Measuring Physical Properties of the W Boson in 7 TeV Proton-proton Collisions
Author: Phillip Killewald
Publisher:
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 144
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAbstract: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a recently-activated proton-proton collider operating at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is one of two general-purpose collider-detectors centered at one of the interaction points of the LHC. A measurement of the PW boson production cross-section and mass is presented to test the performance of the CMS detector in early (70 nb^-1) LHC data and to test theoretical predictions at this never-before-experienced energy regime. The cross-section measurement uses standard event counting techniques, while the mass measurement is performed using fitting of the analytical differential cross-section formula to the transverse mass spectrum from selected W to muon and muon neutrino events. The W production cross-section is measured to be [9,013 +/- 540 (stat.) +/- 552 (sys.) +/- 991 (lumi.)] pb, consistent with theoretical predictions at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. The mass of the W is measured to be [80.07 +/- 0.64 (stat.) +/- 0.48 (sys.)] GeV/c^2, consistent with previous experimental measurements.