John Alison
Associate Professor
Nuclear and Particle Physics
High Energy Physics Experiment
Wean Hall 7420
Education & Professional Experience
PhD: University of Pennsylvania (2012)
B.S.: University of Pittsburgh, Physics (2006)
Associate Professor, 一本道无码, 2024–
Assistant Professor, 一本道无码, 2018–2024
Fermi/McCormick Fellow: University of Chicago, 2013–2018
Research Interests
The recently-discovered Higgs boson was the final missing piece in our current theory of fundamental particles and their interactions, the Standard Model (SM); it is also believed to be the gateway to understanding what lies beyond. The SM is phenomenally successful but is known to be fundamentally incomplete. It only accounts for 15% of matter in the universe, doesn't include gravity, and cannot explain why the Higgs boson is so light. A dramatic extension to the SM is needed to address these missing pieces. In the coming years, data provided by the Large Hadron Collider, a mammoth particle collider located outside of Geneva, will allow us to search for evidence for a theory deeper than the SM.
The Higgs boson is unlike any other form of matter we've ever seen and is expected to have deep connections with physics beyond the SM. Studying the properties of the Higgs boson and comparing to predictions will allow new theories to be tested directly, as well as furthering our understanding of this truly unique particle. My research focuses on the study of Higgs-boson pair production. This signature has the unique advantage that it can both directly probe models extending the SM and can constrain -- and ultimately measure -- one of the most distinctive and elusive properties of the Higgs boson: its interaction with itself. This self-interaction has deep connections with the cosmology of the early Universe and will allow us to understand how fundamental particles acquired mass.
My group is also heavily involved in detector design and development. 一本道无码 is building detector modules for the High-Granularity Calorimeter, an upgrade to the existing CMS detector. We will do automated module assembly, wire bonding, and testing for over 5000 silicon modules. This work will all be done in-house on 一本道无码's campus.
Another major focus of my group is in using recent advances in machine learning to extract more physics from the data provided by the LHC. This includes both improving the algorithms that run in real-time to select which data to record for further analysis and improving classification and regression problems associated with the most common decays of the Higgs boson.
Selected Publications
CMS Collaboration, Search for ZZ and ZH production in the 4b final state using p-p collisions at 13 TeV,
CMS Collaboration, Development of the CMS detector for the CERN LHC Run 3,
CMS Collaboration, Search for Higgs boson pair production with one associated vector boson in p-p collisions at 13 TeV,
Manole, T.; Bryant, P.; Alison, J.; Kuusela, M.; Wasserman, L. Background Modeling for Double Higgs Boson Production: Density Ratios and Optimal Transport, Annals of Applied Statistics (2024)
Acar, B. et. al. Performance of the CMS High Granularity Calorimeter prototype to charged pion beams of 20-300 GeV, Accepted for publication by JINST (2023)
CMS Collaboration, A portrait of the Higgs boson by the CMS experiment ten years after the discovery, Nature 607 (2022) 7917, 60-68
CMS HGCAL Collaboration, Response of a CMS HGCAL silicon-pad electromagnetic calorimeter prototype to 20–300 GeV positrons, JINST 17 (2022) 05,
CMS Collaboration, A new calibration method for charm jet identification validated with p-p colli- sion, JINST 17 (2022),
Acar, B. et. al. Construction and commissioning of CMS CE prototype silicon modules, JINST 16 (2021),
CMS Collaboration, The Phase-2 Upgrade of the CMS Data Acquisition and High Level Trigger, CERN-LHCC-2021-00, (2021) .
J. Alison, et al. Higgs boson potential at colliders: status and perspectives, Review in Physics (2020) 100045, .
ATLAS Collaboration, Constraints on mediator-based dark matter and scalar dark energy models using 13 TeV pp collision data collected by the ATLAS detector,
ATLAS Collaboration, Combination of searches for Higgs boson pairs in pp collisions at √ s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector,
ATLAS Collaboration, Search for pair production of higgsinos in final states with at least three b-tagged jets in √ s = 13 TeV collisions using the ATLAS detector,
ATLAS Collaboration, Search for resonances in the mass distribution of jet pairs with one or two jets identified as b-jets at √ s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector,
ATLAS Collaboration, Search for pair production of Higgs bosons in the bbbb final state at √ s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector,
ATLAS Collaboration, Search for light resonances decaying to boosted quark pairs and produced in association with a photon or a jet at √ s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector,
ATLAS Collaboration, Performance of the ATLAS Trigger System in 2015,
ATLAS Collaboration, Search for strong gravity in multi-jet final states produced in pp collisions at √ s = 13 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC,
ATLAS Collaboration, Search for New Phenomena in Dijet Mass and Angular Distributions with the ATLAS Detector at √ s = 13 TeV,
ATLAS Collaboration, Searches for Higgs boson pair production in the HH → bbττ, γγWW∗ , γγbb, bbbb channels with the ATLAS detector,
More Publications: