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.

The impressive progress that elementary particle physics made in the second half of the last century led to the formulation of a comprehensive theory, known as the Standard Model (SM), which correctly describes all fundamental interactions in nature, except for the gravitational one. Indirect discoveries have always played an important role in high energy physics scenario and indirect research can be considered to all intents and purposes complementary to the direct one, since allows to test much higher energy scales than those the current colliders are able to reach. This is very important now that electroweak precision tests and measurements on Flavour Changing Neutral Currents (FCNC) processes put very stringent constraints on physics beyond the SM, requiring it to appear at scales O(10 TeV). On the other hand, New Physics (NP) is expected already at scales O(1 TeV) in order to offer a natural explanation to the smallness of the Higgs mass. This scale is also confirmed by recent constraints on thermal dark matter [1] which show how new physics should manifest not far above the electroweak scale. Rare B decays have always played a crucial role in shaping the flavour structure of the SM and particle physics in general. Since the first measurement of rare radiative B æ Kú“ decays by the CLEO Collaboration [2] this area of particle physics has received much experimental and theoretical attention. In particular, FCNC B decays, involving the b-quark transition b æ (s, d) + “ and b æ (s, d) + ¸+¸≠(¸ = e, μ, ·, ‹), provided crucial tests for the SM at the quantum level since they proceed through loop or box diagrams, and they are highly suppressed in the SM (also by helicity). Hence, these rare B decays are characterised by their high sensitivity to NP. The B0 s æ μ+μ≠ channel is the most direct example of the b æ s ¸¸ transitions. The SM predicted branching ratio [3] can be enhanced by coupling to non-SM heavy particles, such as those predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and other extensions. Updated measurements on the B0 s æ μ+μ≠ branching ratio have been presented by ATLAS [4], LHCb [5] and CMS [6] collaborations. In this thesis I will report all the studies I performed within the rare B decays ATLAS group, measuring the branching ratio of the B0 s æ μ+μ≠ channel on data collected during LHC Run 1. The first chapter provides a general introduction to the SM, focusing in particular on the flavour sector and the possible new physics scenarios. Chapter 2 briefly introduces the LHC collider and the ATLAS detector, detailing the muon and trigger systems, fundamental for the rare B decays measurements. In chapters 3 and 4, I will summarise the work done, during my presence at CERN, on the ATLAS semiconductor strip detector, monitoring the Lorentz angle during Run 1 and measuring the backplane resistance of the silicon modules installed in the ATLAS cavern. In chapter 5, I will review the strategy adopted to measure the B0 s æ μ+μ≠ branching ratio, reporting all the studies I performed on the combinatorial background, and the results obtained on 4.9 fb≠1 of data collected in 2011. Chapters 6 and 7 detail respectively the additional studies I performed on the 2011 datasets and all the tests I made in preparation for the analysis on 20 fb≠1 of data collected in 2012. I will show the studies on the discriminating variables for the rejection of the background, the tests on the multivariate analysis and on the possible strategies for the invariant mass fit for the extraction of the signal yield. All these studies proved to be fundamental for the 2012 measurement detailed in chapter 8.

Particle physics deals with the elementary constituents of our universe and their interactions. The electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism in the Standard Model of Particle Physics is of paramount importance and it plays a central role in the physics programmes of current high-energy physics experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. The study of scattering processes of massive electroweak gauge bosons provides an approach complementary to the precise measurement of the properties of the recently discovered Higgs boson. Owing to the unprecedented energies achieved in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider and the large amount of data collected, experimental studies of these processes become feasible for the first time. Especially the scattering of two W± bosons of identical electric charge is considered a promising process for an initial study due to its distinct experimental signature. In the course of this work, 20.3 fb−1 of proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 8 TeV are analysed. An analysis of the production of two W± bosons of identical electric charge in association with two jets, pp → W ± W ± jj, is conducted in the leptonic decay channel of the W± bosons. Thereby, emphasis is put on the development of methods for the estimation of experimental backgrounds as well as on the optimisation of the event selection. As a result of this work, first experimental evidence for the existence of the aforementioned process is established with an observed significance of 4.9. Based on the number of observed events in the selected phase space the extracted fiducial cross section is σ(fid) = (2.3 ± 0.5(stat.) +0.4/−0.3 (sys.)) fb which is in agreement with the prediction of the Standard Model of σ(fid,SM) = (1.6 ± 0.2) fb. Of particular theoretical interest are electroweak contributions to the pp → W ± W ± jj process due to their sensitivity to the nature of the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism. Criteria for a dedicated event selection are investigated and implemented in the analysis with the goal of enhancing the sensitivity to these contributions. First experimental evidence for the presence of electroweak contributions to the pp → W ± W ± jj process can be claimed with an observed significance of 4.1. The cross section extracted in the selected phase space region is found to be σ(fid) = (1.7 +0.5/−0.4 (stat.) ± 0.3(sys.)) fb which is 1.3 standard deviations above the theoretical prediction of the Standard Model of σ(fid,SM) = (1.0 ± 0.1) fb. A variety of extensions to the Standard Model predict modifications to the electroweak gauge sector. In the context of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian, which serves as an effective approximation of these theories in the energy regime E = 1 − 3 TeV, anomalous contributions to the quartic WWWW gauge coupling can be described by the parameters α4 and α5 . The selection of events is optimised again to enhance the sensitivity to these two parameters. On the basis of the number of events observed in this phase space region, the following one-dimensional confidence intervals at the 95% confidence level are derived: −0.09 ≤ α4 ≤ 0.10 and −0.15 ≤ α5 ≤ 0.15. At present, these limits represent the most stringent constraints on contributions from new physics processes to the quartic WWWW gauge coupling.

