Rachel Yohay

Rachel Yohay is an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, Florida State University, affiliated with the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a member of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), focusing on experimental particle physics and detector development.

• Education: Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia (2012)

Dr. Yohay’s research centers on probing elementary particle interactions at the electroweak scale using LHC data. Her work aims to uncover new light fundamental scalars—potential extensions of the Higgs boson—predicted by models addressing Standard Model limitations, such as the hierarchy problem and dark matter.

Her group contributes to the operation and calibration of the CMS pixel detector, which tracks particle collisions with micrometer-level precision. They monitor radiation damage and commission repaired components. Additionally, she is designing the High Granularity Calorimeter (HGCAL) for the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), a silicon-based detector imaging particle showers to identify rare signals amid background noise.

Key subfields include supersymmetry, hidden valley models, Higgs portal interactions, electroweak scale physics, and detector calibration.

Affiliations and Projects:

• CMS Collaboration (Compact Muon Solenoid at LHC)
• HL-LHC Upgrade (High Granularity Calorimeter development)
• Florida State University: Quality control for HGCAL silicon sensors