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Searching for Signatures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Peter Mättig  and
Michael Stöltzner
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Abstract

Since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, particle physicists have not found any statistically significant deviations from the Standard Model. This has led to a shift of emphasis from model testing to exploration and an increasing popularity of ‘model-independent’ experimental approaches. Our goal is to analyze this shift by focusing on particle and event signatures. A differentiated picture of experimentation emerges between the extremes of theory guidance and theory-free exploration. Using the example of the top quark, we distinguish four types of motivations for the study of physics processes.

Type
Physical Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 87 , Issue 5: PSA 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II Symposia Papers , December 2020 , pp. 1246 - 1256
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Our research is part of the research unit Epistemology of the LHC supported by the German Research Foundation DFG (project FOR 2063).

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