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Physics & Astronomy Colloquium – Spring 2019 – West
February 27, 2019 @ 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Speaker: Chris West (UA)
Title: Exploring MeV to TeV Scales with Photons at the CMS Experiment
Abstract: The CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider can measure photons with energies ranging from hundreds of MeV to several TeV, enabling the exploration of a broad range of topics–from standard model physics to searches for new physics. The colloquium will provide an overview of physics with photons in CMS. Photon reconstruction from calorimeter energy deposits and photon conversions to electron-positron pairs in the tracker will be described. Using these complementary reconstruction strategies allows for probes of MeV-scale physics involving QCD bound states to TeV-scale searches for extra spatial dimensions. The talk will focus on a search for large extra dimensions in the diphoton channel, with an aside on low-momentum photons to understand puzzles in quarkonium spectroscopy. The talk will conclude with a description of planned upgrades that will benefit photon reconstruction.