2nd LHC- |
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CERN - 9/10 February 2006
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Information Letter
We are all eagerly awaiting the moment when the LHC experiment
will announce its first data, which no doubt will open up exciting opportunities
to explore and expand the frontier of high energy physics as we know it today.
The anticipated new discoveries will reveal how the electroweak symmetry is broken,
and hopefully provide striking signals of new physics beyond the Standard
Model.
Once there is a discovery there will be celebrations and champagne. Then what?
How well are we prepared for the unique challenge of disentangling and interpreting the
new phenomena uncovered by LHC?
For many years, theorists have explored numerous scenarios of physics beyond the Standard Model,
driven mostly by intellect and imagination. In bridging the gap with experiment,
one needs efficient tools to decode the theoretical models and exhibit their experimentally
observable consequences, as well as proficiency to unravel experimental data into concrete clues
about the underlying theory.
The ATLAS and CMS collaborations are engaged in the effort to meet the
challenge before them. Theorists should be equally prepared. Some groups
have been working on the very important studies of the SM signals that
will be needed to ascertain a discovery, and have studied some new-physics
signals. But many theorists, who are eager to have data pointing to how
the SM will be extended, have not yet actively participated in the process
of analysing new-physics signals and have not yet familiarized themselves
with the necessary tools. We feel that now is the right time for
theorists, especially those who have been so far mostly interested in model
building or more abstract theoretical questions, to get involved in
LHC-related issues.
What is the LHC Olympics?
The idea of the LHC Olympics is to serve as a forum for theorists of
all stripes to prepare for the advent
of LHC data, and to facilitate communication with experimentalists.
This is done via three interrelated activities.
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Via a web page and links , we aim to provide user-friendly
instructions on how to use existing collider event simulation tools.
LHCO participants are invited to learn to use these tools and
generate semi-realistic data sets starting from their own favorite
theoretical models.
Standard scenarios such as mSUGRA models have been well studied.
There is however still a lot of work to do exploring less standard
scenarios, and adapting existing Monte Carlo tools for this purpose.
We have set up this wiki
on which participants can post comments and results, or ask questions.
(For information about how to access the wiki page, contact
Lhc.Olympics )
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To help stimulate and focus the discussion, a
data challenge
has been set up, in the form of three
"black boxes". These are data sets generated with specified programs from
theoretical models, unknown to LHCO participants.
The black box data, with explanations on how they have been generated,
are found here.
Participants are challenged to look at and
interpret the LHC new physics blackbox signals, or even to disentangle
the data themselves.
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To favour communication and exchange of ideas, we are organizing
a series of workshop meetings. The second
LHCO workshop will take place at CERN on February 9 and 10, 2006. As with
the
first workshop, the
list of participants will include leading experimenters, experts
on Monte Carlo tools, and theorists with widely varying levels
of expertise in collider physics. The program will consist of instructive
talks by experts, discussions between theorists and experimenters, and
reports by participants on their progress in deciphering the "black
box" data sets.
Some links
Information links
Organising Comittee
- Ignatios Antoniadis (CERN)
- Nima Arkani-Hamed (Harvard)
- Savas Dimopoulos (Stanford)
- Gian Giudice (CERN)
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- Gordy Kane (Michigan)
- Steve Mrenna (Fermilab)
- Matt Strassler (Univ. of Washington)
- Herman Verlinde (Princeton)
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secretariat : Suzy Vascotto
technical contact : Elena Gianolio
For information, please contact: Lhc.Olympics
And more
Page from 02-February-2006, Elena Gianolio
