<p> </p><p>Radioactive waste has been accumulated at CERN as unavoidable consequence of the use of particle accelerators. The elimination of this waste towards the final repositories in France and Switzerland requires the determination of the radionuclide inventory. In order to calculate the residual induced radioactivity in the waste, it is necessary to determine the spectra of secondary particles which are responsible for the material activation. In complex irradiation environments like in an accelerator tunnel it is expected that the secondary particle spectra vary with the characteristics of the machine components in a given section of tunnel. In order to obtain the production rates of the radionuclides of interest the spectra of secondary particles are to be folded with the appropriate cross sections. Though technically feasible, it would be impractical to calculate the particle spectra in every area of any machine and for all possible beam loss mechanisms. Moreover, a fraction of the waste has unknown radiological history, which makes it impossible to associate an item of waste to a precise area of the machine. Therefore it is useful to try to calculate “representative spectra”, which shall apply to a relatively large part of the accelerator complex at CERN. This thesis is dedicated to the calculation of representative spectra in the arcs of the 450 GeV proton synchrotron, SPS, at CERN. The calculations have been performed using the Monte Carlo code FLUKA. Extensive simulations have been done to assess the dependence of proton, neutron and pion spectra on beam energy, size of the nearby machine component and position with respect to the beam-loss point. The results obtained suggest that it is possible to define one single set of representative spectra for all the arcs of the SPS accelerator, with a minor error associated with the use of these. </p><p> </p>

<p>The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is presently under construction at CERN. The LHC is a circular accelerator that stores proton beams and accelerates them to a 7 TeV beam energy for high energy physics research. The required bending and focusing/defocusing fields are achieved with superconducting magnets.</p><p>Such a superconducting magnet-based accelerator can be controlled only when the field errors of production and installation of all magnetic elements are known to the required accuracy. The ideal way to compensate the field errors is to have direct diagnostics on the beam. For the LHC, however, a system solely based on beam feedback may be too demanding. The present baseline for the LHC control system hence requires an accurate forecast of the magnetic field and the multipole field errors to reduce the burden on the beam-based feedback. The field model is the core of this magnetic prediction system, also known as \emph{the Field Description for the LHC} (FIDEL). The model will provide the forecast of the magnetic field at a given time, magnet operating current, magnet ramp rate, magnet temperature, and magnet powering history. The model is based on the identification and physical decomposition of the effects that contribute to the total field in the magnet aperture of the LHC dipoles.</p><p>This thesis presents the tool that was constructed to ease the detection, identification and finally correction of errors in the raw data from the series measurements of the main dipoles of the LHC. The results after cleaning all measurement data for the over 240 dipoles measured at cold, using this tool, is also presented.</p><p>Another aspect of the Thesis is the presentation of a procedure devised to extract the model parameters for the main dipole magnets of the LHC by using the cleaned data. The procedure and the model are verified and validated by application to the magnets of the 7-8 sector of the LHC.</p>

High energy photon induced processes at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) constitutes a unique testing ground for physics within and beyond the Standard Model of Elementary Particles. Colliding protons can interact by the exchange of one or two high energy photons, leading to very clean final state topologies. Several issues related to the study of photon interactions at the LHC are addressed in this Thesis. The detection of forward scattered protons, after the photon exchange, requires near-beam detectors. Developments of edgeless sensor prototypes have been realised as possible solutions for such an application. A proper design of these detectors has required developing a dedicated simulator (Hector) for the transport of charged particles particles in beamlines. Finally, the analyses of detection in the CMS experiment of the photon-induced exclusive production of lepton pairs are presented. In view of application early from the LHC start-up, in particular for the absolute luminosity measurement – the fundamental parameter of the LHC.

The discovery of a charged Higgs boson (H+) would be an unambiguous sign of physics beyond the Standard Model. This thesis describes preparations for the H+ search with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The H+ discovery potential is evaluated, and tools for H+ searches are developed and refined. The H+→τν decay mode has been known as the most promising H+ discovery channel. Within this thesis, first studies of this channel with realistic detector simulation, trigger simulation and consideration of all dominant systematic uncertainties have been performed. Although, as shown by these studies, the discovery sensitivity is significantly degraded compared to studies using a parametrized detector simulation, this channel remains the most powerful ATLAS H+ discovery mode. Future searches will rely on multivariate analysis techniques like the Iterative Discriminant Analysis (IDA) method. First studies indicate that a significant sensitivity increase can be achieved compared to studies based on sequential cuts. The largest uncertainty in H+ searches is the expected $t\bar{t}$ background contribution. It is shown that numbers obtained from simulated events could be off by a factor of two, decreasing the discovery sensitivity dramatically. In this thesis, the Embedding Method for data-driven background estimation is presented. By replacing the muon signature in $t\bar{t}$ events with a simulated τ, events which allow an estimation of the background contribution at the 10% level are obtained. The ATLAS τ identification focuses on comparably clean environments like Z and W decays. To optimize the performance in high-multiplicity events like H+→τν, tau leptons are studied in $t\bar{t}$ and pile-up events. Variables which do not show discrimination power in high-multiplicity events are identified, and in some cases similar, more powerful variables are found. This allows to recover some of the performance loss and to increase the robustness of the τ identification. For the analysis of large amounts of data produced by the ATLAS detector, seamless interoperability of the various Grid flavors is required. This thesis introduces translators to overcome differences in the information system between a number of Grid projects,and highlights important areas for future standardization.

