Abhisek Datta

Research Interests

Prof. Datta’s research focuses on precise measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson using high energy proton-proton collision data from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The Higgs boson, central to the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, explains how elementary particles acquire mass. While many of its properties have been measured since its 2012 discovery, its self-interaction strength, key to understanding the shape of the Higgs potential and the electroweak phase transition, remains unmeasured. A direct measurement of this parameter requires detecting the extremely rare production of two Higgs bosons (HH), a process yet to be observed, making its search one of the main goals of the LHC. Prof. Datta’s group is particularly interested in this challenging search, analyzing various decay channels and applying advanced machine learning techniques to isolate the signal from large backgrounds.

With the upcoming high-luminosity upgrade of the LHC (HL-LHC), which will deliver around ten times more data, HH observation and broader searches for new physics will become possible. However, higher collision rates will require extensive detector upgrades to CMS. Prof. Datta’s group is actively involved in the construction of new muon detectors based on Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) technology, especially their readout electronics. Much of this work is now taking place at CERN, focused on assembling six-layer detector stacks to be installed in CMS. In parallel, the group is also working on the data acquisition system and developing new muon tracking algorithms.

In addition to CMS, Prof. Datta is also interested in future particle colliders and next-generation detector technologies.