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Prof. Gritsan's research is focussed on the observation and study of the new form of matter-energy, such as the Higgs boson,
celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the discovery just recently
[reference *],
as well as on the study of new exotic matter states, such as tetra-quark candidates.
In Run-1 of the Large Hadron Collider (2008-2014), together with his colleagues on the CMS experiment,
he worked on the Higgs boson discovery
[*],
study of its spin-parity quantum numbers
[*,
*],
measurement of its production mechanism and deeper understanding of its properties
[*],
constraints on the H boson width
[*,
*]
and lifetime
[*],
comprehensive study of the H boson quantum numbers and anomalous interactions
[*, *].
With Run-2 of LHC (2015-2021), together with his colleagues, he worked on the first joint analysis
of on-shell production and decay of the H boson within the Effective Field Theory (EFT) framework
[*,
*,
*,
*],
on the first joint EFT analysis of on-shell and off-shell H boson production
[*,
*],
on the first measurement of the CP structure of the Yukawa interaction between the H boson and top quark
[*],
and on the detailed studies of the H boson properties
[*,
*,
*].
With the start of Run-3 of LHC (2022-present), Prof. Gritsan and his team will go a lot deeper into understanding
the H boson properties and into a search for the unknown.
All the above measurements point to the property of vacuum, which is filled
with the all-penetrating Higgs field, where the H boson is simply its excitation
created in the laboratory
(see also
Nobel Prize Physics-2013).
Our past, present, and future depend on the properties of this field, and we are still to understand all the
implications of this grand discovery and to study in detail this new form of matter-energy never known before.
However, it is likely that the discovered H boson is just a tip of an iceberg of new states of matter-energy,
or it may become the window for us to reach beyond our present knowledge of matter-energy.
The undiscovered symmetries of nature which unify the fundamental forces and particles, the puzzle of dark
matter and energy, and the apparent lack of antimatter in our Universe, all these mysteries point to
something new that could be uncovered through the studies of the H boson.
Prof. Gritsan's team pursues both direct searches
[*,
*,
*,
*]
for new states and indirect constraints through precision measurements of the
known states, such as the H boson and Z boson
[*,
*,
*].
Prof. Gritsan works across boundaries of experimental and theoretical development.
He engaged with a group of experts in development of new methods for analysis and interpretation of the data,
which are known as MELA technique and JHU generator
[*,
*,
*,
*,
*,
*]
for the angular, kinematic, and statistical analysis of the decay products and associated particles of the H boson.
Read more about this effort.
He has been an active member of the
LHC Higgs Physics Working Group,
where he has been a member of the Steering Committee, and he has been one of the founding conveners of the
LHC Effective Field Theory Working Group.
Here is a contributor to the
Particle Data Group.
He is deeply interested in the Higgs physics and other developments in particles physics and participates in the
Snowmass-2001, 2013, 2022 activities
to shape future directions in the field.
Prof. Gritsan and his team are also engaged in feasibility studies of a Future Circular Collider.
Prior to LHC, direct access to new fundamental particles (such as the Higgs boson
or new states) was beyond the energy reach of operating accelerators.
Gritsan worked with the heavy flavor quarks, such as the "beauty" or b quark,
which were produced in electron-positron annihilations at the BABAR and CLEO
experiments. He was looking for new ways to search for new fundamental particles
that could exist briefly as heavy virtual states in the decays of b quarks.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle in quantum physics allows such non-trivial
effects, called "penguin" loops, to occur for short instants. On CLEO, he discovered
[*,
*]
this process as part of his Ph.D. research. It was the first observation of the
gluonic penguin transition b->s+gluon. On the BABAR experiment, he discovered
[*,
*]
a surprisingly large transverse polarization of the vector mesons produced in a penguin decay,
which contradicted all expectations and may become evidence for new particles
and interactions, and took this approach of angular analysis to a new level
[*,
*,
*],
see also review article.
Another important aspect of heavy quark decays is that they include the only known
example of Charge-Parity (CP) reversal symmetry violation, which is equivalent
to Time-reversal symmetry violation and which follows from the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa
(CKM) quark-mixing model
(see also
Nobel Prize Physics-2008).
CP violation is necessary to produce our matter-dominated
Universe and has important cosmological consequences. The Standard Model mechanism
that leads to CP violation is represented graphically by the so-called "Unitarity Triangle."
On the BABAR experiment, Gritsan discovered the B decays to two rho mesons, showing
that an analysis of this system could determine one of the angles alpha of the "Triangle"
precisely by constraining penguin effects
[*,
*,
*].
This work of Prof. Gritsan, along with his significant contributions to the discovery and
to the characterization of the Higgs Boson, were recognized by the American Physical Society
Fellowship.
Prof. Gritsan is also an expert on various aspects of high-energy physics detectors,
such as silicon tracking detectors, electromagnetic calorimeters, tracking drift chambers,
triggers. He had been leading the tracking and silicon detector alignment groups at the BARAR
and CMS experiments
[*,
*].
An essential element of the LHC program is the alignment of thousands
of silicon detectors that track the particles' paths which must be understood to micron
precision. Prof. Gritsan led the CMS team to successful commissioning of its silicon tracker
alignment at the time of data-taking startup
[*]
and was an editor of the
[very first CMS publication].
This essential detector work continues through present day
[*].
Further references may be found in Prof. Gritsan's
CV.
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