Radioactive waste has been accumulated at CERN as unavoidable consequence of the use of particle accelerators. The elimination of this waste towards the final repositories in France and Switzerland requires the determination of the radionuclide inventory. In order to calculate the residual induced radioactivity in the waste, it is necessary to determine the spectra of secondary particles which are responsible for the material activation. In complex irradiation environments like in an accelerator tunnel it is expected that the secondary particle spectra vary with the characteristics of the machine components in a given section of tunnel. In order to obtain the production rates of the radionuclides of interest the spectra of secondary particles are to be folded with the appropriate cross sections. Though technically feasible, it would be impractical to calculate the particle spectra in every area of any machine and for all possible beam loss mechanisms. Moreover, a fraction of the waste has unknown radiological history, which makes it impossible to associate an item of waste to a precise area of the machine. Therefore it is useful to try to calculate “representative spectra”, which shall apply to a relatively large part of the accelerator complex at CERN. This thesis is dedicated to the calculation of representative spectra in the arcs of the 450 GeV proton synchrotron, SPS, at CERN. The calculations have been performed using the Monte Carlo code FLUKA. Extensive simulations have been done to assess the dependence of proton, neutron and pion spectra on beam energy, size of the nearby machine component and position with respect to the beam-loss point. The results obtained suggest that it is possible to define one single set of representative spectra for all the arcs of the SPS accelerator, with a minor error associated with the use of these.

The construction of a high intensity neutrino source requires multi megawatt beams and challenges the targets in use. MERIT is a proof-of-principle test for a novel kind of neutrino factory target, employing a 24 GeV/c proton beam and a 1 cm in diameter free mercury jet as beam target. This thesis describes the design and implementation of a secondary particle flux production detection system. Employed detectors are polycrystalline diamond detectors and electron multipliers. Simulations of the secondary particle production have been made using FLUKA. The detection system is remotely controlled by a LabView interface and experimental observations from the initial analysis are presented.

