Dr. Krzysztof Sliwa

Biography

The Standard Model, gauge theories; also topology, differential geometry and other branches of modern mathematics to better understand quantum gauge theories, the origin of mass and the structure of space-time, matter and all interactions, including gravity. I am a member of the ATLAS collaboration at the LHC. Studies of Higgs boson and top quarks. The main objective is to find out whether the new particle discovered in 2012 is a minimal Standard Model Higgs, or some other kind. Studies of top quarks are very interesting on their own. Because of very large mass of the top quark, its lifetime is very short, $\sim 5\times10^{-25}$ seconds, much shorter that the characteristic time of the strong interactions. As a consequence, top quark decays before any strong interaction effects may take place. This allows a direct access to the information about the quark spin, which is very difficult, if not impossible, for any other quark. Studies of top quarks are very important for other searches, as top quarks will constitute the most important background for almost any final states due to "new physics" and have to be understood very well. We are using very advanced multidimensional analysis techniques, developed by our group (Ben Whitehouse and I).

Research Interest

Physics of elementary particles