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newcomers:exam [2023/02/06 15:36] – [Exam questions] iwnnewcomers:exam [2023/02/06 17:22] (current) – [Exam questions] iwn
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 Some typical questions during exams at UZH: Some typical questions during exams at UZH:
-  * Questions about your analysis (obviously). +  * Questions about your analysis or thesis (obviously). 
-    * Is the uncertainty in your result statistically or systematically driven? (Yuta's favorite.) +    * What is the theoretical or experimental motivation of your model? What motivates your particular chosen set or range of parameter values? 
-    * Specifics about certain systematics (nuisance parameters). +    * What are motivated variations of your signal model? E.g. different mass or coupling parameters. 
-    * What is the theoretical or experimental motivation of your model, or your particular chosen set of parameter values? +    * What is the broader context of your model in other experiments? This can be past, current or future experiments like **LEP****Tevatron**, or **LH-LHC**. How would your signal show up there? What would the backgrounds be? What exclusions do they give? 
-    * Variations of your signal model, e.g. different mass or coupling parameters. +    * How would your signal and analysis change with more luminosity (e.g. Run3, LH-LHC data) or higher center of mass energy? (Future colliders.)
-    * What is the broader context of your model in other experiments? This can be past, current or future experiments like LEP, Tevatron or LH-LHC. How would your signal show up there? What exclusions do they give? +
-    * How would your signal and analysis change with more luminosity or higher center of mass energy? (Future colliders.)+
     * Questions on the process, like the color flow of Feynman diagram, or parton (like initial b quark) coming from the protons (see PDFs below), ...     * Questions on the process, like the color flow of Feynman diagram, or parton (like initial b quark) coming from the protons (see PDFs below), ...
 +    * Is the uncertainty in your result **statistically** or **systematically** driven? (Yuta's favorite.)
 +    * Specifics about certain **systematics** (nuisance parameters): Which (background) systematics are important? How can they be constrained? ...
   * Detector / accelerations questions:   * Detector / accelerations questions:
-    * PDFs at LHC (quark, b quark, gluon content of proton and anti-proton), see [[https://mstwpdf.hepforge.org/plots/plots.html|bottom plots]]. +    * **PDFs** at LHC (quark, b quark, gluon content of proton and anti-proton), see [[https://mstwpdf.hepforge.org/plots/plots.html|bottom plots]]. 
-    * Difference between LHC and LEP or Tevatron; advantages/disadvantages, production mechanisms, ... +    * Difference between **LHC**, **LEP**, and **Tevatron**; advantages/disadvantages, production mechanisms, ...
-    * How is luminosity measured? (PhD-level)+
   * Higgs physics   * Higgs physics
-    * In particular the different production mechanism at the LHC+    * In particular the different **Higgs production mechanism** at the LHC or LEP. See e.g. [[https://cds.cern.ch/record/578154/files/0208045.pdf|this article on LEP]], [[https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.00043|this CMS article in Nature]][[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03952.pdf|this paper on LHC]], or [[https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCPhysics/CrossSections#Latest_plots|the complete set of cross section and branching plots here]]. 
-    * If you are very unlucky the Higgs mechanism. See e.g. [[https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCPhysics/CrossSections#Latest_plots|the cross section plots here]] or [[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.03952.pdf|this paper]].+    * If you are very unlucky the **Higgs mechanism**.
   * Especially for PhD exams:   * Especially for PhD exams:
 +    * About anything you wrote in your thesis.
     * SM Lagrangians (see [[https://indico.cern.ch/event/775565/contributions/3473286/attachments/1933259/3202727/Woithe_2017_Phys._Educ._52_034001.pdf|page 8]]), or maybe that of your BSM signal model.     * SM Lagrangians (see [[https://indico.cern.ch/event/775565/contributions/3473286/attachments/1933259/3202727/Woithe_2017_Phys._Educ._52_034001.pdf|page 8]]), or maybe that of your BSM signal model.
-    * Hadronization (formation of jet). +    * **Hadronization** (formation of jet). 
-    * Statistics at the LHC: type of test statistics, how to get exclusion limits (upper limits), ...+    * **Neutrinos**: oscillations, seesaw mechanism, ... 
 +    * **Statistics** at the LHC: type of test statistics, how to get **exclusion limits** (upper limits), ... See e.g. [[https://indico.cern.ch/event/173726/|these lectures]], or [[https://indico.cern.ch/event/763661/contributions/3169822/attachments/1733046/2802161/statistical_method_particle_physics.pdf|this talk]].
     * Details about your object reconstruction & identification algorithms (taus, jets, b tagging, ...)     * Details about your object reconstruction & identification algorithms (taus, jets, b tagging, ...)
 +    * How is **luminosity** measured? See e.g. [[https://cms.cern/news/how-does-cms-measure-luminosity|this CMS article]], [[https://cds.cern.ch/record/2676164/files/LUM-18-002-pas.pdf|this PAS]], or [[https://indico.cern.ch/event/1231794/|this ATLAS talk]].
 +    * For what was the **Nobel Prize** in Physics awarded this/last year? See [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_in_Physics#Laureates|this Wikipedia page]].
   * ...   * ...
  
newcomers/exam.1675694160.txt.gz · Last modified: 2023/02/06 15:36 by iwn