Cette thèse présente la mise en évidence dans l'expérience CMS d'un nouveau boson dans la voie H→ZZ et la contribution à la découverte de ce nouveau boson à une masse proche de 125 GeV dans l'expérience CMS au CERN. La mesure des propriétés est passée en revue. Les résultats sont obtenus par une analyse inclusive du canal H→ZZ→ 4l , i.e. où chacun des bosons Z se désintègre en une paire de leptons (l ), électrons ou muons. La recherche du boson de Higgs couvre toutes les hypothèses de masse dans le domaine 110 < mH < 1000 GeV. L'analyse utilise les données de collisions proton-proton enregistrées par le détecteur CMS au collisionneur LHC, correspondants à des luminosités intégrées de 5.1 fb^−1 a sqrt(s) = 7 TeV et 12.2 fb^−1 at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. Le nouveau boson est observé avec une signifiance statistique au-desus du bruit de fond attendu de 4.5 écarts standards. L'intensité du signal μ, normalisé à l'attendu pour le boson de Higgs du modèle standard, est mesuré à une valeur de μ = 0.80+0.35-0.28 a 126 GeV. Une mesure précise de la masse du nouveau boson a été effectué et donne 126.2 ± 0.6 (stat) ±0.2 (syst) GeV. L'hypothèse d'un boson scalaire 0+ est en accord avec l'observation. Les données expérimentales défavorisent l'hypothèse pseudoscalaire 0− avec CLs de 2.4%. Aucun autre excès significatif n'est observé, et des limites supérieures d'exclusions sont obtenues à 95% de niveau de confiance pour les domaines 113-116 GeV et 129-720 GeV, alors que la domaine d'exclusion attendue en absence du boson de Higgs est de 118-670 GeV. Pour cette thèse, une emphase particulière a été mis sur l'isolation des leptons. L'isolation des leptons fait parties des observables clefs sur le chemin de la découverte. En même temps, l'isolation est très sensible aux conditions pile-up de la machine LHC. Cette thèse établit une méthode robuste qui permet de marginaliser l'effet de pile-up sur l'isolation. La méthode est maintenant utilisée à travers les différentes analyses de CMS. Une attention particulière a également été mis sur les mesures de l'efficacité de l'identification des leptons, l'isolation et le paramètre d'impact directement à partir de données à l'aide désintégrations leptoniques de boson Z . Les mesures ont été utilisées pour les corrections finales appliquées aux leptons lors du calcul de la signifiance statistique de l'excès des événements à quatre leptons.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest machine ever built, with a total circumference of 26.7 km; and it is the most powerful accelerator ever, both in beam energy and beam intensity. The main magnets are superconducting, keeping the particles into two counter circulating beams, which collide in four interaction points. CERN and the LHC will be described in chap. 1. The superconducting magnets of the LHC have to be protected against particle losses. Depending on the number of lost particles, the coils of the magnets will become normal conducting and/or will be damaged. To avoid these events a beam loss monitoring (BLM) system was installed to measure the particle loss rates. If the predefined safe thresholds of loss rates are exceeded, the beams are directed out of the accelerator ring towards the beam dump. The detectors of the BLM system are mainly ionization chambers located outside of the cryostats. In total, about 3500 ionisation chambers are installed. Further challenges include the high dynamical range of losses (chamber currents ranging between 2 pA and 1 mA). The BLM system will be further described in chap. 2. The subject of this thesis is to study the loss patterns and find the origin of the losses in a deterministic way, by comparing measured losses to well understood loss scenarios. This is done through a case study: different techniques were used on a restrained set of loss scenarios, as a proof of concept of the possibility to extract information from a loss profile. Finding the origin of the losses should allow acting in response. A justification of the doctoral work will be given at the end of chap. 2. Then, this thesis will focus on the theoretical understanding and the implementation of the decomposition of a measured loss profile as a linear combination of the reference scenarios; and the evaluation of the error on the recomposition and its correctness. The principles of vector decomposition are developed in chap. 3. An ensemble of well controlled loss scenarios (such as vertical and horizontal blow-up of the beams or momentum offset during collimator loss maps) has been gathered, in order to allow the study and creation of reference vectors. To achieve the Vector Decomposition, linear algebra (matrix inversion) is used with the numeric algorithm for the Singular Value Decomposition. Additionally, a specific code for vector projection on a non-orthogonal basis of a hyperplane was developed. The implementation of the vector decomposition on the LHC data is described in chap. 4. After this, the use of the decomposition tools systematically on the time evolution of the losses will be described: first as a study of the variations second by second, then by comparison to a calculated default loss profile. The different ways to evaluate the variation are studied, and are presented in chap. 5. The next chapter (6) describes the gathering of decomposition results applied to beam losses of 2011. The vector decomposition is applied on every second of the ''stable beans'' periods, as a study of the spatial distribution of the loss. Several comparisons of the results given by the decompositions with measurements from other LHC instruments allowed different validations. Eventually, a global conclusion on the interest of the vector decomposition is given. Then, the extra chapter in Appendix A describes the code which was developed to access the BLM data, to represent them in a meaningful way, and to store them. This included connecting to different databases. The whole instrument uses ROOT objects to send SQL queries to the databases, as well as java API, and is coded in Python. A short glossary of the acronyms used here can be found at the end, before the bibliography.

AEGIS (Antimatter Experiment, Gravity, Interferometry and Spectroscopy) isan experiment under development at CERN which will measure earth's gravitationalforce on antimatter. This will be done by creating a horizontal pulsedbeam of low energy antihydrogen, an atom consisting of an antiproton anda positron. The experiment will measure the vertical de ection of the beamthrough which it is possible to calculate the gravitational constant for antimatter.To characterise the production process in the current state of the experimentit is necessary to develop an imaging detector for single excited hydrogenatoms. This thesis covers the design phase of that detector and includes studiesand tests of detector components. Following literature studies, tests and havingdiscarded several potential designs, a baseline design was chosen. The suggesteddetector will contain a set of ionising rings followed by an electron multiplyingmicrochannel plate, a light emitting phosphor screen, a lens system and nallya CCD camera for readout. The detector will be able to detect single hydrogenatoms, measure their time of ight as well as being able to image electronplasmas and measure the time of ight of the initial particles in such a plasma.Tests were made to determine the behaviour of microchannel plates at the lowtemperatures used in the experiment. Especially, the resistance and multiplicationfactor of the microchannel plates have been measured at temperaturesdown to 14 K. / AEGIS

The current paper presents a study conducted at CERN, Switzerland, to investigate visitors' and tour guides' use and appreciation of existing panels at visit itinerary points. The results were used to develop a set of recommendations for constructing optimal panels to assist the guides' explanation.