Hadronic collider experiments have played a major role in particle physics phenomenology over the last few decades. Data recorded at the Tevatron at Fermilab is still of interest, and its successor, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, has recently announced the discovery of a particle consistent with the Standard Model Higgs boson. Hadronic colliders look set to guide the field for the next fifteen years or more, with the discovery of more particles anticipated. The discovery and detailed study of new particles relies crucially on the availability of high-precision theoretical predictions for both the signal and background processes. This requires observables to be calculated to next-to-leading order (NLO) in perturbative quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Many hadroproduction processes of interest contain multiple particles in the final state. Until recently, this caused a bottleneck in NLO QCD calculations, due to the difficulty in calculating one-loop corrections to processes involving three or more final state particles. Spectacular developments in on-shell methods over the last six years have made these calculations feasible, allowing highly accurate predictions for final state observables at the Tevatron and LHC. A particular realisation of on-shell methods, generalised unitarity, is used to compute the NLO QCD cross-sections and distributions for two processes: the hadroproduction of W⁺ W^-jj, and the hadroproduction of W⁺ W^-jj. The NLO corrections to both processes serve to reduce the scale dependence of the results significantly, while having a moderate effect on the central scale choice cross-sections, and leaving the shapes of the kinematic distributions mostly unchanged. Additionally, the gluon fusion contribution to the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to W⁺ W^-j productions are studied. These contributions are found to be highly depen- dent on the kinematic cuts used. For cuts used in Higgs searches, the gluon fusion effect can be as large as the NLO scale uncertainty, and should not be neglected. All of the higher-order QCD corrections increase the accuracy and reliability of the theoretical predictions at hadronic colliders.

This project contributes to the research and development studies towards successful commissioning of the SuperKEKB electron-positron collider. This accelerator and storage rings complex aims at delivering the high-luminosity collisions of beams of electrons and positrons needed for the Belle II experiment. Such beams produce parasitic radiation—called “machine-induced backgrounds”, or simply “beam backgrounds” — that have detrimental effects on the experimental apparatus performance and durability. The Beast II effort is dedicated to measuring the beam backgrounds, and aims at testing the predictive power of the background models that were used in various phases of the Belle II design. A second objective is to ensure that the environment is safe for the detector prior to installing it around the beam lines. A major component of beam backgrounds consists of electromagnetic radiation. This study focusses on measuring this radiation at the location of the Belle II electromagnetic calorimeter. The measurements were achieved by placing scintillator crystals at positions representative of the Belle II calorimeter crystals that are the closest to the beam lines, and comparing the data with predictions for different operating parameters of the accelerator. Different phenomena related to machine backgrounds were observed: vacuum scrubbing, the electron-cloud effect, injection-related noise, beam-gas scattering and Touschek losses. Studies on the positron ring showed average background levels 13.5 +/- 3.5 times larger than simulation, whereas that ratio reached O(100-1000) for the electron ring. In the latter, the large uncertainty on the pressure measurements and the gas constituents limit the predictive power of the measurements. Radiation shields were also designed, fabricated, delivered and installed in the detector to protect the electromagnetic calorimeter from radiation coming from the beam lines. / Graduate

We present in this thesis a detailed analysis of Higgs boson interactions at future colliders. In particular we examine, in a model independent way, the sensitivity of an Linear Collider in probing the interaction of Higgs boson with a pair of vector bosons with/without the use of polarized initial beams and/or the information on final state fermion polarization. We devise several observables which have definite transformation properties under discrete symmetry operations to constrain the different anomalous parts of the Higgs boson interactions having the same transformation properties. We also investigate effects of initial state radiation (ISR) and beamstrahlung on probes of anomalous Higgs boson couplings at higher center of mass energies. We begin the first chapter with an introduction of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. We mainly focus on the Higgs sector of the SM. In this chapter we review the electroweak (EW) symmetry breaking mechanism, viz. the Higgs mechanism, responsible for generating masses of all the particles in the SM. We briefly summarize the high precision tests of the SM. We discuss constraints on the mass of the SM Higgs boson derived from theoretical considerations such as stability of the electroweak vacuum, unitarity in scattering amplitudes, perturbativity of the Higgs self-coupling and no fine-tuning in the radiative corrections in the Higgs sector. Next we present the experimental bounds on the mass of the SM Higgs boson obtained from the direct searches of the Higgs boson at LEP and from the electroweak high precision measurements. We then discuss the importance of a general model independent approach to study properties of the Higgs boson and to verify the uniqueness of the SM. In the context of low energy effective theory, this analysis can be made by using the effective Lagrangian that contains higher dimensional operators. We conclude this chapter giving examples of dimension-6 operators which can contribute to the anomalous Higgs boson interactions that we analyze in this thesis. Second chapter contains the dominant Higgs boson production processes at an collider.In a model independent analysis we consider the effects of the most general ¯ (V = W Z) vertex, consistent with Lorentz invariance, for the process where f is any light fermion. This vertex also includes the possibility of CP violation and can be written as: where ki denote the momenta of the two W’s (Z’s), ǫναβis the antisymmetric tensor with ǫ0123 = 