The Standard Model (SM) is the fundamental theory describing elementary particles and their main interactions at typical energy scales at collider experiments, the electromagnetic, the weak, and the strong interactions. The more complex underlying structure describing the weak and the strong interactions in the SM compared to the electromagnetic interaction necessitates direct three-point and four-point interactions among the mediators of the weak and strong interactions, called gauge bosons. Such self-interactions do not exist for the gauge boson of the electromagnetic interaction, the photon. While the three-point interaction was studied in detail in earlier collider experiments, the four-point interaction is a fundamental prediction of the SM, which was not observed for the weak interaction when starting this study. One process, where both the three-point as well as the four-point interactions contribute is the scattering of electroweak gauge bosons W, Z, γ also referred to as vector boson scattering (VBS). In the SM, this scattering is mediated by gauge boson self-interactions, or via the exchange of a Higgs boson. The scattering contributions mediated by a Higgs boson are sensitive to the properties of the Higgs boson and the details of the mechanism in which the W and Z bosons acquire their masses, called electroweak symmetry breaking. At hadron colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), VBS is observable in a final state with the decay products of two gauge bosons in combination with two jets. These jets have a distinct signature allowing for good suppression of backgrounds and consequently for studies of the complex final state despite the low cross-sections. The first evidence for a VBS process was presented based on the Run 1 dataset alone by the ATLAS collaboration in the WW → WW channel in the fully leptonic final state. The CMS collaboration published the first observation of VBS in the same channel using data from 2015 and 2016 of Run 2, which was later confirmed by the ATLAS collaboration with contributions by the author, e.g. in the modelling of WZ background processes and associated uncertainties. The second boson channel for which VBS was observed was the WZ/γ → WZ boson channel in the fully leptonic final state. This observation was published by the ATLAS collaboration with significant contributions by the author. The studied dataset was collected with the ATLAS detector at a centre-of-mass energy √s = 13 TeV during 2015 and 2016 of Run 2 of the LHC and amounts to an integrated luminosity of 36.1/fb. In this study, the dataset was re-analysed following the same overall approach but with improvements in several key aspects. A comprehensive overview of available setups for reliable simulations of the signal process is presented. In a modelling study of the available setups, modelling issues in the parton shower simulation of SHERPA and earlier versions of PYTHIA observed in earlier studies are confirmed. The best matrix-element accuracies in available setups are leading-order for the full VBS signal process and next-to-leading-order in the VBF approximation. For upcoming analyses, a leading-order calculation of the full process including an additional QCD emission merged with parton shower simulations is found to be most promising, before full next-to-leading order calculations become available for all boson channels in VBS. Additional emphasis is set on the modelling of backgrounds, mainly WZ diboson production in association with additional QCD emissions as well as the experimental background due to misidentified leptons. A data-driven approach is applied and studied in detail for a reliable estimate of the latter background. Significant improvements to the estimate, e.g. in the form of additional corrections, are found via dedicated tests of the self-consistency of the approach using simulations. Machine-learning algorithms in the form of Boosted-Decision-Trees (BDT) are trained and optimized for improved separation of the background and signal processes. Evidence for the signal process is found with a significance of 3.44 σ using the profile likelihood method in a binned maximum-likelihood fit. The fiducial cross-section is measured to be σ= 1.41 + 0.46 - 0.40(stat) + 0.38 - 0.28 (theo) ± 0.13 (sys) fb , which is in good agreement with the leading-order SM prediction of σ = 1.33 + 0.14 -0.15 fb.:1 Introduction 2 Theoretical Framework 3 Simulations and Modelling Studies 4 Experiment 5 Object and Event Selection 6 Background Estimation 7 Multi-variate Event Classification 8 Uncertainties 9 Cross-section Measurement 10 Conclusions & Outlook

The scattering of electroweak gauge bosons is closely connected to the electroweak gauge symmetry and its spontaneous breaking through the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. Since it contains triple and quartic gauge boson vertices, the measurement of this scattering process allows to probe the self-interactions of weak bosons. The contribution of the Higgs boson to the weak boson scattering amplitude ensures unitarity of the scattering matrix. Therefore, the scattering of massive electroweak gauge bosons is sensitive to deviations from the Standard Model prescription of the electroweak interaction and of the properties of the Higgs boson. