Tentative Schedule

October 28

Speaker:  Lidija Zivkovic, Columbia University

Title: "Closing in on the Higgs Boson"

The Standard Model describes the unification of electromagnetic and weak interactions. It was thoroughly tested over past thirty years, and represents one of the major successes of modern physics. This theory predicted the existence and the masses of the weak bosons. The last remaining piece of the puzzle is the Higgs boson whose existence is crucial for our understanding of the origin of particle masses.

Direct searches at LEP put a lower limit on the Higgs boson mass, and together with precision measurement constrained it to ~<200 GeV. The D0 and CDF experiments at the Tevatron recently excluded a new interval in the Higgs mass. In this time when we are entering LHC era, we are coming closer to the discovery or exclusion of the SM Higgs boson.\\ I will discuss current searches for the SM Higgs boson with the D0 experiment at Tevatron, highlighting the most important techniques. I will also draw a parallel with future searches at LHC, showing what we can learn from Tevatron experience.

November 18

Speaker: Martina Hurwitz, University of Chicago

Title: "Observation of WW+WZ production in a semileptonic decay at CDF"

Abstract: 

I will present the recent observation and cross section measurement of WW+WZ production in the lepton plus jets final state at CDF. This measurement is an important milestone in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson at the Tevatron due to the similar event topology and analysis techniques.  I will describe the details of the analysis, including the use of matrix element calculations to separate the signal from the large backgrounds.

November 20

Speaker: Miguel Vidal, CIEMAT 

Title: "Search for Third Generation Squarks in the Missing Transverse Energy plus jet Sample at CDF"

Abstract: 

I will present the searches for gluino-mediated sbottom, and stop direct production decaying into charm and neutralino using CDF II data. These signatures translate into final states with large missing transverse energy and jets, where at least one of the jets is required to be tagged as originated from a heavy flavor quark. I will describe the analysis techniques and optimization tools, focusing on data driven methods to estimate heavy flavor multijet bacgrounds and charm tagging, both especially developed for these analyses. 

**Special start time at 1:30 PM in 831 Pupin Hall**

December 2

Speaker: Mandy Rominsky, University of Oklahoma

Title: "Measuring the Dijet Mass Cross Section at D0"

Abstract: 

The dijet mass cross section is measured in ppbar collisions at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV using 0.7 fb-1 of data collected at the D0 detector at the Tevatron. The measurement is performed in six rapidity regions up to |y| < 2.4 for the two jets with the largest transverse momentum. The results are compared to MSTW2008 NLO predictions and found to be in good agreement.