Varun Sharma
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Email: varun.sharma@cern.ch
GitHub: https://github.com/varuns23
Biography
Varun Sharma is a research scientist in the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has been an active member of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) since 2011. Sharma earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Physics & Astrophysics at the University of Delhi, India, focusing on the substructure of quarks.
His current research explores physics beyond the Standard Model, particularly dark matter searches and its potential links to the Higgs sector. He also investigates lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson. Sharma serves as the co-convener of the Hadronic/Photon subgroup within the “Searches for New Physics in Final States with Unbalanced Transverse Momentum and Standard Objects (SUS)” Physics Analysis group in the CMS experiment.
Sharma has contributed extensively to the CMS trigger system, serving as the trigger technical coordinator from 2019 to 2022. During this period, he ensured efficient operation of the CMS calorimeter trigger system and contributed significant algorithm upgrades for future improvements. His work involved using the Xilinx Vivado High-Level Synthesis (HLS) tool to develop firmware and demonstrate its performance on prototype boards. In 2022, he received the CMS Achievement Award for his outstanding coordination and exceptional commitment to the Level-1 Trigger system’s operations.
Project interests
- Develop and implement new machine learning techniques to improve the accuracy and reach of physics results
- Use machine learning to improve the performance of current FPGA-based level-1 trigger algorithms.
- Find new physics to help understand the unsolved mysteries of nature
- Feasibility studies for future muon colliders.