The LHC and the ATLAS detector offer an unprecedented opportunity to test theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Some of these theories predict heavy particles that would decay predominantly into a top and an antitop quark. This thesis presents a technique to experimentally measure the invariant mass (Mtt) of top-antitop pairs, event-by-event, allowing for a complete reconstruction of the Mtt spectrum. Two different models of heavy narrow resonances were considered: a particle X with a negligible mass width, and a Z' particle. Under these models, no resonances in the Mtt spectrum were found in 35.3 pb-1 of 7 TeV centre of mass proton-proton collision data. An upper limit on the production cross section times the branching ratio of the heavy particle decaying into a top-antitop (Sup) as a function of its mass (Mx or Mz) was established at a 95% confidence level. Including systematic errors, the observed (expected) Sup at 95% varies from 3.2 pb (27.9 +11.3 -19.9 pb) to 77.7 pb (9.8 +10.7 -5.6 pb) for Mx ranging from 760 GeV to 1000 GeV, and from 2.9 pb (55.9 +56.9 -47.0 pb) to 43.4 pb (7.8 +8.9 -4.7 pb) for Mz ranging from 700 GeV to 1000 GeV. / Graduate

Eine Messung der W-Boson Polarisation in Topquark-Zerfaellen wird vorgestellt. Es wurden Topquarks untersucht, welche in Proton-Proton Kollisionen bei einer Schwerpunktsenergie von sqrt{s} = 7 TeV am LHC erzeugt wurden. Der Datensatz basiert auf einer integrierten Luminositaet von 4.7 fb-1 und wurde mit dem ATLAS-Detektor gesammelt. Die Messung wurde im Lepton+Jets Kanal durchgefuehrt, welcher durch ein isoliertes Elektron oder Myon, fehlende transversale Energie und mindestens vier Jets charakterisiert wird. Einer der Jets muss als b-Jet identifiziert sein. Zum Studium der W-Boson Polarisation wurde die Winkelverteilung des geladenen Leptons im Ruhesystem des W-Bosons verwendet. Das Ereignis wurde vollstaendig mit Hilfe eines kinematischen Likelihood-Fits rekonstruiert. Die Anteile der linkshaendigen, rechtshaendigen und longitudinal polarisierten W-Bosonen wurden durch einen gebinnten Likelihood-Fit an die Datenverteilung bestimmt. Ein kombinierter Likelihood-Fit wird durchgefuehrt, um die W-Helizitaetsanteile fuer den Lepton+Jets Kanal zu bestimmen.

La première partie de cette thèse porte sur l'amélioration de l'algorithme de l'étape d'initiation de reconstruction des traces de hadrons et de muons au sein du trajectographe au silicium de l'expérience CMS. Les différentes étapes de mise au point et de tests, qui ont permis d'aboutir à la qualification de ce nouvel algorithme en tant que méthode standard d'initiation de la reconstruction des traces, sont présentées dans ce document.La deuxième partie concerne la mise en place d'une méthode alternative de mesure de la section efficace de production des paires top-antitop dans l'expérience CMS lors du démarrage du LHC. Cette analyse est effectuée à partir du canal de désintégration semi-muonique avec au moins un muon supplémentaire provenant d'un des quarks bottom et a été réalisée en simulation complète démontrant ainsi la possibilité d'une "redécouverte" possible du quark top avec 5 pb-1. Les 2.4 pb-1 de données réelles obtenues à la fin du mois d'Août m'ont permis d'observer les premières paires top-antitop et d'effectuer une première mesure de section efficace : 171±77(stat.) ±27(syst.) pb

Read-out channels in the liquid argon (LAr) calorimeter of the ATLAS detector are susceptible to various kinds of faults, which can impair the selection of events made by the trigger system. General-purpose software tools have been developed for dealing with problematic calorimeter channels. In order to give High-Level Trigger (HLT) algorithms robustness against detector problems, these tools have been applied in the HLT calorimeter data preparation code to mask problematic channels in the LAr calorimeter. Timing measurements and optimizations have been conducted to assess and minimize the impact of these operations on the execution speed of HLT algorithms. The efficacy of the bad-channel masking has been demonstrated using cosmic-ray data.

