Download or read book Measurements and Searches with Top Quarks written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1995 the last missing member of the known families of quarks, the top quark, was discovered by the CDF and D0 experiments at the Tevatron, a proton-antiproton collider at Fermilab near Chicago. Until today, the Tevatron is the only place where top quarks can be produced. The determination of top quark production and properties is crucial to understand the Standard Model of particle physics and beyond. The most striking property of the top quark is its mass--of the order of the mass of a gold atom and close to the electroweak scale--making the top quark not only interesting in itself but also as a window to new physics. Due to the high mass, much higher than of any other known fermion, it is expected that the top quark plays an important role in electroweak symmetry breaking, which is the most prominent candidate to explain the mass of particles. In the Standard Model, electroweak symmetry breaking is induced by one Higgs field, producing one additional physical particle, the Higgs boson. Although various searches have been performed, for example at the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP), no evidence for the Higgs boson could yet be found in any experiment. At the Tevatron, multiple searches for the last missing particle of the Standard Model are ongoing with ever higher statistics and improved analysis techniques. The exclusion or verification of the Higgs boson can only be achieved by combining many techniques and many final states and production mechanisms. As part of this thesis, the search for Higgs bosons produced in association with a top quark pair (t{bar t}H) has been performed. This channel is especially interesting for the understanding of the coupling between Higgs and the top quark. Even though the Standard Model Higgs boson is an attractive candidate, there is no reason to believe that the electroweak symmetry breaking is induced by only one Higgs field. In many models more than one Higgs boson are expected to exist, opening even more channels to search for charged or neutral Higgs bosons. Depending on its mass, the charged Higgs boson is expected to decay either into top quarks or be the decay product of a top quark. For masses below the top quark mass, the top decay into a charged Higgs boson and a b quark can occur at a certain rate, additionally to the decays into W bosons and a b quark. The different decays of W and charged Higgs bosons can lead to deviations of the observed final number of events in certain final states with respect to the Standard Model expectation. A global search for charged Higgs bosons in top quark pair events is presented in this thesis, resulting in the most stringent limits to-date. Besides the decay of top quarks into charged Higgs or W bosons, new physics can also show up in the quark part of the decay. While in the Standard Model the top quark decays with a rate of about 100% into a W boson and a b quark, there are models where the top quark can decay into a W boson and a non-b quark. The ratio of branching fractions in which the top quark decays into a b quark over the branching fractions in which the top quark decays into all quarks is measured as part of this thesis, yielding the most precise measurement today. Furthermore, the Standard Model top quark pair production cross section is essential to be known precisely since the top quark pair production is the main background for t{bar t}H production and many other Higgs and beyond the Standard Model searches. However, not only the search or the test of the Standard Model itself make the precise measurement of the top quark pair production cross section interesting. As the cross section is calculated with high accuracy in perturbative QCD, a comparison of the measurement to the theory expectation yields the possibility to extract the top quark mass from the cross section measurement. Although many dedicated techniques exist to measure the top quark mass, the extraction from the cross section represents an important complementary measurement. The latter is briefly discussed in this thesis and compared to direct top mass measurements. The goal of this thesis is the improved understanding of the top quark sector and its use as a window to new physics. Techniques are extended and developed to measure the top quark pair production cross section simultaneously with the ratio of branching fractions, the t{bar t}H cross section or the rate with which top quarks decay into charged Higgs bosons. Some of the results are then taken to extract more information. The cross section measurement is used to extract the top quark mass, and the ratio of the top quark pair production cross sections in different final states, yielding a limit on non-Standard Model top quark decays.
Download or read book Top Quark Pair Production written by Anna Christine Henrichs and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-10-04 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before any kind of new physics discovery could be made at the LHC, a precise understanding and measurement of the Standard Model of particle physics' processes was necessary. The book provides an introduction to top quark production in the context of the Standard Model and presents two such precise measurements of the production of top quark pairs in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV that were observed with the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC. The presented measurements focus on events with one charged lepton, missing transverse energy and jets. Using novel and advanced analysis techniques as well as a good understanding of the detector, they constitute the most precise measurements of the quantity at that time.
