A discovery of such a particle would have groundbreaking impact on the field and steer decisions about future facilities that will be used for decades to come.

In the event of a negative search result, constraints on popular extensions of the SM will provide valuable guidance for future research.After 15-years working on the ATLAS experiment, I have both a proven track-record for designing and leading searches for LLPs, and expertise in developing timing-based reconstruction algorithms, and I look forward to bringing the project to fruition together with a PhD student.