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Pierre Savard

Professor, TRIUMF Scientist

Canada Research Chair in Experimental High Energy Physics

Office: MP 803
tel: (416) 978-0764
email: savard at physics.utoronto.ca

Brief CV

  • 2018-2019 Physics Coordinator of ATLAS experiment
  • 2018-now Canada Research Chair Tier 1 in Experimental High Energy Physics
  • 2017-2018 Deputy Physics Coordinator of ATLAS experiment
  • 2016 Fellow of the American Physical Society
  • 2015 Recipient of Canadian Association of Physicists TRIUMF Vogt Medal for Contributions to Subatomic Physics
  • 2013-2015 Higgs Physics Group convener of ATLAS
  • 2012-2013 Convener of Higgs WW subgroup of ATLAS
  • 2008-2010 Exotics Physics Group convener of ATLAS
  • 2002-2003 Offline analysis coordinator of the CDF experiment
  • 2002-now Faculty University of Toronto and TRIUMF scientist
  • 2000-2002 Convener of the top and electroweak physics group of the CDF experiment
  • 2002-2002 Research associate, University of Toronto
  • 1998-2000 FCAR Fellow, University of Toronto
  • 1998 PhD in experimental particle physics, Université de Montréal

Research Interests

Higgs boson physics:  I've been involved (on and off) in Higgs boson physics since my PhD.  I was convener of the Higgs physics group of the ATLAS experiment with Marumi Kado and then Bruno Mansoulie.  I was also in charge of the subgroup responsible for Higgs decays to pairs of W bosons with Biagio Di Micco in 2012 and 2013.  Our group in Toronto is currently involved in a number of analyses involving the decay of the Higgs boson to pairs of W bosons, Z bosons, muons, and to exotic particles.  We are also involved in analyses that feature the ttH production channel.


Physics beyond the Standard Model: I was involved in the search for Dark Matter with the ATLAS experiment in the monojet final state, which is performed within the Exotics group of the ATLAS collaboration.  I was also involved in the search dijet resonances and quark compositeness with two of my students (Pier-Olivier DeViveiros and Sing Leung Cheung) early in Run 1.  I was convener of the Exotics physics group of the ATLAS experiment with Eduardo Ros and then Cigdem Issever between 2008 and 2010, when the LHC produced its first collisions. Before that, I spent 10 years on the CDF experiment where I published papers on exotic physics (W' search, leptoquark and SUSY searches, Large Extra Dimensions),

Top Quark Physics: On CDF, I worked on top mass, top production cross section, and single top production analyses. I was convener of the top and electroweak physics group at the beginning of Run II with Willis Sakumoto, and then convened the top physics group with Patrizia Azzi.


Calorimetry and computing:  I'm involved in the Tier-2 ATLAS computing centre within SciNet, a large computing centre in Toronto.  I was Offline Analysis Coordinator on CDF with Avi Yagil, and in charge of calorimetry reconstruction and simulation for CDF before the start of Run II.  Before CDF, I worked on  the design and testing of the hadronic endcap calorimeter of ATLAS. 

Current Students

  • Martina Ojeda (Ph.D. on Associated Higgs production with top quarks, decay of Higgs to tau leptons) 
  • Lukas Adamek (Ph.D. on Higgs decay to two muons, mass of Higgs boson)
  • Yifei Han (Ph.D. on WW scattering at very high energies) 

Previous Students and Research Associates:

  • Joe Taenzer (Ph.D. on Associated Higgs production, now research associate in Tel Aviv) 
  • Richard Polifka (Research Associate, now CERN Fellow)
  • Steven Schramm (Ph.D. Search for Dark Matter in monojet final states, now research associate at University of Geneva)
  • Pierre-Hughes Beauchemin (Research Associate, now professor at Tufts )
  • Teresa Spreitzer (Ph.D. Top Quark Production Cross Section)
  • Kostas Kordas (Research Associate, now professor in Greece)
  • Reda Tafirout (Research Associate, now Staff Scientist at TRIUMF) 
  • Simon Sabik (Ph.D.  Top Quark Mass, professor at Marianopolis College)
  • Sing Leung Cheung (Ph.D. Dijet resonance search)
  • Pier-Olivier Deviveiros (Ph.D. Dijet Angular Distributions, now CERN scientist)
  • Cristen Adams  (M.Sc.  Large Extra Dimensions)
  • Bernd Stelzer (Ph.D. Single Top Production, now professor at Simon Fraser University)

Selected Publications

Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Phys.Lett. B716 (2012) 1-29

Evidence for the spin-0 nature of the Higgs boson using ATLAS data.  Phys.Lett. B726 (2013) 120-144.

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.  Phys.Lett. B726 (2013) 88-119.
Search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in the H→ WW(*) →ℓνℓν decay mode with 4.7 /fb of ATLAS data at s√=7TeV. Phys.Lett. B716 (2012) 62-81 Measurements of the Higgs boson production and decay rates and coupling strengths using pp collision data at sqrt(s) =7 and 8 TeV in the ATLAS experiment.    Eur. Phys. J. C76 (2016) 6.

Observation and measurement of Higgs boson decays to WW* with the ATLAS detector.  Phys. Rev. D 92, 012006 (2015).    

Search for Large Extra Dimensions in the Production of Jets and Missing Transverse Energy in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV.      Phys. Rev. Lett. 97:171802 (2006). 

Search for New Particles in Two-Jet Final States in 7 TeV Proton-Proton Collisions with the ATLAS Detector at the LHC. PRL 105, 161801 (2010).  

Measurement of the top quark mass using template methods on dilepton events in p anti-p collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV.
Top quark mass measurement from dilepton events at CDF II. Published in Phys.Rev.Lett.96:152002,2006.  e-Print Archive: hep-ex/0512070

Top quark mass measurement using the template method in the lepton + jets channel at CDF II.
Published in Phys.Rev.D73:032003,2006.  e-Print Archive: hep-ex/0510048

Determination of the jet energy scale at the Collider Detector at Fermilab.  e-Print Archive: hep-ex/0510047

Published in Phys.Rev.D73:112006,2006    e-Print Archive: hep-ex/0602008

Complete publication list from INSPIRE database Complete publication list from INSPIRE database