Open Position Technical Research Position in the Collider Physics Group

About IFAE

The Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE) is a public consortium of Generalitat de Catalunya, the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, a public university) whose main goal is to carry out research and to contribute to the development of high energy physics from a theoretical, experimental and technological point of view. IFAE has the status of a “University Institute" attached to UAB and its premises are within the campus of the university.

About the Collider Physics group

The Collider Physics group at IFAE is focused on the scientific exploitation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This is research line that started in 1992, when IFAE joined the ATLAS Collaboration at the LHC. The ATLAS detector was designed to explore a wide range of phenomena predicted by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, while also maximizing their sensitivity to beyond-the-SM processes. It is expected that these investigations will provide answers to open questions in our description of Nature such as the origin of the particle masses, the mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking, or the presence of a new underlying symmetry (e.g., supersymmetry) that could explain the nature of dark matter or the unification of forces at very high energies. The design, construction and operation of the ATLAS detector, online event selection, event reconstruction and data analysis, all require world-wide efforts, which are reflected in the size of the ATLAS Collaboration, formed by 181 institutions from 42 countries. Its members are a team of physicists, engineers, technicians, students and support staff from around the world. It is one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in science, with over 5500 members and almost 3000 scientific authors.

With a 30-year involvement in the ATLAS experiment, IFAE has played mayor roles in the construction and operation of the Tile Hadronic Calorimeter (TileCal), the preparation of the High-Level Trigger infrastructure and physics selection algorithms, and the physics analyses. IFAE currently maintains a strong presence in the ATLAS experiment, with major responsibilities on the maintenance and operation of the TileCal hadronic calorimeter and the Level-1 Topological Trigger system, and participates in the Pixel detector upgrade. The group has also developed an exciting and broad research program that includes precision measurements of the top quark (e.g., four-top-quark production) and the Higgs boson (e.g., top-Higgs Yukawa coupling), and searches for new phenomena beyond the Standard Model (e.g., supersymmetry, vector-like fermions, leptoquarks, additional light or heavy Higgs bosons, etc). During Run 3 of the LHC, which started in July 2022 and will last till the end of 2025, the centre-of-mass energy of proton-proton collisions has been increased to 13.6 TeV and the total delivered integrated luminosity will reach ~250 fb-1. With the increase of both energy and integrated luminosity with respect to Run 2, more stringent tests of the SM and more sensitive searches for new phenomena will be possible. IFAE is in a privileged position to analyse the ATLAS data, with strong synergies with IFAE’s Theory Division and significant computing resources from the PIC computing centre.

Required skills

Candidate are expected to have:

• A master’s degree in physics on the date of the contract start
• Fluent English skills
• Strong computing and programming skills, including experience on machine learning techniques
• Experience on the analysis of data in hadron collider experiments

What will be your role?

The candidate will be involved in the search for four-top-quark production in final states with one lepton or two opposite-sign leptons plus multiple jets and b-tagged jets using the full Run 2 dataset recorded by the ATLAS experiment. In particular, the candidate will play a leading role in the validation of an improved background model using machine learning techniques, as well as in the statistical analysis and interpretation of the results. He/she will also actively contribute to the documentation of results and throughout the internal review within the ATLAS Collaboration, leading to the eventual approval and publication of the results. The time estimated to fulfil the tasks is about six months.

Offered contract:

A full time (40 hr/week) Technical Research position. The contract will have a duration approximately of six months. Opportunity to gain experience learning first-hand. Personal growth, innovation, and learning every day. The salary will be in accordance with the qualifications of the candidate. The starting date will be as soon as possible.

Application and Selection process:

Applications should be submitted to jobs@ifae.es stating the job reference (IFAE2023/12_ATLAS) as the Subject of the message. The mail should include a cover letter and an updated CV. Sending CVs to the above address implies consent to the legal warning at the bottom of IFAE’s Home Page.

IFAE is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace and social integration of people with a disability. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates. People from groups that are typically underrepresented in the labour market in general and in Science and Engineering in particular, such as women, minorities, or people with a disability, are particularly encouraged to apply.

You may contact jobs@ifae.es for any questions related to this job opening. Deadline: 30/06/2023

A Selection Committee will evaluate the received applications. If more than one candidate seems equally suitable for the position, the Selection Committee will arrange an on-line interview with each one of them as part of the Selection process.