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.
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 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 predictions of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics have been probed with remarkable accuracy, so far. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN has significantly contributed to this quest. A remarkable achievement of the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC was the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the last missing piece of the SM. With the increasing amount of proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC, more precise measurements of the Higgs boson are now possible, while rare processes are accessible as well. A property of the Higgs boson that is of particular importance is its coupling to the top quark, which is expected to be the strongest in the SM due to the high mass of the top quark. Therefore, its precise measurement is a stringent test of the SM. A direct measurement of the top-quark Yukawa coupling can be assessed through the Higgs-boson production in association with a pair of top quarks (ttH). This thesis presents the measurement of the ttH process with a subsequent Higgs-boson decay to a pair of b-quarks (H -> bb), the decay mode with the largest branching ratio. The measurement is performed with data collected by the ATLAS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb^-1 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Events with one or two charged leptons from the tt decay in the final state are considered to the measurement. The main challenge of the ttH(H -> bb) channel emerges from the large SM backgrounds from the production of top-quark pairs with additional jets (tt+jets). Also the many jets coming from b-hadrons (b-jets) in the final state cause combinatorial ambiguities. Thus, the identification of such jets is decisive in order to determine the signal and reject many background processes. The ttH events are split into exclusive analysis regions, based on the number of leptons, jets, and jets tagged as b-jets, providing regions enhanced in signal, or in the main background components. Specifically in the single-lepton channel, a boosted category is defined by selecting events in which the Higgs boson and possibly also the hadronically decaying top quark are produced with high transverse momentum (pT), with their decay products being collimated in large-radius jets. The single-lepton boosted channel targets events with Higgs-boson candidate pT >= 300 GeV and is the main scope of this thesis. To identify the reconstructed objects with the underlying particles and to maximise the discrimination of the ttH signal from the overwhelming tt+jets background events in the signal-enriched regions, machine-learning algorithms are employed. The background is dominated by a tt process with an additional gluon in the final state which further splits into a pair of b-quarks (tt+bb). Besides, a large number of heavy-flavour jets in the final state is not well modelled, thus many systematic uncertainties have to be considered, decreasing the sensitivity of the measurement. All the defined analysis regions are analysed together in a combined profile likelihood fit to test for the presence of signal. The fit simultaneously determines the event yields for the signal and the most important background component, while constraining the overall background model within the assigned systematic uncertainties. Eventually, the ratio of the measured ttH cross section to the SM expectation in the inclusive cross-section measurement is found to be 0.35 +0.36,-0.34}, corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 1.0 (2.7) standard deviations. A ttH signal strength larger than the SM prediction is excluded at 95% confidence level. The measurement uncertainty is dominated by systematic uncertainties, mainly regarding the theoretical knowledge of the tt +>= 1b background process. Finally, to further test the SM, the cross-section is measured differentially as a function of the generator-level Higgs-boson pT, taking advantage of the reconstruction of the Higgs-boson kinematics.
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.
This thesis contains new research in both experimental and theoretical particle physics, making important contributions in each. Two analyses of collision data from the ATLAS experiment at the LHC are presented, as well as two phenomenological studies of heavy coloured resonances that could be produced at the LHC. The first data analysis was the measurement of top quark-antiquark production with a veto on additional jet activity. As the first detector-corrected measurement of jet activity in top-antitop events it played an important role in constraining the theoretical modelling, and ultimately reduced these uncertainties for ATLAS's other top-quark measurements by a factor of two. The second data analysis was the measurement of Z+2jet production and the observation of the electroweak vector boson fusion (VBF) component. As the first observation of VBF at a hadron collider, this measurement demonstrated new techniques to reliably extract VBF processes and paved the way for future VBF Higgs measurements. The first phenomenological study developed a new technique for identifying the colour of heavy resonances produced in proton-proton collisions. As a by-product of this study an unexpected and previously unnoticed correlation was discovered between the probability of correctly identifying a high-energy top and the colour structure of the event it was produced in. The second phenomenological study explored this relationship in more detail, and could have important consequences for the identification of new particles that decay to top quarks.
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.
This thesis, which won one of the six 2015 ATLAS Thesis Awards, concerns the study of the charmonium and bottomonium bound heavy quark bound states. The first section of the thesis describes the observation of a candidate for the chi_b(3P) bottomonium states. This represented the first observation of a new particle at the LHC and its existence was subsequently confirmed by D0 and LHCb experiments. The second part of the thesis presents measurements of the prompt and non-prompt production of the chi_c1 and chi_c2 charmonium states in proton-proton collisions. These measurements are compared to several theoretical predictions and can be used to inform the development of theoretical models of quarkonium production.
This thesis introduces readers to the Standard Model, the top quark and its properties, before explaining the concept of spin correlation measurement. The first measurement of top quark spin correlations at the LHC in the lepton+jets decay channel is presented. As the heaviest elementary particle, the top quark plays an essential role in the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. In the case of top quarks being produced in pairs at hadron colliders, the Standard Model predicts their spins to be correlated. The degree of correlation depends on both the production mechanism and properties of the top quark. Any deviation from the Standard Model prediction can be an indicator for new physics phenomena. The thesis employs an advanced top quark reconstruction algorithm including dedicated identification of the up- and down-type quarks from the W boson decay.
