Events at Physics |
Events on Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- The role of the lunar cycles in human evolution
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Art Schmaltz, Prairie State College
- Abstract: The moon and lunar cycles are connected to Earth's biological life in diverse and innumerably ways. In all human societies, the moon as "symbol" is deeply entwined in mythology. Recent archaeological discoveries now reveal that the moon and lunar cycles played a crucial role in human and physical and cognitive evolution.
- Host: Sprott
- High Energy Seminar
- The Search for the Higgs Boson Produced in Association with a Top Quark Pair
- Time: 3:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Kevin Lannon, University of Notre Dame
- Abstract: With the recent observation at ATLAS and CMS of a new particle, consistent with the Standard Model Higgs, with a mass of 125 GeV, the focus of the Higgs search has turned to testing whether the properties of this new particle are consistent with Standard Model expectations. A critical element of this test is verifying that this new particle couples with the expected strengths to the known bosons and fermions. An interesting channel for testing fermion couplings is Higgs production in association with a top quark pair. This channel allows an explicit check of the couplings of the Higgs to the two most massive fermions, the top quark and the bottom quark. However, first, the analysis must overcome challenging backgrounds, in particular, involving top pair production. In this talk, I will present the status of the search for Higgs produced in association with top quarks at the CMS experiment.
- Host: Matthew Herndon
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Indirect detection of dark matter at GeV and TeV scales
- Time: 4:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Alexander Belikov, Institut d'Astrophysics, Paris
- Abstract: In my talk I will revise the recent interpretations of the isotropic gamma-ray and radio backgrounds, unidentified gamma-ray sources and BBN abundances of light elements in terms of GeV scale dark matter. In the second part of the talk I will focus on multi-TeV dark matter in the perspective of gamma-rays from the galactic center and cosmic ray electrons and positrons in Fermi+HESS data. The spectra of both of gamma rays from the galactic center as well as the spectrum of cosmic ray electrons exhibit a cutoff at TeV energies that can be interpreted as a signature of annihilating dark matter. I present the updated constraints in the parameter space of thermal cross-section vs. dark matter mass and study the best fits to the data in the parameter space defined by the branching ratio to a particular annihilation channel and the mass of the dark matter particle.
- Special Undergraduate Seminar
- Fun Facts about the Higgs Boson and Graduate School at Notre Dame
- Time: 5:00 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Kevin Lannon, University of Notre Dame
- Host: Herndon