Download or read book Measurements and Searches with Top Quarks written by Yvonne Peters and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book First Measurement of the Running of the Top Quark Mass written by Matteo M. Defranchis and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-03 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thesis, the first measurement of the running of the top quark mass is presented. This is a fundamental quantum effect that had never been studied before. Any deviation from the expected behaviour can be interpreted as a hint of the presence of physics beyond the Standard Model. All relevant aspects of the analysis are extensively described and documented. This thesis also describes a simultaneous measurement of the inclusive top quark-antiquark production cross section and the top quark mass in the simulation. The measured cross section is also used to precisely determine the values of the top quark mass and the strong coupling constant by comparing to state-of-the-art theoretical predictions. All the theoretical and experimental aspects relevant to the results presented in this thesis are discussed in the initial chapters in a concise but complete way, which makes the material accessible to a wider audience.
Download or read book Measurement of the Top Quark Mass in the Dilepton Final State Using the Matrix Element Method written by Alexander Grohsjean and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-11-05 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The main pacemakers of scienti?c research are curiosity, ingenuity, and a pinch of persistence. Equipped with these characteristics a young researcher will be s- cessful in pushing scienti?c discoveries. And there is still a lot to discover and to understand. In the course of understanding the origin and structure of matter it is now known that all matter is made up of six types of quarks. Each of these carry a different mass. But neither are the particular mass values understood nor is it known why elementary particles carry mass at all. One could perhaps accept some small generic mass value for every quark, but nature has decided differently. Two quarks are extremely light, three more have a somewhat typical mass value, but one quark is extremely massive. It is the top quark, the heaviest quark and even the heaviest elementary particle that we know, carrying a mass as large as the mass of three iron nuclei. Even though there exists no explanation of why different particle types carry certain masses, the internal consistency of the currently best theory—the standard model of particle physics—yields a relation between the masses of the top quark, the so-called W boson, and the yet unobserved Higgs particle. Therefore, when one assumes validity of the model, it is even possible to take precise measurements of the top quark mass to predict the mass of the Higgs (and potentially other yet unobserved) particles.
Download or read book Search for Scalar Top Quarks and Higgsino Like Neutralinos written by Takuya Nobe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reports a search for theoretically natural supersymmetry (SUSY) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The data collected with the ATLAS detector in 2012 corresponding to 20 /fb of an integrated luminosity have been analyzed for stop pair production in proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the scenario of the higgsino-like neutralino. The author focuses on stop decaying into a bottom quark and chargino. In the scenario of the higgsino-like neutralino, the mass difference between charginos and neutralinos (Δm) is expected to be small, and observable final-state particles are likely to have low-momentum (soft). The author develops a dedicated analysis with a soft lepton as a probe of particles from chargino decay, which suppresses the large amount of backgrounds. As a result of the analysis, no significant SUSY signal is observed. The 95% confidence-level exclusion limits are set to masses of stop and neutralino assuming Δm = 20 GeV. The region with ΔM (the mass difference between stop and neutralino) 70 GeV is excluded for the first time at stop mass of less than 210 GeV. The author also excludes the signals with ΔM 120 GeV up to 600 GeV of stop mass with neutralino mass of less than 280 GeV. The author clearly shows very few remaining parameter spaces for light stop (e.g., topology of stop decay is extremely similar to the SM top quark) by combining his results and previous ATLAS analyses. His results provide a strong constraint to searches for new physics in the future.
Download or read book Measurements of the Top Quark Mass and Decay Width with the D0 Detector written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 7 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The top quark discovery in 1995 at Fermilab is one of the major proofs of the standard model (SM). Due to its unique place in SM, the top quark is an important particle for testing the theory and probing for new physics. This article presents most recent measurements of top quark properties from the D0 detector. In particular, the measurement of the top quark mass, the top antitop mass difference and the top quark decay width. The discovery of the top quark in 1995 confirmed the existence of a third generation of quarks predicted in the standard model (SM). Being the heaviest elementary particle known, the top quark appears to become an important particle in our understanding of the standard model and physics beyond it. Because of its large mass the top quark has a very short lifetime, much shorter than the hadronization time. The predicted lifetime is only 3.3 · 10−25s. Top quark is the only quark whose properties can be studied in isolation. A Lorentz-invariant local Quantum Field Theory, the standard model is expected to conserve CP. Due to its unique properties, the top quark provides a perfect test of CPT invariance in the standard model. An ability to look at the quark before being hadronized allows to measure directly mass of the top quark and its antiquark. An observation of a mass difference between particle and antiparticle would indicate violation of CPT invariance. Top quark through its radiative loop correction to the W mass constrains the mass of the Higgs boson. A precise measurement of the top quark mass provides useful information to the search of Higgs boson by constraining its region of possible masses. Another interesting aspect is that the top quark's Yukawa coupling to the Higgs boson is very close to unity (0.996 ± 0.006). That implies it may play a special role in the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism.
