No description available.

The first measurement of the ratio of the W and Z cross sections in association with a single jet, known as the R_{Jets} measurement, is presented. The measurement was performed using 33pb^-1 of integrated luminosity, recorded during the year 2010 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. At this time the LHC was operating at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The measurement is made as a function of the threshold on the jet transverse momentum, from 30 GeV up to a value of 200 GeV. The motivation for this measurement is outlined in terms of providing a stringent test of the Standard Model of particle physics, as well as a model independent tool for searching for new physics. Data driven tools are developed to perform the measurement and their performance is discussed. The result of the measurement is compared with the predictions of Next-to-Leading order perturbative QCD and found to be in good agreement over the entire range of transverse momenta considered.

Large mass splittings between new scalars in two-Higgs-doublet models (2HDM) open a key avenue to search for these new states via exotic heavy Higgs decays. We discuss in detail the different search channels for these new scalars at the LHC in the presence of a sizable mass splitting, i.e. a hierarchical 2HDM scenario, taking into account the theoretical and experimental constraints. We provide benchmark planes to exploit the complementarity among these searches, analyzing their potential to probe the hierarchical 2HDM parameter space during LHC Run 2.

With the discovery of a particle consistent with the Standard Model (SM) Higgs at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in 2012, the final ingredient of the SM has been found. The SM provides us with a powerful description of the physics of fundamental particles, holding up at all energy scales we can probe with accelerator based experiments. However, astrophysics and cosmology show us that the SM is not the final answer, but e.g. fails to describe dark matter and massive neutrinos. Like any non-trivial quantum field theory, the SM must be subject to a so-called renormalization procedure in order to extrapolate the model between different energy scales. In this context, new problems of more theoretical nature arise, e.g. the famous hierarchy problem of the Higgs mass. Renormalization also leads to what is known as the metastability problem of the SM: assuming the particle found at the LHC is the SM Higgs boson, the potential develops a second minimum deeper than the electroweak one in which we live, at energy scales below the Planck scale. Absolute stability all the way up to the Planck scale is excluded at a confidence level of about 98 %. For the central experimental SM values the instability occurs at scales larger than ~ 10¹⁰ GeV. One can take two viewpoints regarding this instability: assuming validity of the SM all the way up to the Planck scale, the problem does not necessarily lead to an inconsistency of our existence. If we assume our universe to have ended up in the electroweak minimum after the Big Bang, the probability that it would have transitioned to its true minimum during the lifetime of the universe is spectacularly small.  If we on the other hand demand absolute stability, new physics must modify the SM at or below the instability scale of ~ 10¹⁰ GeV, and we can explore which hints the instability might provide us with on this new physics. In this work, the metastability problem of the SM and possible implications are revisited. We give an introduction to the technique of renormalization and apply this to the SM. We then discuss the stability of the SM potential and the hints this might provide us with on new physics at large scales. / Standardmodellen inom partikelfysik är vår bästa beskrivning av elementarpartiklarnas fysik. År 2012 hittades en ny skalär boson vid Large Hadron Collider (LHC) på CERN, som är kompatibel med att vara Higgs bosonen, den sista saknade delen av Standardmodellen. Men även om Standardmodellen ger oss en väldigt precis beskrivning av all fysik vi ser i partikelacceleratorer, vet vi från astropartikelfysik och kosmologi att den inte kan vara hela lösningen. T.ex. beskriver Standardmodellen ej mörk materia eller neutrinernas massa. Som alla kvantfältteorier måste man renormera Standardmodellen för att få en beskrivning som fungerar på olika energiskalor. När man renormerar Standardmodellen hittar man nya problem som är mer teoretiska, t.ex. det välkända hierarkiproblemet av Higgsmassan. Renormering leder också till vad som kallas för metastabilitetsproblemet, dvs att Higgspotentialen utvecklar ett minimum som är djupare än det elektrosvaga minimum vi lever i, på högre energiskalor. Om vi antar att partikeln som hittades på CERN är Standardmodellens Higgs boson, är absolut stabilitet exkluderad med 98 % konfidens. För centrala experimentiella mätningar av Standardmodells parametrar uppkommer instabiliteten på skalor över ~ 10¹⁰ GeV. Det finns två olika sätt att tolka stabilitetsproblemet: Om man antar att Standardmodellen är den rätta teorien ända upp till Planckskalan, kan vi faktiskt fortfarande existera. Om vi antar att universum hamnat i det elektrosvaga minimumet efter Big Bang är sannolikheten att det har gått över till sitt riktiga minimum under universums livstid praktiskt taget noll. Dvs att vi kan leva i ett metastabilt universum. Om vi å andra sidan kräver att potentialen måste vara absolut stabil, måste någon ny fysik modifiera Standardmodellen på eller under instabilitetsskalan ~10¹⁰ GeV. I så fall kan vi fundera på vilka antydningar stabilitetsproblemet kan ge oss om den nya fysiken. Den här uppsatsen beskriver Standardmodells metastabilitetsproblem. Vi ger en introduktion till renormering och använder tekniken till Standardmodellen. Sen diskuteras stabiliteten inom Standardmodellens potential och vilka antydningar problemet kan ge oss angående ny fysik.

