This year, Anaheim, CA, was home of the famous APS April Meeting, this time held in conjunction with with the APS March Meeting (for better or for worse…). PPC presence was strong: undergraduate Nate Martinez presented his work studying and characterizing beam backgrounds for future tracking detectors proposed for the FCC. MIT’s significant contribution to the search for Soft Unclustered Energy Patterns (SUEPs) was also on display, as graduate student Pietro Lugato presented the new associated production (V+SUEP) channels. Approval came just days after the presentation, so unfortunately the result could not be shown during the talk. Still, the result has since gone public, so for the unblinded result, make sure to look out for a new post coming soon!
At APS, there were also many good conversations had with fellow collaborators, and it is always curious and important to see what people are interested in and working on. There was even a reunion with a dear ex-member of the PPC, Ludovico, who presented his work on the search for dark photons, which he started here with the PPC! Of course, Ludo made sure to show Pietro the wonders of California, from incredible Mexican food to the waves of Huntington beach and more.
Overall, despite the hectic nature of the combined March and April meeting, the PPC talks were very successful, and the many presentations and conversations on topics from dark sectors to precision physics have shown that there is a lot to get excited about, and good work to be done!
Nice! Apart from presenting the search of hidden valley, also finding and surfing into the visible valleys.