Physics 252B - Techniques in High Energy Physics
Prof. Robin D. Erbacher

Main

Course Info

Calendar

Homework

Presentations

Projects

Reference Material

Final Project: Part A)

Please write up your student presentation in the form of a conference proceeding. It is typical when you give a talk at major conferences for you to have to submit a paper, summarizing the topics you covered in your talk. You should try to use LaTeX which is installed on the lifshitz cluster. You should use the AIP style format for 8.5x11" paper. You are provided with a style file, example file, and output examples. Proceedings should not exceed 6 pages, including bibliography and figures.

Proceedings Examples:

Top Quark Physics - Robin D. Erbacher (6x9" format) .tex file and .pdf file

Neutrino Cross Sections and Scattering - Bonnie Fleming (6x9" format) .ps file and .pdf file

Searches for New Physics - Giorgio Chiarelli (6x9" format) .ps file and .pdf file

Technical Information on LaTeX:

From lifshitz or some unix-like machine (linux, OS-X), you should download the appropriate files from the above link. All of the figures (.eps files) and .sty and other supporting files should be in the same directory as your .tex file. As soon as possible, to be sure you don't have any problems, try to compile the sample.tex file. You can create a .ps file and view it as follows:
sweany@lifshitznode> latex sample.tex
sweany@lifshitznode> dvips -o sample.ps sample.dvi
sweany@lifshitznode> gv sample.ps &
sweany@lifshitznode> ps2pdf sample.ps
sweany@lifshitznode> acroread sample.pdf &
Once you have verified that you can compile the sample.tex file that comes with the AIP package, you should make your own file or copy sample.tex to myfile.tex. Then start editing it:
sweany@lifshitznode> emacs myfile.tex &
Some information you should know:
-> For references to figures, labels, citations, etc, you have to run latex twice so it can get them right. You will see a warning to this effect. Whenever you add or change a reference, run it twice again so the numbering is correct.
->You should really download the above example from top physics to see how it's done. Use ~\cite{ref} for things to appear in the bibiography, use ~\ref{fig:escher} and \label{escher}(within the figure area) to get the labels for figures, etc. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to download the above top physics example and compare the .tex file to the output .ps or .pdf file so you can see how it works. Start early(!!) if you don't know LaTeX already
->Tip when editing using emacs: alt-q justifies the text so it doesn't look so messy when you cut-and-paste and edit it. Problem is, the alt key is defined differently on different platforms. But it's useful to figure out which it is.

Final Project: Part B)

Prepare an analysis of Monte Carlo events to find specific physics signatures. Your assigned analysis will be announced individually. You will use ROOT on the lifshitz cluster to run a piece of code (often called a macro) to find your signal, and plot distributions of it. You may work together but you will need to submit an individual piece of code, and individual distributions. We will work on this during class hours for 1 lecture period to get you started. Example analysis macros will likely be provided.

To get ROOT running on lifshitz, you will need to copy some setup lines into your .bashrc file in your home area. I've opened up permissions to my area, so you should be able to see mine as an example. "more ~erbacher/.bashrc" from the command line. You can launch ROOT after that. Try it and tell me if you have problems. (I've also asked them to install a better version of ghostview on lifshitz so you can look at the .ps files above and from your LaTeX jobs.)

You will turn in a printed version of your code, along with a brief write-up stating what you did to obtain the plots and your reasoning.

More Details on Projects

We will start together with an exercise from the LHC Olympics. Bob McElrath, a theory postdoc in the HEP group at UC Davis, is organizing an effort in the department for this. Some students, postdocs, and senior people have just begun looking at the Olympics.