Juniorprofessor Dr. MATTHIAS SCHOTT

Matthias Schott, born in Nuremberg in 1979, studied physics at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the University of Cambridge in the UK, and acquired his doctorate at the Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich. In 2008, he was awarded one of the eminent Fellowships of the CERN research center in Geneva and as a result of his outstanding research was appointed to a CERN Research Staff post in 2010. Since the very start of the experiments using the ATLAS detector of the new LHC particle accelerator, Schott has played a leading role in the analysis of the data. In addition, the ATLAS cooperative entrusted him with the supervision of an analysis group in the field of electroweak physics consisting of some 50 physicists. In August 2012, Schott came to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) where he set up an Emmy Noether junior research group funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG); the task of the group was high-precision measurement of the mass of the W boson.

On February 1, 2013, Matthias Schott was appointed Junior Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at JGU. At the Institute of Physics, he will be assuming a Lichtenberg Professorship funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Schott is one of a total of seven outstanding researchers whose applications for these professorships were successful during the 2012 competition. In addition, he is also a Fellow of the Gutenberg Research College (GRC) of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

The particle physicist undertakes his work as a member of the Experimental Particle and Astroparticle Physics (ETAP) work group of the Institute of Physics at JGU; his mission is to determine in the very broadest sense how exactly those building blocks of the material defined in the Standard Model of particle physics obtain their mass. With the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN, science came closer to an answer last summer, although at the same time a raft of new questions was generated. In particular, Schott will attempt to determine the mass of the W boson to an accuracy of 0.01 percent. This should make it possible to indirectly infer what properties the Higgs boson has. To undertake these measurements, it will be necessary to have a vast array of data available, and it is probable that this will be collected by the ATLAS Experiment in the period 2014 to 2016. In addition, the researchers are also busy developing an innovative microstructure gas detector (Micromegas). The new work group will assume a globally leading role in research and development in this field.

Main Research:

  • Electroweak Precision Measurements and Global Electroweak Fits
  • Production Cross-Section Measurements of heavy Gauge Bosons at Hadron Colliders
  • Search for Axion-Like-Particles
  • Research and Development of Micromegas Detectors

Publications (selection):

  • ATLAS Collaboration: Measurement of WW production in pp, collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector and limits on anomalous WWZ and WWγ couplings, arXiv:1203.6232 [hep-ex]
  • ATLAS Collaboration: Measurement of WZ Production in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS Detector, Eur. Phys. J. C (2012) 72:2173, arXiv:1208.1390 [hep-ex]
  • ATLAS Collaboration: Measurement of the transverse momentum distribution of Z/γ* bosons in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, Phys.Lett.B 705 (2011) 415-434
  • ATLAS Collaboration: Search for pair production of first or second generation leptoquarks in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC, Phys. Rev. D 83, 112006 (2011), arXiv:1104.4481 [hep-ex]
  • ATLAS Collaboration: Measurement of the Muon Charge Asymmetry from W Bosons Produced in pp Collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, Phys. Lett. B 701 (2011) 31-49, arXiv:1103.2929 [hep-ex]
  • ATLAS Collaboration: Measurement of the W→lv and Z/γ*→ll production cross sections in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector, JHEP 1012 (2010) 060, arXiv:1010.2130 [hep-ex]
  • GFitter Group: Updated Status of the Global Electroweak Fit and Constraints on New Physics, arXiv:hep-ex/1002.1850, Accepted to Eur.Phys.J.
  • M.Schott et. al. (OSQAR Col.): Results of the 2nd run of OSQAR Photon Regeneration Experiment, arXiv:hep-ex/1110.0774
  • M. Boonekamp, M. Schott: Z boson transverse momentum spectrum from the lepton angular distributions, JHEP 1011, pp153, arXiv:hep-ex/1002.1850