Download or read book Top Quark Physics at Hadron Colliders written by Arnulf Quadt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-08-16 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This will be a required acquisition text for academic libraries. More than ten years after its discovery, still relatively little is known about the top quark, the heaviest known elementary particle. This extensive survey summarizes and reviews top-quark physics based on the precision measurements at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, as well as examining in detail the sensitivity of these experiments to new physics. Finally, the author provides an overview of top quark physics at the Large Hadron Collider.
Download or read book Physics at the Large Hadron Collider written by Amitava Datta and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-05-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an epoch when particle physics is awaiting a major step forward, the Large Hydron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva will soon be operational. It will collide a beam of high energy protons with another similar beam circulation in the same 27 km tunnel but in the opposite direction, resulting in the production of many elementary particles some never created in the laboratory before. It is widely expected that the LHC will discover the Higgs boson, the particle which supposedly lends masses to all other fundamental particles. In addition, the question as to whether there is some new law of physics at such high energy is likely to be answered through this experiment. The present volume contains a collection of articles written by international experts, both theoreticians and experimentalists, from India and abroad, which aims to acquaint a non-specialist with some basic issues related to the LHC. At the same time, it is expected to be a useful, rudimentary companion of introductory exposition and technical expertise alike, and it is hoped to become unique in its kind. The fact that there is substantial Indian involvement in the entire LHC endeavour, at all levels including fabrication, physics analysis procedures as well as theoretical studies, is also amply brought out in the collection.
Download or read book Discovery of Single Top Quark Production written by Dag Gillberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-01-22 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The top quark is by far the heaviest known fundamental particle with a mass nearing that of a gold atom. Because of this strikingly high mass, the top quark has several unique properties and might play an important role in electroweak symmetry breaking—the mechanism that gives all elementary particles mass. Creating top quarks requires access to very high energy collisions, and at present only the Tevatron collider at Fermilab is capable of reaching these energies. Until now, top quarks have only been observed produced in pairs via the strong interaction. At hadron colliders, it should also be possible to produce single top quarks via the electroweak interaction. Studies of single top quark production provide opportunities to measure the top quark spin, how top quarks mix with other quarks, and to look for new physics beyond the standard model. Because of these interesting properties, scientists have been looking for single top quarks for more than 15 years. This thesis presents the first discovery of single top quark production. It documents one of the flagship measurements of the D0 experiment, a collaboration of more than 600 physicists from around the world. It describes first observation of a physical process known as “single top quark production”, which had been sought for more than 10 years before its eventual discovery in 2009. Further, his thesis describes, in detail, the innovative approach Dr. Gillberg took to this analysis. Through the use of Boosted Decision Trees, a machine-learning technique, he observed the tiny single top signal within an otherwise overwhelming background. This Doctoral Thesis has been accepted by Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.
Download or read book Precision Measurements of the Top Quark Mass and Width with the D0 Detector written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 6 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the discovery of the top quark in 1995 at the Fermliab Tevatron Collider, top quark properties have been measured with ever higher precision. In this article, recent measurements of the top quark mass and its width using up to 3.6 fb−1 of D0 data are summarized. Different techniques and final states have been examined and no deviations within these measurements have been observed. In addition to the direct measurements, a measurement of the top quark mass from its production cross section and a measurement of the top-antitop quark mass difference are discussed. With a mass of 173.3 ± 1.1 GeV, the top quark is the heaviest of all known fundamental particles. Due to the high mass, its Yukawa coupling is close to unity suggesting that it may play a special role in electroweak symmetry breaking. Precise measurements of both, the W boson and the top quark mass, constrain the mass of the yet unobserved Higgs boson and allow to restrict certain extensions of the Standard Model. At the Tevatron collider with a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV, 85% of the top quark pairs are produced in quark-antiquark annihilation; 15% originate from gluon fusion. Top quarks are predicted to decay almost exclusively to a W boson and a bottom quark. According to the number of hadronic W decays, top events are classified into all-jets, lepton+jets and dilepton events. The lepton+jets channel is characterized by four jets, one isolated, energetic charged lepton and missing transverse energy. With 30%, the branching fraction of the lepton+jets channel is about seven times larger than the one of the dilepton channel whereas the signal to background ratio is about three times smaller. The main background in this final state comes from W +jets events. Instrumental background arises from events in which a jet is misidentified as an electron and events with heavy hadrons that decay into leptons which pass the isolation requirements. The topology of the dilepton channel is described by two jets, two isolated, energetic charged leptons and significant missing transverse energy from the undetected neutrinos. The main background are Z + jets and diboson events (WW/WZ/ZZ+jets) as well as instrumental background as characterized above. At the D0 experiment, different techniques are used to measure the top quark mass. They are summarized in the following sections together with the first measurement of the top anti-top quark mass difference and the first precise determination of the top quark width.
