Higgs-Search-as-a-Masterclass

Brief overview

This repository contains a demo for SMuK 2023 with an advanced masterclass aimed for high school students with knowledge of particle physics from previous masterclasses. The goal is to perform a search for the Higgs boson on the $\mathrm{H}\rightarrow\mathrm{ZZ}\rightarrow 4\ell$ decay channel. For this purpose, a subset of CMS measurements taken in 2012 is used, which have been made available on the CERN Open Data Portal [1]. The goal is to promote advanced concepts such as algorithm development or demonstrate the importance of data preparation in addition to the actual search. Likewise, students learn to assess whether an observation is significant with the aim of an application of these skills also outside of particle physics.

The Masterclass uses the Jupyter Notebook and relies on the Python programming language and takes inspiration of the ROOT based approach described in [1]. Basic knowledge for editing the notebook should be brought along or learned in the course of editing together with a supervisor. In general, the processing of the notebook is based on an alternating processing of the notebook and the interactive development of the concepts through the dialogue with the supervisor.

Language used

• German

Execution viability

It is possible to run the repo using MyBinder.

• To run the repo remotely:

• To run locally (following commands for Terminal/Power Shell):

  git clone https://github.com/a-monsch/Higgs-Search-as-a-Masterclass
  cd Higgs-Search-as-a-Masterclass
  

  With an optional virtual environment:

  virtualenv venv
  # Linux
  source venv/bin/activate
  # Windows
  .\venv\Scripts\activate
  

  The necessary Python (>= 3.6) packages are listed below (pip install <package>) but can also be downloaded automatically via

  pip3 install -r binder/requirements.txt
  

  • NumPy
  • Pandas
  • matplotlib
  • Jupyter
  • tqdm
  • vector

  If the virtual environment is used, a kernel for the jupyter notebooks can be reregistered.

  ipython kernel install --user --name=venv
  

  The jupyteter notebook can be started directly from within the directory of the repository with

  jupyter notebook
  

  After shutting down the notebook, you can leave the virtual environment with deactivate.

Provided datasets

In the MyBinder version the data sets have been downloaded automatically. For the local version, the data records can either be downloaded here manually in the data direcotry or be downloaded and unpacked automatically by sh /binder/postBuild (Linux).

References

[1] Bin Anuar Afiq Aizuddin Jomhari Nur Zulaiha Geiser Achim. Higgs-to-four-leptonanalysis example using 2011-2012 data. 2017. DOI: 10.7483/OPENDATA.CMS.JKB8.D634. URL: http://opendata.vern/record/5500.