An advanced Go-Lab scenario for the GUI-based analysis of large samples of particle physics data

Abstract

This contribution describes a new hands-on undergraduate laboratory exercise which aims to introduce students to the world of cutting-edge particle physics research. This is complementary to an exercise that was previously developed and was based on the virtual inspection of events recorded by the ATLAS experiment at CERN. The newly developed exercise prompts the students to perform more complicated tasks, very similar to the ones performed by researches in order to make discoveries. During the three hour long laboratory course the students have the opportunity to understand the principles of operation of giant particle detectors as well as data processing and analysis, namely all steps necessary to discover new particles. The main example outlined here is the discovery of the Higgs boson.