ESR 5:
Semi-leptonic ZZ scattering measurement with the ATLAS detector (WP1, WP2, WP3)
Objectives: Despite its small production cross-section, the ZZ WBS offers the unique possibility of measuring the energy and direction of all decay products of vector bosons, allowing for a full angular characterisation of each scattering event. This project will address the semi-leptonic ZZ WBS, to add a new search channel to the LHC Run3 ATLAS searches with a larger number of expected events wrt the fully-leptonic case. The development of novel deep learning techniques in collaboration with experts in the field will allow to reduce at an unprecedented level the background (bkg) contamination, allowing to study both the SM WBS production, and BSM effects, in the EFT formalism and in UV-complete models. Angular correlations in the ZZ system, besides being a powerful tool to reduce bkg and isolate the longitudinal component of WBS, are an ideal testbed for the application of QC to HEP. The ESR will then spend part of her/his activity at IBM, to work on QC developments: a fundamental rethinking of algorithms and computing models will be necessary to properly exploit the QC potential. The ESR would also contribute to develop quantum-based machine learning technique, like quantum Support Vector Machines. These two approaches will be both tested on the analysis itself, during a second secondment at CERN. The results publication will be the final part of the project, together with the active participation in the overall combination of the single analyses results.
Expected Results: first measurement of semi-leptonic ZZ scattering, limits or first evidence for BSM behaviour in the EFT formalism, first study of QC application to HEP data analyses.
Local supervisor(2): Daniela Rebuzzi (UniPV), Dario Gerace (UniPV)
Planned secondment(s): Non-academic: (1) IBM, Ivano Tavernelli, month 25-28 Development of QC concepts and techniques, in a big international company. Academic: (2) CERN, Federico Carminati, m. 29-30 Implementation of QC concepts in the HEP environment
Q[Pietro]: why do we think that skills on ML or on QC will make the difference for PhD students, in their future career?
Q[Pietro]: do you think we could manage to justify with some pseudo-quantitative assessments, like the increase in the field is large, and the projection of that to four years from now is that the market will be ready for these new figures to be injected, etc? Does it sound reasonable that young ESRs from our ETN may also found one of these companies, finding fertile ground because of how the technological and scientific research is evolving?
Input for discussion:
- adding an other ESR on the topic of Quantum Simulation of the full VBS process, from scratch? (see B. Nachman at al. -> maybe involve them directly?)
- adding a list of startup focused on quantum programming?