Many ATLAS analyses study events with muons in them including those searching for the Higgs boson and new physics. Cosmics muons, however, can also occasionally enter the detector and mimic the trajectory of a muon from one of the collisions produced by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. By understanding the different ways ATLAS triggers on, collects, reconstructs, and analyses data from cosmic rays and collisions, the flux of cosmic muons with transverse momenta above 20 GeV in the central region of the detector was measured to be 1.34 ± 0.06 (stat.) s^−1 m^−2 . At the same time the cosmic muon charge ratio has been measured to be 1.3 ± 0.1 (stat.). This measurement of the cosmic muon flux in ATLAS is the first step in quantifying the sizes of the cosmic muon backgrounds to various physics analyses that look for events with muons. / Graduate

The LHC and the ATLAS detector offer an unprecedented opportunity to test theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Some of these theories predict heavy particles that would decay predominantly into a top and an antitop quark. This thesis presents a technique to experimentally measure the invariant mass (Mtt) of top-antitop pairs, event-by-event, allowing for a complete reconstruction of the Mtt spectrum. Two different models of heavy narrow resonances were considered: a particle X with a negligible mass width, and a Z' particle. Under these models, no resonances in the Mtt spectrum were found in 35.3 pb-1 of 7 TeV centre of mass proton-proton collision data. An upper limit on the production cross section times the branching ratio of the heavy particle decaying into a top-antitop (Sup) as a function of its mass (Mx or Mz) was established at a 95% confidence level. Including systematic errors, the observed (expected) Sup at 95% varies from 3.2 pb (27.9 +11.3 -19.9 pb) to 77.7 pb (9.8 +10.7 -5.6 pb) for Mx ranging from 760 GeV to 1000 GeV, and from 2.9 pb (55.9 +56.9 -47.0 pb) to 43.4 pb (7.8 +8.9 -4.7 pb) for Mz ranging from 700 GeV to 1000 GeV. / Graduate

This paper presents an outline of the generation of mass for the massive Standard Model particles (fermions, $W^\pm$, $Z^0$) through electroweak symmetry breaking via the Higgs mechanism, and how the Higgs boson emerges from this framework. A Monte Carlo study was done on the decay $H\rightarrow\tau\tau$, with one leptonically and one hadronically decaying tau, with two different production channels for the $H$, gluon-gluon fusion (gg) and vector boson fusion (VBF), at $\sqrt s = 7\tev$ with a Higgs mass $m_H = 120\gev$. The kinematics of these two production channels were compared and it was found that the transverse momentum of muons produced in VBF were higher on average than those produced in gg. This differance was greater in muons originating from the leptonically decaying tau in the Higgs decay, than those produced by other processes in the underlying event. In the latter, however, the difference was still noticable. Jets were slightly more abundant in VBF than in gg, and were in VBF more distributed along the beam axis. The separation in pseudorapidity between the two jets with highest transverse momentum was found to be greater in VBF than in gg. An attempt to reconstruct the Higgs mass using Monte Carlo data run through a simulation of the ATLAS detector was done. The estimator used was the transverse mass of the system consisting of the visible part of the hadronically decaying tau, the lepton from the leptonically decaying tau and the total missing transvese energy. In gg the mean of the transvese mass distribution was found to be $89.26\gev$ with a root mean square uncertainty (RMS) of $23.86\gev$. In VBF the mean was found to be $85.57\gev$ with RMS $27.08\gev$.

ALFA (Absolute Luminosity for ATLAS) vise à mesurer la luminosité absolue pour l'expérience ATLAS avec une incertitude de 2 - 3\% et la section efficace totale. La luminosité est reliée au nombre d'événements. Plus la luminosité est élevée, plus le nombre d'événements est élevé. C'est donc une quantité importante pour les collisionneurs en général et notamment pour le LHC (Large Hadron Collider). LHC est constitué de deux faisceaux circulant dans deux chambres à vide différentes et collisionnant aux quatre points d'interaction où les principales expériences de physique sont positionnées (ATLAS, CMS, ALICE et LHCb). Les détecteurs constituant ALFA insérés dans des Pots Romains sont positionnés à 240 m de distance du point d'intéraction d'ATLAS après six quadrîpoles et deux dipôles qui constituent la partie de ligne faisceau utile à ALFA et localisée sur le LHC.Les détecteurs sont constitués de fibres scintillantes pour détecter les protons élastiques issus du Point d'Interaction. Ces protons sont transportés au travers des différents aimants qui constituent la ligne de faisceau considérée et qui nécessite une optimisation des paramètres optiques pour les besoins de la mesure. Nous appellerons les optiques fort β, les optiques utilisées durant les périodes expérimentales dédiées à ALFA. Les paramètres des optiques fort β ont été simulés afin de remplir le cahier des charges demandé pour ALFA et elles ont été testées sur le LHC en 2011 et 2012 pendant un certain nombre de périodes expérimentales spécifiques aux optiques fort β sur le LHC.Ces périodes expérimentales se sont terminées en 2013 avant l'arrêt du LHC. Les paramètres optiques ont été mesurés et comparés aux simulations.Certains paramètres ayant des valeurs bien meilleures que celles attendues. Cela a aussi permis de regardes quelques incertitudes sur les paramètres optiques et d'évaluer l'impact de certains de ces paramètres sur la mesure de section efficace totale.

