Doctor of Philosophy / Physics / Andrew G. Ivanov / In this thesis the measurement of production cross section of top-quark pairs in association with a photon in proton-proton collisions at a center of mass energy of 8 TeV is presented. The data was recorded at the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2012. This measurement aims to extend our knowledge of top quark properties and help to test consistency of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. Data-driven methods are used to estimate the photon identification efficiency and purity. The measured cross-section agrees with the standard model expectation.

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Searches for the supersymmetric partner of the top quark (stop) are motivated by natural supersymmetry, where the stop has to be light to cancel the large radiative corrections to the Higgs boson mass. This thesis presents three different searches for the stop at √s = 8 TeV and √s = 13 TeV using data from the ATLAS experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The thesis also includes a study of the primary vertex reconstruction performance in data and simulation at √s = 7 TeV using tt and Z events. All stop searches presented are carried out in final states with a single lepton, four or more jets and large missing transverse energy. A search for direct stop pair production is conducted with 20.3 fb−1 of data at a center-of-mass energy of √s = 8 TeV. Several stop decay scenarios are considered, including those to a top quark and the lightest neutralino and to a bottom quark and the lightest chargino. The sensitivity of the analysis is also studied in the context of various phenomenological MSSM models in which more complex decay scenarios can be present. Two different analyses are carried out at √s = 13 TeV. The first one is a search for both gluino-mediated and direct stop pair production with 3.2 fb−1 of data while the second one is a search for direct stop pair production with 13.2 fb−1 of data in the decay scenario to a bottom quark and the lightest chargino. The results of the analyses show no significant excess over the Standard Model predictions in the observed data. Consequently, exclusion limits are set at 95% CL on the masses of the stop and the lightest neutralino.

The striking evidence for the existence of dark matter in the Universe implies that there is new physics to be discovered beyond the Standard Model. To identify the nature of this dark matter is a key task for modern astroparticle physics, and a large number of experiments pursuing a range of different search strategies have been developed to solve it. The topic of this thesis is the complementarity of these different experiments and the issue of how to combine the information from different searches independently of experimental and theoretical uncertainties. The first part focuses on the direct detection of dark matter scattering in nuclear recoil detectors, with a special emphasis on the impact of the assumed velocity distribution of Galactic dark matter particles. By converting experimental data to variables that make the astrophysical unknowns explicit, different experiments can be compared without implicit assumptions concerning the dark matter halo. We extend this framework to include annual modulation signals and apply it to recent experimental hints for dark matter, showing that the tension between these results and constraints from other experiments is independent of astrophysical uncertainties. We explore possible ways of ameliorating this tension by changing our assumptions on the properties of dark matter interactions. In this context, we propose a new approach for inferring the properties of the dark matter particle, which does not require any assumptions about the structure of the dark matter halo. A particularly interesting option is to study dark matter particles that couple differently to protons and neutrons (so-called isospin-violating dark matter). Such isospin-violation arises naturally in models where the vector mediator is the gauge boson of a new U(1) that mixes with the Standard Model gauge bosons. In the second part, we first discuss the case where both the Z' and the dark matter particle have a mass of a few GeV and then turn to the case where the Z' is significantly heavier. While the former case is most strongly constrained by precision measurements from LEP and B-factories, the latter scenario can be probed with great sensitivity at the LHC using monojet and monophoton searches, as well as searches for resonances in dijet, dilepton and diboson final states. Finally, we study models of dark matter where loop contributions are important for a comparison of LHC searches and direct detection experiments. This is the case for dark matter interactions with Yukawa-like couplings to quarks and for interactions that lead to spin-dependent or momentum suppressed scattering cross sections at tree level. We find that including the contribution from heavy-quark loops can significantly alter the conclusions obtained from a tree-level analysis.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Physics / Yurii Y. Maravin / This thesis presents the first study of a rare production of Z boson in association with two photons (Zγγ), where the Z boson decays into a pair of muons or electrons, by proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This study uses full data samples that have been collected with the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector in 2012 with a center of mass energy of 8TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb⁻¹. The Zγγ production cross section is measured within a fiducial region defined by two leptons with two photons where transverse momentum over 15 GeV and distance between gamma and lepton above 0.4. Using the obtained samples, the Zγγ cross section is measured to be: 12.6 ±1.6 (stat.) ± 1.7 (syst.) ± 0.3 (lumi.) fb. where stat., syst., and lumi. denote the statistical uncertainty, systematic uncertainty, and the uncertainty in integrated luminosity, respectively. This result is in an excellent agreement with the theoretical prediction of 13.0 ± 1.5 fb.

