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.
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.
This thesis presents the first experimental calibration of the top-quark Monte-Carlo mass. It also provides the top-quark mass-independent and most precise top-quark pair production cross-section measurement to date. The most precise measurements of the top-quark mass obtain the top-quark mass parameter (Monte-Carlo mass) used in simulations, which are partially based on heuristic models. Its interpretation in terms of mass parameters used in theoretical calculations, e.g. a running or a pole mass, has been a long-standing open problem with far-reaching implications beyond particle physics, even affecting conclusions on the stability of the vacuum state of our universe. In this thesis, this problem is solved experimentally in three steps using data obtained with the compact muon solenoid (CMS) detector. The most precise top-quark pair production cross-section measurements to date are performed. The Monte-Carlo mass is determined and a new method for extracting the top-quark mass from theoretical calculations is presented. Lastly, the top-quark production cross-sections are obtained – for the first time – without residual dependence on the top-quark mass, are interpreted using theoretical calculations to determine the top-quark running- and pole mass with unprecedented precision, and are fully consistently compared with the simultaneously obtained top-quark Monte-Carlo mass.
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.
This book gathers the proceedings of The Hadron Collider Physics Symposia (HCP) 2005, and reviews the state-of-the-art in the key physics directions of experimental hadron collider research. Topics include QCD physics, precision electroweak physics, c-, b-, and t-quark physics, physics beyond the Standard Model, and heavy ion physics. The present volume serves as a reference for everyone working in the field of accelerator-based high-energy physics.
The physics of heavy flavors is a very active area of research in experimental and theoretical high energy physics. A number of heavy flavor experiments at new or upgraded accelerators are just coming on line to address some of the most fundamental questions of particle physics, e.g. matter-anti-matter asymmetry (CP violation).The Seventh International Symposium on Heavy Flavor Physics focused primarily on the physics of bottom and charmed quarks, but there were also sessions on the top quark and the tau lepton. It presented a great opportunity to take stock of the field on the eve of the new era in heavy flavor physics which will be opened up by the next generation of experiments.
The Lepton-Photon symposiums ? as represented by the contributions in this volume ? are among the most popular conferences in high energy physics since they give an in-depth snapshots of the status of the field as provided by leading experts.The volume covers the latest results on flavor factories, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), electroweak physics, dark matter searches, neutrino physics and cosmology, from a phenomenological point of view. It also offers a glimpse of the immediate future of the field through summaries on the status of the next generation of high energy accelerators and planned facilities for astroparticle physics.The review nature of the articles makes the volume particularly useful to students, as well as being of interest to established researches in high-energy physics and related fields.
This comprehensive volume summarizes and structures the multitude of results obtained at the LHC in its first running period and draws the grand picture of today’s physics at a hadron collider. Topics covered are Standard Model measurements, Higgs and top-quark physics, flavour physics, heavy-ion physics, and searches for supersymmetry and other extensions of the Standard Model. Emphasis is placed on overview and presentation of the lessons learned. Chapters on detectors and the LHC machine and a thorough outlook into the future complement the book. The individual chapters are written by teams of expert authors working at the forefront of LHC research.
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.
The Lepton-Photon symposiums — as represented by the contributions in this volume — are among the most popular conferences in high energy physics since they give an in-depth snapshots of the status of the field as provided by leading experts.The volume covers the latest results on flavor factories, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), electroweak physics, dark matter searches, neutrino physics and cosmology, from a phenomenological point of view. It also offers a glimpse of the immediate future of the field through summaries on the status of the next generation of high energy accelerators and planned facilities for astroparticle physics.The review nature of the articles makes the volume particularly useful to students, as well as being of interest to established researches in high-energy physics and related fields.