The Standard Model of particle physics attempts to unify the fundamental forces in the Universe (except gravity). Over the years it has been tested in numerous experiments. While these experimental results strengthen our understanding of the SM, they also point out directions for physics beyond the SM. In this thesis we assume supersymmetry (SUSY) to be the new physics beyond the SM. We have tried to analyze the present status of low energy SUSY after the recent results from direct (collider) and indirect (flavor, dark matter) searches .We have tried to see the complementarity between these apparently different experimental results and search strategies from the context of low energy SUSY. We show that such complementarity does exist in well-defined models of SUSY breaking like mSUGRA, NUHM etc. The first chapter outlines the present status of the SM and discusses about the unanswered questions in SM. Keeping SUSY as the new physics beyond the SM, we also detail about its present experimental status. Chapter1 ends with the motivation and comprehensive description about each chapter of the thesis. In chapter2, we present an introduction to formal structure of SUSY algebra and the structure of MSSM. One of the such complementarities we have studied is between flavor and dark matter. In general flavor violation effects are not considered when studying DM regions in minimal SUSY models like mSUGRA. If however flavor violation does get generated through non-minimal SUSY breaking sector, one of the most susceptible regions would be the co-annihilation region for neutralino DM. In chapter 3 we consider flavor violation in the sleptonic sector and study its implications on the stau co-annihilation region. In this work we have taken flavor violation between the right-handed smuon (˜µR) and stau (˜τR). Due to this flavor mixing the lightest slepton (ĺ1) is a flavor mixed state. We have studied the effect of such ĺ11’s in the ‘stau co-annihilation’ region of the parameter space, where the relic density of the neutralinos gets depleted due to efficient co-annihilation with the staus. Limits on the flavor violating insertion in the right-handed sleptonic sector mainly comes from BR(τ → µγ). These limits are weak in some regions of the Parameter space where cancellations happen with in the amplitudes. We look for overlaps in parameter space where both the co-annihilation condition as well as the cancellations with in the amplitudes occur. We have shown that in models with non-universal Higgs boundary conditions (NUHM) overlap between these two regions is possible. The effect of flavor violation is two fold: (a) It shifts the co-annihilation regions towards lighter neutralino masses and (b) the co-annihilation cross sections would be modified with the inclusion of flavor violating diagrams which can contribute significantly. In the overlap regions, the flavor violating cross sections become comparable and in some cases even dominant to the flavor conserving ones. A comparison among the different flavor conserving and flavor violating channels, which contribute to the neutralino annihilation cross-section, is presented. One of the challenges of addressing quantitatively the complementarity problems is the lack of proper spectrum generator (numerical tools which computes SUSY sparticle spectrum in the presence of flavor violation in the sfermionic sector). For the lack of a publicly available code which considers general flavor violating terms in the renormalization group equations (RGE) we have developed a SUSY spectrum calculator, named as SuSeFLAV .It is a code written in FORTRAN language and calculates SUSY particle spectrum (with in the context of gravity mediation) in type I seesaw, in the presence of heavy right handed neutrinos (RHN). SuSeFLAV also calculates the SUSY spectrum in other type of SUSY breaking mechanisms (e.g. gauge mediation). The renormalization group (RG) flow of soft-SUSY breaking terms will generate large off-diagonal terms in the slepton sector in the presence of this RHNs, which will give rise to sizable amount of flavor violating (LFV) decays at the weak scale. Hence, in this code we also calculate the different rare LFV decays like, µ → eγ, τ → µγ etc. In SuSeFLAV the user has the freedom to choose the scale of the RHNs as well as the mixing matrix in neutrino sector. It is also possible to choose the values of the SUSY breaking input parameters at the user defined scale. The details of this package is discussed in chapter 4. Many of the present studies of complementarity between the direct and indirect searches are inadequate to address realistic