Modern physical experiments often demand advanced instrumentation based on advances in  technology. This work describes four instrumentation physics projects that are based on modern, high-capacity Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, making use of their versatility, programmability, high bandwidth communication interfaces and signal processing capabilities. In the first project, a jet-finding algorithm for the ATLAS detector at the LHC experiment at CERN was developed and implemented, and different verification methods were created to validate the functionality and reliability. The experiment uses a three level trigger system, where the first level uses custom FPGA-based hardware for analysis of collision events in real-time. The second project was an advanced timing and triggering distribution system for the new European X-Ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) facility at DESY in Hamburg. XFEL will enable scientists to study nano structures on the atomic scale. Its laser pulses will have the strongest peak power in the world with extremely short duration and a high repetition rate, which will even allow filming of chemical reactions. The timing system uses modern FPGAs to distribute high-speed signals over optical fibers and to deliver clocks and triggers with high accuracy. The third project was a new data acquisition board based on high-speed ADCs combined with high-performance FPGAs, to process data from segmented Ge-detectors in real-time. The aim was to improve system performance by greatly oversampling and filtering the analog signals to achieve greater effective resolution. Finally, an innovative solution was developed to replace an aging system used at CERN and Stockholm University to test vital electronics in the Tile Calorimeters of the ATLAS detector system. The new system is entirely based on a commercial FPGA development board, where all necessary custom communication protocols were implemented in firmware to emulate obsolete hardware. / Inom området instrumenteringsfysik bedrivs forskning och utveckling av avancerade instrument, som används inom moderna fysikexperiment. Denna avhandling beskriver fyra projekt där programmerbara kretsar (FPGA) har nyckelfunktioner för att lösa krävande instrumenteringsuppgifter. Den första projektet beskriver utveckling och implementering av en algoritm för detektering av partikelskurar efter partikelkollisioner i LHC-experimentets ATLAS-detektor. Experimentet genererar 40 miljoner händelser per sekund, som måste analyseras i real-tid med hjälp av snabba parallella algoritmer. Resultatet avgör vilka händelser som är tillräckligt intressanta för fortsatt noggrannare analys. Den andra projektet beskriver utvecklingen av ett system som distribuerar klock- och trigger-signaler över ett 3 kilometers experimentområde med extrem precision, i den nya röntgenlaseracceleratorn XFEL vid DESY i Hamburg. Vid XFEL kommer man utforska nanostrukturer och till och med filma molekylers kemiska reaktioner. I den tredje projektet beskrivs utvecklingen av ett höghastighets datainsamlingssystem, för segmenterade Ge-detektorer. Genom att översampla signalen med hög hastighet kan man uppnå en bättre noggrannhet i mätningen än vad AD-omvandlarens egna upplösning medger. Detta leder i sin tur  till förbättrade systemprestanda. Slutligen beskrivs en innovativ lösning till ett test system för den elektronik, som Stockholms universitet har levererat till ATLAS detektorn. Det nya systemet ersätter det föregående testsystemet, som är baserad på föråldrade inte längre tillgängliga komponenter. Det nya systemet är dessutom också billigare eftersom det är baserat på ett standard FPGA utvecklingskort. / ATLAS experiment of the Large Hadron Collider experiment / European X-ray Free Electron Laser

This thesis presents the design qualification and construction of the Beam Scintillator Counter (BSC) for the CMS Collaboration at CERN in 2007 - 2008. The BSC detector is designed to aid in the commissioning of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) during the first 2 years of operation and provide technical triggering for beam halo and minimum-bias events. Using plastic scintillator tiles mounted at both ends of CMS, it will detect minimum ionizing particles through the low-to-mid luminosity phases of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) commissioning. During these early phases, the BSC will provide probably the most interesting and widely used data of any of the CMS sub-detectors and will be employed in the track based alignment procedure of the central tracker and commissioning of the Forward Hadron Calorimeter.