Graduate Program Events |
Events During the Week of February 22nd through March 1st, 2026
Monday, February 23rd, 2026
- No events scheduled
Tuesday, February 24th, 2026
- No events scheduled
Wednesday, February 25th, 2026
- No events scheduled
Thursday, February 26th, 2026
- Preliminary Exam
- Searches for heavy resonances decaying into two Higgs bosons (HH) in the bb tau tau final state using Run 3 data from the CMS experiment.
- Time: 11:00 am - 1:00 pm
- Place: Chamberlin 5280
- Speaker: Mitanshu Thakore
- Abstract: The talk will focus on searches for heavy resonances decaying into a pair of Higgs bosons predicted by beyond the Standard Model theories. The search targets final states where one Higgs boson decays into a pair of tau leptons and the other into a pair of bottom quarks: X→HH→bb ττ. The analysis uses proton–proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 13.6 TeV, collected with the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider during Run 3 (2022–2026). These final states are particularly challenging because, for heavy resonances, the Higgs bosons are produced with large Lorentz boosts. As a result, their decay products are separated by a small angle in space and appear highly collimated in the detector. Due to this collimation, a single large-cone (AK8) jet is used to reconstruct the H→bb decay. For the H→ττ decay, the tau-lepton pair is also highly boosted and collimated. Depending on the event topology, the Taus may be reconstructed either within a single large jet or as two isolated tau leptons. The search is performed by scanning the distribution of the reconstructed resonance mass and looking for a local excess in data compared to the background prediction.
- Host: Tulika Bose
Friday, February 27th, 2026
- No events scheduled
Saturday, February 28th, 2026
- No events scheduled
Sunday, March 1st, 2026
- Ice Skating Social
- Time: 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
- Place: Bakke Recreation and Wellbeing Center: Sub-Zero Ice Rink (1976 Observatory Drive | Madison, WI 53706)
- Abstract: The Physics Department will be hosting an ice skating social on Sunday, March 1, 1:30pm-3:00pm at the Sub-Zero Ice Rink in Bakke Recreation & Wellbeing Center.
- Host: Alice Kwok