{"id":5129,"date":"2026-05-13T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/?post_type=profiles&#038;p=5129"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:57:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:57:56","slug":"aimen-obaid","status":"publish","type":"profiles","link":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/profiles\/aimen-obaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Aimen Obaid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"599\" src=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/Obaid-Aimen.jpg\" alt=\"by Corban Swain\" class=\"wp-image-5620\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1;object-fit:cover;width:200px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/Obaid-Aimen.jpg 400w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/Obaid-Aimen-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Smith College<\/strong><br>Faculty Advisor: Prof. Christoph Paus<br>Research Supervisors: David Walter, Luca Lavezzo<br>Department: Physics<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Biography<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aimen Obaid is a rising senior at Smith College, double majoring in Physics and<br>Engineering. At Smith, she has pursued fundamental research through theoretical work in<br>quantum mechanics and experimental atomic physics. Last summer, she worked with Dr. Irene<br>Zoi through USCMS at Fermilab, implementing an analysis of vector boson scattering as a probe<br>of Higgs physics, deepening her appreciation for particle physics and motivating her senior<br>thesis. She spent her junior spring at Princeton University, exploring graduate-level high-energy<br>theory, strengthening her interest in pursuing a Ph.D. at the interface of precision measurement<br>and new physics. This summer, she\u2019s working with Dr. Christoph Paus on the precision<br>measurement of the strong-coupling constant through Drell-Yan W-boson production at 5 TeV.<br>Raised in Lahore, Pakistan, she cares about science education access, women\u2019s rights in South<br>Asia, and making fundamental physics feel less distant from the worlds that shaped her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><br><strong>Measurement of \u03b1s (mW) using W\u00b1 Boson Kinematics at \u221as = 5.02 TeV<br>Aimen Obaid1, David Walter2, Luca Lavezzo2, Christoph M. E. Paus2<\/strong><br>1Department of Physics, Smith College<br>2Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><br>The strong coupling, \u03b1s, governs quantum chromodynamics and remains one of the least precisely<br>known Standard Model couplings. In Drell\u2013Yan production, initial-state QCD radiation gives the vector<br>boson nonzero transverse momentum, making the low-pT spectrum sensitive to \u03b1s. This project develops<br>a 5 TeV W\u00b1 analysis aimed at extracting \u03b1s(mW) from W \u2192 \u03bc\u03bd distributions and theoretical variations,<br>providing an independent constraint complementary to related vector-boson measurements. In W \u2192 \u03bc\u03bd<br>events, the neutrino transverse momentum is inferred from missing transverse momentum, allowing pT<br>W<br>to be reconstructed as the vector sum of the muon and neutrino transverse momenta. The analysis fits<br>pT<br>W distributions separated by W charge and muon pseudorapidity to templates generated with varied \u03b1s<br>values and parton-distribution-function variations. This work reconstructed the key W boson and muon<br>observables, propagated the theory variations into the fit inputs, validated the template-fitting framework,<br>and developed a data-driven estimate of the nonprompt muon background using control regions<br>in relative isolation and transverse impact parameter. These contributions establish the foundation for<br>the first W-based \u03b1s analysis at 5 TeV and strengthen future combined constraints across complementary<br>vector-boson measurements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5438,"template":"","profile_category":[25],"class_list":["post-5129","profiles","type-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","profile_category-2026-interns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/5129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profiles"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/5129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5735,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/5129\/revisions\/5735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"profile_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_category?post=5129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}