Searching for Signatures

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.