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Project: B15r

Title:          Evaluation of the power of "dark photon" searches at the ILC

DESY group:     FTX/SLB

Type:           Tandem Team project: Online (Remote) part

Duration:       19th july - 10th sep 2021

Description: 

   FIPS (Feebly Interacting ParticleS) are proposed entities that can
   explain dark matter and the non-observation of such states at accelerators:
   The reason they have not yet been seen is rather than that they are too massive
   (the explanation of non-observation of SUSY), they are too feebly interacting to
   have been observed at LHC or LEP. Future e+e- machines opens up new ways to
   search for such states: while still having the same low-background conditions
   and known initial state as at LEP, the future machines will feature 1000 times
   higher luminosities compared to LEP. The project intends to make a study of
   the "dark photon" flavour of FIPS at the ILC. In this scenario, the dark photon
   does decay into SM particles, notably to muon pairs. The signal to search for is
   thus a very small, but very narrow, peak in the the di-muon spectrum. There is,
   however, no a priori position of the peak. 

   The project would contain one part which is the estimate of the background rates.
   This part requires full detector simulation, and would be the task of the on-site
   student.

   The other part would be the generation of the signal, and fast detector simulation
   of it. This can be the task of the remote student.
   The two students would work together to combine the two and derive the discovery/exclusion
   potential of ILC for such a scenario.



Special Qualifications expected:

   C++ knowledge is essential. Basic understanding of statistics and
   probability theory is needed. For the remote student, knowledge of
   modern Fortran (at least F03) would be useful. Pre-knowledge of
   root is also useful for both of them. 



Link to further information: http://flc.desy.de/ (hopefully replaced by ftx.desy.de very soon)

Cancellation policy: In case the on-site part is cancelled due to COVID pandemic restriction
this online (remote) part of the project will still take place. 
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