Après la découverte du boson de Higgs par les expériences ATLAS et CMS au LHC, annoncée le 4 juillet 2012 au CERN, l'heure est maintenant à la mesure des propriétés de cette nouvelle particule pour vérifier sa compatibilité avec le boson scalaire prédit par le Modèle Standard. Son couplage aux autres particules est une mesure importante car toute déviation par rapport à la valeur prédite par la théorie peut être le signe d'une nouvelle physique, au-delà du Modèle Standard. Cette thèse présente la mesure des couplages du boson de Higgs dans son mode de désintégration en deux photons, utilisant l'ensemble des données collectées en 2011 (4.5 fb^{-1} à 7 TeV) et 2012 (20.3 fb^{-1} à 8 TeV) par le détecteur ATLAS. Les événements sont classifiés en fonction des objets produits en association avec le Higgs : deux jets pour la production VBF, lepton et énergie transverse manquante pour le higgsstrahlung (WH et ZH) et jets de b pour le ttH, les événements restants étant produits majoritairement par le processus de production dominant ggH. L'impact de la modélisation du moment transverse du Higgs, dans son mode de production par fusion de gluons, est aussi estimé. Les derniers développements théoriques dans ce domaine permettent d'atteindre une précision à l'ordre NNLO+NNLL (QCD), avec la prise en compte de l'effet des masses finies des quarks top et bottom dans la boucle jusqu'à l'ordre NLO+NLL, implémentée dans le programme HRes. Une méthode de pondération est dérivée pour prendre en compte ces dernières avancées, en prenant en compte la corrélation avec le nombre de jets. Les résultats finaux sont en bon accord avec les prédictions du Modèle Standard, en prenant en compte les barres d'erreur. A la masse mesurée par la combinaison des canaux diphoton et quatre leptons dans ATLAS, mH = 125.4 +/- 0.4 GeV, la section efficace totale ramenée à celle attendue par le Modèle Standard est : mu = 1.17^{+0.28}_{-0.25} = 1.17 +/- 0.23(stat) ^{+0.10}_{-0.08}(syst) ^{+0.12}_{-0.08}(théorie) et le rapport du nombre d'événements mesurés pour chaque mode de production à celui prédit par le Modèle Standard est : mu_ggH = 1.32 +/- 0.32(stat.) ^{+0.13}_{-0.09}(syst.) ^{+0.19}_{-0.11}(théorie) ; mu_VBF = 0.8 +/- 0.7(stat.) ^{+0.2}_{-0.1}(syst.) ^{+0.2}_{-0.3}(théorie) ; mu_WH = 1.0 +/- 1.5(stat.) ^{+0.3}_{-0.1}(syst.) ^{+0.2}_{-0.1}(théorie) ; mu_ZH = 0.1 ^{+3.6}_{-0.1}(stat.) ^{+0.7}_{-0.0}(syst.) ^{+0.1}_{-0.0}(théorie) ; mu_ttH = 1.6 ^{+2.6}_{-1.8}(stat.) ^{+0.6}_{-0.4}(syst.} ^{+0.5}_{-0.2}(théorie) / After the Higgs boson discovery in the first LHC data, the focus is now on its properties measurement. Among these properties, its couplings are of particular importance since any deviation from the expected value can be an indication of new physics, beyond the Standard Model. This thesis is oriented towards the Higgs couplings measurements with the ATLAS experiment, using the diphoton decay channel. Selected diphoton events are classified into different categories to disentangle the five Higgs production modes by tagging the objects produced in association with the Higgs boson: two jets for the VBF production mode, lepton and missing transverse energy for the higgsstrahlung (WH and ZH), b-jets for ttH, the remaining events being mostly produced via the dominant production mode ggH. The impact of the Higgs pT modelling in the ggH production mode is also investigated. Theoretical developments provide predictions of the pT shape at NNLO+NNLL accuracy, including top and bottom mass effects in the loop up to NLO+NLL, implemented in the HRes program. A reweighting technique to take into account these latest theoretical improvements is derived, taking into consideration the correlation with the number of jets. Its impact on the final measurement is estimated to be of the order of a few percent. The final couplings results, measured at the Higgs mass obtained by the combination of the H->gamma gamma and H->ZZ*->4l channels in ATLAS (mH = 125.4 +/- 0.4 GeV) do not show any statistically significant deviation from the Standard Model. The observed signal strength mu = sigma^{obs} / sigma^{exp} is found to be: mu = 1.17^{+0.28}_{-0.25} = 1.17 +/- 0.23(stat) ^{+0.10}_{-0.08}(syst) ^{+0.12}_{-0.08}(theory). The ratio of the observed number of events in each production mode to the expected ones are measured at: mu_ggH = 1.32 +/- 0.32(stat.) ^{+0.13}_{-0.09}(syst.) ^{+0.19}_{-0.11}(theory) ; mu_VBF = 0.8 +/- 0.7(stat.) ^{+0.2}_{-0.1}(syst.) ^{+0.2}_{-0.3}(theory) ; mu_WH = 1.0 +/- 1.5(stat.) ^{+0.3}_{-0.1}(syst.) ^{+0.2}_{-0.1}(theory) ; mu_ZH = 0.1 ^{+3.6}_{-0.1}(stat.) ^{+0.7}_{-0.0}(syst.) ^{+0.1}_{-0.0}(theory) ; mu_ttH = 1.6 ^{+2.6}_{-1.8}(stat.) ^{+0.6}_{-0.4}(syst.} ^{+0.5}_{-0.2}(theory)