After the discovery of the Higgs Boson, the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics can be extrapolated without inconsistencies all the way up to the Planck mass. Despite this tremendous success, we still remain in the dark about many open puzzles. Why is the weak interaction much stronger than gravity? What is the nature of Dark Matter? Are the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces a lower-energy manifestation of one single fundamental interaction? A possible solution to these questions is provided by Supersymmetry. The key assumption behind many natural supersymmetric models is that the masses of the gluinos, the top squarks and the higgsinos are near the TeV scale, thus within the LHC reach. In this presentation, I will introduce some of the theoretical and phenomeno- logical arguments that motivate the quest for Supersymmetry. I will then outline how I searched for the above-mentioned particles using LHC Run-2 data collected by the ATLAS experiment. Finally, I will focus on my vision of the future and my research plans in high-energy experimental physics.
Stefano Zambito is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University, and a member of the ATLAS Experimental Collaboration at the LHC. He is currently part of the experiment’s Physics Coordination, with managing responsibilities over the group in charge of studying and calibrating the performance of the ATLAS Muon System. His analysis work focuses on the search for supersymmetric particles, in particular targeting models that are able to address the Standard Model hierarchy problem in a natural way. He combines experimental signatures with large discovery potential, novel analysis techniques, and detector expertise, to investigate well-motivated regions of SUSY parameter space characterized by an experimentally-challenging phenomenology. He is also involved in the study of the Higgs boson interactions with other Standard Model particles, with the ultimate goal of investigating the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism to probe possible contributions due to new physics.
More details on Stefano's research can be found here.