scenarios, where SUSY breaking could be much more general compared to the minimal models. The work in this thesis is a step to wards this direction. Having said that, in the present thesis we have considered modifications of popular models with either explicit flavor violating terms (in some sectors) or sources of flavor violation through new particles and new couplings motivated by strong phenomenological reasons like neutrino masses. It should be noted however, the numerical tool which has been developed during the thesis can be used to address more complicated problems like with complete flavor violation in models of SUSY breaking. One of the popular mechanisms of neutrino mass generation is the so called Seesaw Mechanism. Depending on the extra matter sector present in the theory there are three basic types of them. The type I seesaw, which has singlet bright-handed neutrinos, the type II seesaw contains scalar triplets and type III seesaw has additional fermionic triplets. One of the implications of the seesaw mechanism is flavor violation in the sfermionic sector even in the presence of flavor universal SUSY breaking. This leads to a complementarity between flavor experiments and direct SUSY searches at LHC. With the announcement of the results from the reactor neutrino oscillation experiments, the reactor mixing angle (θ13) in the neutrino mixing matrix (PMNS matrix) gets fixed to a rather large non-zero value. In SO (10) GUT theories neutrino Yukawa couplings of type I seesaw gets related to the up-type fermion sector of the SM. In chapter 5 we update the status of SUSY type I seesaw assuming SO (10)- like relations for neutrino Dirac Yukawa couplings and two cases of mixing, one large, PMNS-like, and another small, CKM-like, are considered. It is shown that for the large mixing case, only a small range of parameter space with moderate tan β is still allowed. It is shown that the renormalization group induced flavor violating slepton mass terms are highly sensitive to the Higgs boundary conditions. Depending on the choice of the parameters, they can either lead to strong enhancements or cancellations with in the flavor violating terms. We have shown that in NUHM scenario there could be possible cancellations which relaxes the severe constraints imposed by lepton flavor violation compared to mSUGRA. We further updated the flavor consequences for the type II seesaw in SUSY theories. As mentioned previously in type II seesaw neutrino mass gets generated due to exchange of heavy SU (2) L triplet Higgs field. The ratio of lepton flavor violating branching ratios (e.g. BR(τ → µγ) /BR (µ → eγ) etc.) are functions of low energy neutrino masses ans mixing angles. In chapter 6 we have analyzed how much these ratios become, after the experimental measurement of θ13, in the whole SUSY parameter space or in other words how much these ratios help to constrain the SUSY parameter space. We compute different factors which can affect this ratios. We have shown that the cMSSM-like scenarios, in which slepton masses are taken to be universal at the high scale, predict 3.5 BR(τ → µγ) / BR(µ → eγ) 30 for normal hierarchical neutrino masses. We Show that the current MEG limit puts severe constraints on the light sparticle spectrum in cMSSM-like model for seesaw scale with in1013 - 1015 GeV. These constraints can be relaxed and relatively light sparticle spectrum can be still allowed by MEG result in a class of models in which the soft mass of triplet scalar is taken to be non-universal at the GUT scale. In chapter 7 we have analyzed the effect of largen eutrino Yukawa couplings on the supersymmetric lightest Higgs mass. In July 2012, ATLAS and CMS collaboration have updated the Higgs search in LHC and found an evidence of a scalar particle having mass around 125 GeV. The one-loop contribution to Higgs mass mainly depends on the top trilinear couplings (At), the SUSY scale and the top Yukawa (Yt). Thus in models with extra large Yukawa couplings at the high scale like the seesaw mechanism ,the renormalization scaling of the At parameter can get significantly affected. This in turn can modify the light Higgs mass at the weak scale for the same set of SUSY parameters. We have shown in type I seesaw with (Yν ~ 3Yu) the light Higgs mass gets reduced by 2 - 3 GeV in most of the parameter rspace. In other words the SUSY scale must be pushed high enough to achieve similar Higgs mass compared to the cMSSM scenario. We have got similar effect in SUSY type III seesaw scenario with (Yν ~Yu) at the GUT scale. In chapter 8 we summarize the results of the thesis and discuss the possible future directions.