Colloquium

Title:  Observation and Measurement of a Standard Model Higgs Boson-like Diphoton

Speaker: Mingming Yang, MIT

Location: Room 111, Physics Building

Time: 15:00-16:00, Wed, Sep 23, 2015

Abstract:

This talk concerns the observation of a new particle and the measurements of its properties, from the search of the Higgs boson through its decay into two photons at the CMS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), on the full LHC "Run I" data collected by the CMS detector during 2011 and 2012. I will introduce you the analysis of Higgs decaying into two photons using Multivariate Analysis Techniques, along with a story of Higgs boson discovery.

Biography:
 

Dr. Mingming Yang entered Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2004 as an undergraduate student in the joint program with the University of Michigan (UM) in Mechanical Engineering. She moved to the UM in 2006, and received Bachelor degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Physics in 2009. She then joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate study in Physics as William M. Layson MIT Presidential Graduate Fellow, and received her PhD in September 2015.

Mingming’s PhD work was searching for the Higgs boson through its decay into two photons, by analyzing the data collected by the Compact Muon Solenoid detector (CMS) from proton proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in CERN, with the CMS Higgs to Two Photon Working Group. She made significant contribution in the Higgs decaying into two photons analysis using Multivariate Analysis method, and “unblinded” the first Higgs search result combining 2011 and 2012 data within CMS collaboration on June 15, 2012. This result provided the first convincing evidence of the existence of a new particle, and led to the discovery of the Higgs boson combining the results from other four Higgs decay channels as announced on July 4, 2012. This historic “unblinding” moment has been transformed into the opening play of the “Collider Exhibition” by London Science Museum.

(http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/explore_our_collections/stories/hunt_for_the_higgs_boson http://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/insight/2013/10/08/celebrate-the-nobel-prize-at-the-science-museum/).

After the discovery, Mingming continued to work on the final Higgs to two photons analysis using the full LHC Run 1 data at CMS, and served as the editor of the analysis note for the CMS Higgs to two photon final paper. The final results provide the standalone observation of the new particle and the measurements of its mass, cross section and couplings, which are consistent with the Standard Model Higgs boson and presented in Mingming’s PhD Thesis
"Observation and Measurement of a Standard Model Higgs Boson-like Diphoton Resonance with the CMS Detector" (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.06804.pdf).