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the scattering of massive electroweak gauge bosons is accessible through the measurement of purely electroweak production of two jets and two gauge bosons. No such process has been observed before. Being the channel with the least amount of background from QCD-mediated production of the same final state, the most promising channel for the first measurement of a process containing massive electroweak gauge boson scattering is the one with two like-charge W bosons and two jets in the final state. This thesis presents the first measurement of electroweak production of two jets and two identically charged W bosons, which yields the first observation of a process with contributions from quartic gauge interactions of massive electroweak gauge bosons. An overview of the most important issues in Monte Carlo simulation of vector boson scattering processes with current Monte Carlo generators is given in this work. The measurement of the final state of two jets and two leptonically decaying same-charge W bosons is conducted based on proton-proton collision data with a center-of-mass energy of √s = 8 TeV, taken in 2012 with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The cross section of electroweak production of two jets and two like-charge W bosons is measured with a significance of 3.6 standard deviations to be σ(W± W±jj−EW[fiducial]) = 1.3 ± 0.4(stat.) ± 0.2(syst.) fb in a fiducial phase space region selected to enhance the contribution from W W scattering. The measurement is compatible with the Standard Model prediction of σ(W±W± jj−EW[fiducial]) = 0.95 ± 0.06 fb. Based on this measurement, limits on anomalous quartic gauge couplings are derived. The effect of anomalous quartic gauge couplings is simulated within the framework of an effective chiral Lagrangian unitarized with the K-matrix method. The limits for the anomalous coupling parameters α4 and α5 are found to be −0.14 < α4 < 0.16 and −0.23 < α5 < 0.24 at 95 % confidence level. Furthermore, the prospects for the measurement of the electroweak production of two same-charge W bosons and two jets within the Standard Model and with additional doubly charged resonances after the upgrade of the ATLAS detector and the LHC are investigated. For a high-luminosity LHC with a center-of-mass energy of √s = 14 TeV, the significance of the measurement with an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb^−1 is estimated to be 18.7 standard deviations. It can be improved by 30 % by extending the inner tracking detector of the atlas experiment up to an absolute pseudorapidity of |η| = 4.0.

The scattering of electroweak gauge bosons is closely connected to the electroweak gauge symmetry and its spontaneous breaking through the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism. Since it contains triple and quartic gauge boson vertices, the measurement of this scattering process allows to probe the self-interactions of weak bosons. The contribution of the Higgs boson to the weak boson scattering amplitude ensures unitarity of the scattering matrix. Therefore, the scattering of massive electroweak gauge bosons is sensitive to deviations from the Standard Model prescription of the electroweak interaction and of the properties of the Higgs boson. At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the scattering of massive electroweak gauge bosons is accessible through the measurement of purely electroweak production of two jets and two gauge bosons. No such process has been observed before. Being the channel with the least amount of background from QCD-mediated production of the same final state, the most promising channel for the first measurement of a process containing massive electroweak gauge boson scattering is the one with two like-charge W bosons and two jets in the final state. This thesis presents the first measurement of electroweak production of two jets and two identically charged W bosons, which yields the first observation of a process with contributions from quartic gauge interactions of massive electroweak gauge bosons. An overview of the most important issues in Monte Carlo simulation of vector boson scattering processes with current Monte Carlo generators is given in this work. The measurement of the final state of two jets and two leptonically decaying same-charge W bosons is conducted based on proton-proton collision data with a center-of-mass energy of √s = 8 TeV, taken in 2012 with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. The cross section of electroweak production of two jets and two like-charge W bosons is measured with a significance of 3.6 standard deviations to be σ(W± W±jj−EW[fiducial]) = 1.3 ± 0.4(stat.) ± 0.2(syst.) fb in a fiducial phase space region selected to enhance the contribution from W W scattering. The measurement is compatible with the Standard Model prediction of σ(W±W± jj−EW[fiducial]) = 0.95 ± 0.06 fb. Based on this measurement, limits on anomalous quartic gauge couplings are derived. The effect of anomalous quartic gauge couplings is simulated within the framework of an effective chiral Lagrangian unitarized with the K-matrix method. The limits for the anomalous coupling parameters α4 and α5 are found to be −0.14 < α4 < 0.16 and −0.23 < α5 < 0.24 at 95 % confidence level. Furthermore, the prospects for the measurement of the electroweak production of two same-charge W bosons and two jets within the Standard Model and with additional doubly charged resonances after the upgrade of the ATLAS detector and the LHC are investigated. For a high-luminosity LHC with a center-of-mass energy of √s = 14 TeV, the significance of the measurement with an integrated luminosity of 3000 fb^−1 is estimated to be 18.7 standard deviations. It can be improved by 30 % by extending the inner tracking detector of the atlas experiment up to an absolute pseudorapidity of |η| = 4.0.