Download or read book Measurement of the Top Quark Mass Using Dilepton Events and a Neutrino Weighting Algorithm with the D0 Experiment at the Tevatron Run II written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elementary particle physics raises questions that are several thousand years old. What are the fundamental components of matter and how do they interact? These questions are linked to the question of what happened in the very first moments after the creation of the universe. Modern physics systematically tests nature to find answers to these and other fundamental questions. Precise theories are developed that describe various phenomena and at the same time are reduced to a few basic principals of nature. Simplification and reduction have always been guiding concepts of physics. The interplay between experimental data and theoretical descriptions led to the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. It summarizes the laws of nature and is one of most precise descriptions of nature achieved by mankind. Despite the great success of the Standard Model it is not the ultimate theory of everything. Models beyond the Standard Model try to unify all interactions in one grand unified theory. The number of free parameters is attempted to be reduced. Gravity is attempted to be incorporated. Extensions to the Standard Model like supersymmetry address the so-called hierarchy problem. Precision measurements are the key for searches of new particles and new physics. A powerful tool of experimental particle physics are particle accelerators. They provide tests of the Standard Model at smallest scales. New particles are produced and their properties are investigated. In 1995 the heaviest known elementary particle, called top quark, has been discovered at Fermilab. It differs from all other lighter quarks due to the high mass and very short lifetime. This makes the top quark special and an interesting object to be studied. A rich program of top physics at Fermilab investigates whether the top quark is really the particle as described by the Standard Model. The top quark mass is a free parameter of the theory that has been measured precisely. This thesis presents a precise measurement of the top quark mass by the D0 experiment at Fermilab in the dilepton final states. The comparison of the measured top quark masses in different final states allows an important consistency check of the Standard Model. Inconsistent results would be a clear hint of a misinterpretation of the analyzed data set. With the exception of the Higgs boson, all particles predicted by the Standard Model have been found. The search for the Higgs boson is one of the main focuses in high energy physics. The theory section will discuss the close relationship between the physics of the Higgs boson and the top quark.
Download or read book Measurement of WZ Production and Searches for Anomalous Top Quark Decays and Higgs Boson Production Using Tri lepton Final States in p bar p Collisions at sqrt s written by and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We present the results of three analyses; a $WZ$ production cross section measurement, a search for new physics in anomalous top quark decays, and the search for the standard model Higgs boson, all with final states of three or more leptons -- either electrons or muons -- plus an imbalance of transverse momentum using Tevatron proton and anti-proton collisions at a center--of--mass energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV with the D0 detector at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago, IL. The first analysis reports a measurement of the $WZ \rightarrow \ell^{\prime}\nu\ell\bar{\ell}$ cross section. Using 4.1 $fb^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity, we measure a cross section of 3.90$_{-0.85}^{+1.01}$($stat+syst$) $\pm$ 0.31($lumi$) pb, which is found to be in good agreement with the standard model prediction. The second analysis is an extension of the first, in which we use the same dataset and look for the flavor changing neutral current decay of $t \rightarrow Zq$ in $p\bar {p} \rightarrow t\bar{t} \rightarrow WbZq \rightarrow \ell^{\prime}\nu\ell\bar{\ell} + \rm{jets}$ decays. Here $q$ is considered to be either a $u$ or $c$ quark, and both the $q$ and $b$ quarks decay hadronically. We find no evidence of flavor changing neutral current production and set upper limits on the branching ratio of $BR(t \rightarrow Zq)
Download or read book ATLAS Measurements of the Higgs Boson Coupling to the Top Quark in the Higgs to Diphoton Decay Channel written by Jennet Elizabeth Dickinson and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During Run 2 of the Large Hadron Collider, the ATLAS experiment recorded proton-proton collision events at 13 TeV, the highest energy ever achieved in a collider. Analysis of this dataset has provided new opportunities for precision measurements of the Higgs boson, including its interaction with the top quark. The Higgs-top coupling can be directly probed through the production of a Higgs boson in association with a top-antitop quark pair (ttH). The Higgs to diphoton decay channel is among the most sensitive for ttH measurements due to the excellent diphoton mass resolution of the ATLAS detector and the clean signature of this decay. Event selection criteria were developed using novel Machine Learning techniques to target ttH events, yielding a precise measurement of the ttH cross section in the diphoton channel and a 6.3 $\sigma$ observation of the ttH process in combination with other decay channels, as well as stringent limits on CP violation in the Higgs-top coupling.
