One of the open questions in particle physics is the origin of the
mass of the elementary particles. In the standard model, the Higgs
mechanism has been introduced to generate masses for the elementary
particles without making the model lose its predictive power. Besides
giving mass to particles, the Higgs mechanism also predicts the
existence of another particle: the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson has been looked for
for almost 40 years, and may finally have been discovered
by the ATLAS and CMS experiments
in 2012. The mass
of the Higgs boson is found to be around 125 GeV.
Our group is making significant contributions to the Higgs boson
research at the LHC. We are focusing on the Higgs to WW and Higgs to
bottom quark decay modes, which are two of the most important decay channels for a
Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV. In the Higgs to WW decay, measurements of
properties such as its spin are being performed, and specific production modes
are tested. The Higgs decay into a bottom quark pair has not been observed
yet and remains an important piece in proving that the discovered particle is
indeed the Higgs boson as predicted by the standard model.
In addition we are looking for rare Higgs boson decay modes like Higgs boson decays
to muon pairs.