This thesis describes a search for the rare radiative decay of a B meson to two photons. where the charged congugate mode is implied throughout. These decays are highly suppressed in the Standard Model where the branching fraction is expected to be of order 10^-8. In some new physics scenarios this could be enhanced by up to an order of magnitude to 10^-7. Therefore an observation of a significant signal above the Standard Model prediction could be a sign of new physics. The search for this rare decay was performed using the data collected with the BaBar detector at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory PEP-II storage ring operating at the Upsilon(4S) resonance. The analysis uses a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 425.7 fb-1 corresponding to 467 million BB pairs. A signal yield of 21.3 +12.8 -11.8 events with a significance of 1.88 sigma was measured using an unbinned extended maximum likelihood fit. An upper limit on the branching fraction is set at the 90% confidence level of less than 3.2 times 10^-7. This is about two times more stringent than the best upper limit of less than 6.2 times 10^-7 published by the Belle collaboration. / text

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the four major experiments set up along its 27 kilometers of circumference (ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHCb), have recently started to explore the high–energy frontier at √s = 8 TeV, and will move to even higher energy in just about 2 years. The aim of physics searches at LHC experiments was to complete the picture of the Standard Model (SM) of elementary particles with the discovery of the Higgs boson and to look for specific signatures of models extending the current understanding of particle interactions, at zero and non–zero temperature. In 2012, the official discovery of the Higgs boson, the only missing particle of the StandardModel, was announced by ATLAS and CMS. Other important results include the measurement of rare decay modes in heavy quarks systems, and indications of CP violation in charm decays by LHCb. Signatures of beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics are currently being looked for in the experimental data, and this often requires the knowledge of quantities that can be computed only with non–perturbative methods. This thesis focuses on some possible extensions of the SM and the analysis of interesting physical observables, like masses or decay rates, calculated using non– perturbative lattice methods. The approach followed for the main part of this work is to model BSM theories as effective field theories defined on a lattice. This lattice approach has a twofold advantage: it allows us to explore non– renormalizable gauge theories by imposing an explicit gauge–invariant cutoff and it allows us to go beyond perturbative results in the study of strongly interacting systems. Some of the issues of the SM that we will try to address include, for example, the hierarchy problem and the origin of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking (DEWSB). We investigate non–perturbatively the possibility that the lightness of the mass for an elementary scalar field in a four–dimensional quantum field theory might be due to a higher–dimensional gauge symmetry principle. This idea fits in the Gauge–Higgs unification approach to the hierarchy problem and the results we present extend what is known from perturbative expectations. Extra dimensional models are also often used to approach DEWSB. Another approach to DEWSB implies a new strongly interacting gauge sector that extends the SM at high energies and it is usually referred to as Technicolor. The phenomenological consequences of Technicolor can only be studied by non– perturbative methods at low energy since the theory is strongly coupled at large distances. We perform a comprehensive lattice study of fermionic and gluonic scalar bound states in one of the candidate theories for Technicolor BSM physics. We relate our findings to the nature of the newly discovered Higgs boson. New physics is also commonly believed to be hidden in the flavour sector of the SM. In this sector, lattice calculations of non–perturbative input parameters are needed in order to make precise predictions and extract signals of possible new physics. In particular, heavy quark physics on the lattice is still in development and it is important to understand the relevant discretisation errors. We describe a preliminary study of the mixing parameter of heavy–light mesons oscillations in a partially–quenched scenario, using staggered dynamical fermions and domain wall valence fermions.