Download or read book Searches for the Supersymmetric Partner of the Top Quark Dark Matter and Dark Energy at the ATLAS Experiment written by Nicolas Maximilian Köhler and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-13 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Astrophysical observations implying the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which are not described by the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, have led to extensions of the SM predicting new particles that could be directly produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Based on 2015 and 2016 ATLAS proton-proton collision data, this thesis presents searches for the supersymmetric partner of the top quark, for Dark Matter, and for DarkEnergy, in signatures with jets and missing transverse energy. Muon detection is key to some of the most important LHC physics results, including the discovery of the Higgs boson and the measurement of its properties. The efficiency with which muons can be detected with the ATLAS detector is measured using Z boson decays. The performance of high-precision Monitored Drift Tube muon chambers under background rates similar to the ones expected for the High Luminosity-LHC is studied.
Download or read book Search for the Higgs Boson Produced in Association with Top Quarks with the CMS Detector at the LHC written by Cristina Martin Perez and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-02-09 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, the interaction between the Higgs boson and the top quark is studied with the proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV provided by the LHC at the CMS detector at CERN (Geneva). At the LHC, these particles are produced simultaneously via the associate production of the Higgs boson with one top quark (tH process) or two top quarks (ttH process). Compared to many other possible outcomes of the proton-proton interactions, these processes are very rare, as the top quark and the Higgs boson are the heaviest elementary particles known. Hence, identifying them constitutes a significant experimental challenge. A high particle selection efficiency in the CMS detector is therefore crucial. At the core of this selection stands the Level-1 (L1) trigger system, a system that filters collision events to retain only those with potential interest for physics analysis. The selection of hadronically decaying τ leptons, expected from the Higgs boson decays, is especially demanding due to the large background arising from the QCD interactions. The first part of this thesis presents the optimization of the L1 τ algorithm in Run 2 (2016-2018) and Run 3 (2022-2024) of the LHC. It includes the development of a novel trigger concept for the High-Luminosity LHC, foreseen to start in 2027 and to deliver 5 times the current instantaneous luminosity. To this end, sophisticated algorithms based on machine learning approaches are used, facilitated by the increasingly modern technology and powerful computation of the trigger system. The second part of the work presents the search of the tH and ttH processes with the subsequent decays of the Higgs boson to pairs of τ lepton, W bosons or Z bosons, making use of the data recorded during Run 2. The presence of multiple particles in the final state, along with the low cross section of the processes, makes the search an ideal use case for multivariant discriminants that enhance the selectivity of the signals and reject the overwhelming background contributions. The discriminants presented are built using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, able to capture the correlations amongst the processes involved, as well as the so-called Matrix Element Method (MEM), which combines the theoretical description of the processes with the detector resolution effects. The level of sophistication of the methods used, along with the unprecedented amount of collision data analyzed, result in the most stringent measurements of the tH and ttH cross sections up to date.
Download or read book Searching for Squarks written by Samuel Jones and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis focuses on searches for squarks with the ATLAS detector in "compressed" scenarios where the scalar top is very close in mass to the lightest supersymmetric particle. These models are theoretically appealing because the presence of a quasi-degenerate scalar top enhances the self-annihilation cross-section of the lightest supersymmetric particle, acting therefore as a regulator of the dark matter relic density. Two main analyses are presented: the first is a search for scalar tops decaying to charm quarks. The identification of jets originating from the charm quark is very challenging due to its short lifetime. The calibration of tools for charm-tagging has paved the way to measuring the decay of the Higgs boson to pairs of charm quarks. The second analysis presented is the development of a novel technique for reconstructing low momentum b-hadrons. This tool has enabled the ATLAS collaboration to explore topologies that were previously inaccessible.
