Carnegie Mellon University
Mellon College of Science  ›  Department of Physics  ›  People  ›  Faculty  ›  Valentina Dutta

Valentina Dutta

Assistant Professor

Wean Hall 7402

Nuclear and Particle Physics
High Energy Physics Experiment

email

dutta

Education & Professional Experience

Ph.D.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Physics (2014) 
B.A.: Boston University, Physics and Mathematics (2007)



Curriculum Vitae

Assistant Professor, Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, 2022-
Assistant Project Scientist, University of California Santa Barbara, 2020-2022
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California Santa Barbara, 2014-2020

Research Interests

My research focuses on the search for new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. The SM is the current basis of our understanding of fundamental particles and their interactions. Although it has been remarkably successful in predicting experimental results, there are a number of phenomena that it cannot explain, including “dark matter”, an unknown form of matter that is thought to constitute over a quarter of the universe. Another puzzle is related to the Higgs boson, which was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012: its “light” mass cannot really be explained in the SM. My interests lie in trying to discover new phenomena that can help to resolve these and other unexplained mysteries. In pursuit of this goal, I am interested in taking advantage of the latest techniques in machine learning to improve sensitivity towards new physics that may be particularly challenging to discover experimentally.

My recent work with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the LHC focuses on searches for Supersymmetry, an appealing theory of physics beyond the SM that could help to address its shortcomings.
It explores the possibility of finding new particles, supersymmetric “partners” to the known particles of the SM, by analyzing the data collected in high-energy proton-proton collisions. In particular, I have worked on searches for partners to the tau lepton and the top quark, which are the heaviest “lepton” and “quark” in the SM, respectively. I also currently co-lead the group of physicists at the CMS experiment who work on searches for Supersymmetry.

I am also a member of a scientific collaboration working on a proposed experiment, the Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX), which aims to search for dark matter in the sub-GeV mass range (roughly, below the mass of the proton). LDMX plans to use an experimental apparatus designed to detect dark matter produced by an accelerated beam of electrons in the laboratory. The concept of dark matter as a “thermal relic” of the early universe provides one of the simplest and most compelling explanations for the origin of dark matter, and LDMX would have the potential to decisively test a broad range of thermal dark matter scenarios over much of the sub-GeV range.

Selected Publications

CMS Collaboration, Search for direct pair production of supersymmetric partners of tau leptons in the final state with two hadronically decaying tau leptons and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV, arXiv:2207.02254 (2022)

F. Blekman, F. Déliot, V. Dutta, and E. Usai, Four-top quark physics at the LHC, arXiv:2208.04085 (2022)

B. Acar et al, Construction and commissioning of CMS CE prototype silicon modules, JINST 16 04, T04002, arXiv:2012.06336 (2021)

The LDMX collaboration., Åkesson, T., Blinov, N. et al., A high efficiency photon veto for the Light Dark Matter eXperiment, J. High Energ. Phys. 3 (2020)

CMS Collaboration, Search for direct pair production of supersymmetric partners to the tau lepton in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV, Eur. Phys. J. C 80,189 (2020)

The CMS collaboration., Sirunyan, A.M., Tumasyan, A. et al. Search for direct production of supersymmetric partners of the top quark in the all-jets final state in proton-proton collisions at s=13 TeV. J. High Energ. Phys. 2017, 5 (2017)

CMS Collaboration, Searches for pair production of third-generation squarks in sqrt(s) = 13 TeV pp collisions, Eur. Phys. J. C 77 (2017), 327 (2017)

CMS Collaboration, Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to a pair of tau leptons in pp collisions, JHEP 10 (2014) 160 (2014)

CMS Collaboration, Evidence for the direct decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to fermions, Nature Physics 10 (2014) 557, (2014)

CMS Collaboration, Evidence for the 125 GeV Higgs boson decaying to a pair of tau leptons, JHEP 05 (2014) 104 (2014)

CMS Collaboration, Observation of a new boson with mass near 125 GeV in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 and 8 TeV, JHEP 06 (2013) 081 (2013)

CMS Collaboration, Observation of a new boson at a mass of 125 GeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC, Physics Letters B 716 (2012)