ATLAS Experiment at Large Hadron Collider Seeks Out Unusual Signatures of Long-Lived Particles

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ATLAS Experiment at Large Hadron Collider Seeks Out Unusual Signatures of Long-Lived Particles:

Physicists at the ATLAS experiment are on the hunt for new, long-lived particles to help explain several outstanding mysteries of our Universe. High-energy collisions allow researchers to study heavy particles that decay very quickly, like the Higgs boson. But unlike heavy Standard Model particles - which decay within a few millimeters of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collision point - new, long-lived particles (LLPs) could travel sizeable distances through the ATLAS detector before decaying.

Studying the decay of any particle is a complex task, but it is usually made much easier by assuming that it decayed near the LHC collision point. This leaves LLPs in a blind spot, as they could decay anywhere in the detector. Further, as the layers of the ATLAS experiment are instrumented differently, evidence of LLPs would look different depending on which layer the particle decays in.

To ensure no stone is left unturned, ATLAS physicists have devised a range of new strategies to look for LLPs with various possible characteristics. Four new results from this effort have been presented at the recent Lepton-Photon and La Thuile conferences.

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