This thesis presents the detailed measurements of the tracking efficiency of the BaBar detector using T pair events. These efficiency measurements are critical for many physics analyses at BaBar. The tracking efficiency is dctcrmined both as a global valuc for the detector and in terms of the parameters on which the BaBar tracking reconstruction software depends. In addition, the charge asymmetry of the tracking efficiency as well as a detailed analysis of the systematic uncertainties related to this method are also presented. It was discovered that the sample of data conventionally used by BaBar for measuring the efficiency is contaminated by background and a ncw protocol for measuring thc cfficicncies is presented. Undcr this new protocol, the global tracking efficiency correction factor and the global tracking efficiency charge asymmetry are determined to be consistent with zero. A new method for determining the efficiency as a function of the reconstruction parameters, was also successfully demonstrated.

No description available.

In the first part of the thesis, theoretical uncertainties of jet cross-section have been calculated for proton-proton collision at the center of mass energy of 8 TeV. For jet identification the anti-kT algorithm with scale parameter R = 0.6 was used. As the calculations showed, the major contribution to the total theoretical uncertainty comes from the uncertainty of parton distribution function parameters. In the second part of the thesis, the angular distribution of dijet events produced in proton-proton collisions at the center of mass energy 8 TeV were simulated using Pythia 8 Monte Carlo event generator. New physics model of quark compositeness that should manifest itself by quark contact interaction was studied using angular distribution of dijet events. Three angular variables were discussed and these variables were used to calculate 95% CL lower limit on contact interaction scale. The results were compared and it emerged that the sensitivity to contact interaction signals varies for these variables.

The LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is designed to make precise measurements of processes including B and D mesons to test the Standard Model (SM) predictions for CP violation, and to search for new physics. From its inception one of the key aims of the LHCb collaboration has been to precisely measure the CP violating phase ϕs, the weak phase due to the interference between B⁰/s -B¯⁰/s mixing and decay. Having collected 3 fb-1 of data in Run 1, the combined results of LHCb measurements of ϕs from various decay modes are in agreement with SM predictions. The aim now is to improve the precision of the LHCb measurement to be sensitive to any small deviation from the SM prediction of ϕs. One strategy to achieve this, in addition to collecting more data, is to expand the number of modes used to measure ϕs to improve the sensitivity of the combination. This thesis presents the measurement of the CP violating phase ϕs in the yet unstudied B⁰/s→ ψ(2S)ϕ decay mode. In addition to providing a measurement of ϕs the study of this mode presents an opportunity to confirm the lifetime difference of the B⁰/s mass eigenstates ∆Γs, currently only measured in the B⁰/s→ Jψϕ decay mode. The results from 3 fb-1 of LHCb data are; ϕs = 0:23+0:29-0:28 ± 0:02 rad, ∆Γs = 0:066+0:041-0:044 ± 0:007 ps-1. which are in agreement with the SM and the results from the LHCb measurement from B⁰/s→ Jψϕ decays.