Development of novel statistical methods and application to searches for New Physics using the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The long-established RHUL ATLAS group has extensive expertise in physics (Higgs, top quark and exotic signatures involving electrons), statistical methods, as well as trigger and data acquisition systems. The group also plays an important role in the upcoming upgrades of the detector for the High-Luminosity running of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The successful candidate will develop novel statistical methods for data analysis, in areas such as statistical models with uncertain error parameters, measurement of differential distributions using deconvolution (unfolding), and machine learning techniques for statistical tests, multivariate regression and density estimation. The statistical tools will be applied to physics analyses using data that will be collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The physics application will involve a search for new processes in one of several possible areas, such as top-quark or Higgs boson properties. The measurements will use data from the upcoming data-taking run (run 3) with proton-proton collisions at 14 TeV.

In addition, PhD students in the RHUL ATLAS group contribute to the development of statistical software for the ATLAS Collaboration as well as to the operation of the ATLAS detector at CERN.

Find out more about Research degree (PhD) opportunities at Royal Holloway, University of London.