Model Landscapes and Event Signatures: Using Data to Explore Phenomena Beyond the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is one of the largest experiments of our time. In the first eight years of operation, LHC has not only discovered the Higgs boson, the last piece of the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics (SM), it has also undertaken extensive searches into physics beyond the SM (BSM), both under the guidance of the many existing BSM models and in an exploratory mode employing so-called 'model-independent searches'. The aim of this interdisciplinary symposium is to discuss the philosophical aspects and lessons of BSM searches at LHC. They concern the various roles of models; the understanding of phenomena in particle physics; the experimental strategies that are used, in a theory-laden large experiment, to determine these phenomena and connect them with models; and the different statistical approaches in mastering the parameter space for new physics to dwell in. The symposium puts philosophers in conversation with experimental and theoretical physicists.