1. End of term post-mortem presentation - ATLAS and me Michael Nash UCL RAL joint studentship

2. HEP computing - general Linux computing bash and scripting aliases ssh plus1 and lxplus Compiling gmake and makefiles gcc CVS and CMT

3. HEP computing - ATLAS Played with Athena, AthenaROOtT ran through the tutorials successfully haven't used in analysis yet, only 'played' With supervisor's help (Bill Murray, RAL) checked out and ran the tthhbb analysis on sample data. Problems using the code error in the code file I need(ed) to examine compiler differences between UCL and RAL unfortunate delay; had hoped for meaningful graphs for today's talk But why look at tthhbb code specifically?...

4. PhD topic, or ”why tthhbb?” Generally agreed with supervisors that topic will be ttH fully hadronic decays modes ttH Higgs leptonic and semileptonic modes under a lot of study Why study fully hadronic? higher rate being neglected Why hasn't it been studied? higher backgrounds hadronic mess/jets 2 b jets from the t ttH semileptonic mode Most likely topology will be ● 2 b jets from the t → Wb process ● another 2 b jets from H decay ● each W can either decay hadronically, producing a jet, or leptonically

5. ”why tthhbb?” cont'd tthhbb code designed to work with leptonic and semileptonic decays of ttH events plots prove I've done work disembowel code use it to select ttH events modify leptonic selection part to select non-leptonic event After that, the real work will begin...

6. (Naive) expectations of my PhD To use higher event rate of fully hadronic mode, one must increase purity and efficiency of cuts investigate how jet algorithms work and how to apply them hopefully aid the creation of a new trigger and increase in data Not well investigated topic + hard work = a PhD? This is assuming that I pass my exams, the lectures for which have (to my annoyance) eatne this entire term.

7. Physics interlude? Possible side project to investigate the workings and calibration of ATLAS K L regenerated to superposition of K L and K S when interact with matter i.e. at the tracker layers reconstruct kaon vertices to examine both ATLAS radiation depth simulation and other tasks. Since kaons copious, potential new avenue for radiation length studies Supposed to have been started this term, but code harder to understand than anticipated no reply from B physics people who already have kaon and pion vertex reconstruction (why reinvent a perfectly good wheel?)

8. Other things learnt How to survive acronym overdose I'm doing a PhD in HEP at UCL and RAL Working on ATLAS at the LHC at CERN Whilst worrying about funding from STFC, successor to PPARC and the CCLRC Having gotten my Grid Certificate from the UK CA, the NGS, I've not yet affiliated myself with the ATLAS VO Learning the meanings by a combination of colleagues, Google and osmosis. So far, that's one of the harder parts I think that will be overtaken soon!