Abstract

As the experiments at the LHC accumulate larger and larger data sets with dozens of searches showing no signs of physics beyond the standard model, it becomes imperative to examine the assumptions made in these searches. One of the most ubiquitous assumptions is that new particles will have short lifetimes and leave decay products that originate from the proton-proton interaction point. If the new particles are instead long-lived, they may produce experimental signatures that are completely missed by these more conventional searches. One particularly challenging signature of long-lived particles is the so-called “disappearing track,” where a new long-lived charged particle decays in the middle of the tracker of a collider detector to invisible decay products. In this talk, I will discuss the search for disappearing tracks in the 13 TeV data collected by the CMS detector, and how this search fits into the broader search for new physics at the LHC.