Special Physics Colloquium

Searches for New Physics and Dark Matter using TopQuarks at CMS

With the discovery of the Higgs boson, in 2012,the standard model is relatively complete. Although, it is unknown why theHiggs mass is on the electroweak scale when its scalar mass squared receives corrections up to the Planck scale. Is it a result of fine-tuning or beyondstandard model physics? Randall-Sundrum and extra dimensional models offer possible solutions that do not require fine tuning. In both of these models, there are TeV scale resonances that decay to ttbar pairs. A search, which uses a novel approach to identify boosted top quarks, for ttbar resonances will bepresented. It will then be shown that these techniques can be applied to other searches, such as those for dark matter. Additionally, there will be a brief discussion on the future performance of the LHC, and why it necessitates upgrades to the CMS detector.