1. Previous studies showed that the squared matrix element of the process e+e−ZH does not include all the anomalous parts of a general ZZH vertex. Also it is obvious that one cannot analyse anomalous WWH couplings using this process. Hence we consider the full process e+e−ffH to probe all the anomalous parts of the VVH vertex. We devise a general and very elegant procedure to probe these couplings at an e+e−collider. We construct various combinations by taking dot and scalar triple product of momenta of initial and final state particles. These combinations have definite transformation properties under CP and naive time reversal (T˜)transformations. Hence the corresponding observables constructed using expectation value of sign of these combinations can probe a specific part of the anomalous VVH couplings whose coefficient in the effective Lagrangian has same transformation properties. We investigate the possible sensitivity to which the anomalous VVH couplings can be probed at a Linear Collider using these observables in the process e+e−ffH for unpolarized beams [1, 2]. We consider the case of a Linear Collider, operating at center of mass energy of 500 GeV, with an integrated luminosityof 500 fb−1 and assume a Higgs boson of mass 120 GeV. We impose various kinematical cuts on different final state particles to reduce backgrounds ¯and consider the events where H decays into bb with branching ratio 0.68. We can enhance or suppress the effect of the s-channel, Z-exchange diagram by imposing cut on the ¯invariant mass of the ff system. We use b-tagging efficiency to be 70%; a value expected to be possible in the collider environment. We first consider asymmetries involving either the polar or azimuthal angular distributions. Then we combine these informations to construct combined polar-azimuthal asymmetries in order to enhance the sensitivity. We obtain strong constraints on most of the anomalous parts of the ZZH vertex using cross section and these asymmetries. The process e+eν¯ −νH has two missing ν’s in the final state. Hence their momenta are not available to construct any observables. Therefore, direct probes for T˜-odd WWH couplings viz. ℑ(bW), ℜ(˜bW), cannot be constructed and only weak, indirect bounds are possible. Further, without using polarized beams the contamination from the ZZH vertex cannot be eliminated in the determination of WWH couplings. In the third chapter we analyze use of linearly polarized e+/e−beams and/or information on final state lepton polarization in probingthe interaction of the Higgs boson with a pair of vector bosons[3, 4]. We make several combinations of different particle momenta and spins. We then define observables as expectation values of signs of these combinations for longitudinally polarized beams and/or for production of final state τ’s with a definite helicity state. Use of polarization allows us to devise more observables as compared to the unpolarized case. We list the observables for which use of polarization affords a distinct gain in sensitivity. In our analysis we divide the total luminosity of 500 fb−1 equally among different polarization states of initial state e−/e+ and take the values 80% and 60% for e−/e+ respectively, foreseen at the ILC. We construct numerical combinations of various linearly polarized cross sections to enhance the contribution of ℜ(bZ) while getting rid of ΔaZand vice versa. It is necessary to construct such combinations of cross section as ℜ(bZ), ΔaZhave same CP and T˜transformation properties and hence there are no asymmetries that can be constructed to probe them individually. With these combinations it is possible to probe both these CP-and T˜-even couplings cleanly, using linearly polarized beams. We find that longitudinal beam polarization can improve the sensitivity to CP-odd ZZH couplings viz. ℜ(˜bZ), ℑ(˜bZ), by a factor of about 6 −7. We also construct observables for final state τ’s with definite helicity. We make a plausible assumption that it should be possible to isolate events with τ’s in definite helicity state with an efficiency of 40%. With this assumption we demonstrate that the use of final state τ polarization can improve the sensitivity to the CP-even and T˜-odd ZZH coupling (ℑ(bZ)) by a factor of about 3. Moreover use of final state τ-polarization measurement along with linearly polarized beams can improve the sensitivity for one of the CP-odd ZZH couplings (ℜ(˜bZ))bya factor of about 2.Use of longitudinally polarized beams can also help to reduce the contamination in the measurement of the WWH couplings coming from the ZZH vertex contribution. We also perform χ2-analysis using the observables for different polarizations. The cross section of the t–channel diagram increases with increasing center of mass energy. Therefore, off hand it may look like that going to higher energy can increase the sensitivity to WWH couplings. Hence in this chapter we further investigate possible gain in sensitivity going to higher center of mass energies[3, 4]. We use the same observables constructed with unpolarized beams and consider various center of mass energies ranging from 300 GeV to 3 TeV. We find that it is possible to increase the bZ)byabouta factor 2 1 TeVas compared to the case of 500 GeV. In this analysis we include the effects of initial state radiation (ISR) and beamstrahlung. Both the ISR and beamstrahlung =500 GeV, the ISR can affect cross sections for s–channel processes by 10−15%.However, we observe that the effects of ISR and beamstrahlung change both the SM and anomalous contributions more beneficial for the study of anomalous V V H couplings. In the last chapter we investigate the role of transversely polarized beams to constrain the anomalous V V H couplings[5]. Using transverse spin direction of e±it is possible to devise observables which are nonzero only for transversely polarized beams. Use of transverse beam polarization allows construction of completely independent probes of both the CP-and T˜-even anomalous ZZH couplings (ΔaZ, ℜ(bZ)), leading to independent determination of all the anomalous parts of the ZZH vertex. In addition the use of transverse beam polarization can also add to the sensitivity for one of the CP-odd ZZH couplings viz. ℜ(˜bZ). Measurement of final state τ-polarization with transversely polarized beams can in fact also offer improvement on the sensitivity for ℑ(bZ) which is even under CP-and odd under T˜-transformation. Use of transverse beam polarization cannot improve the bounds on the anomalous WWH couplings as the squared matrix element of the t– channel WW–fusion diagram does not have any transverse beam polarization dependent term. A summary of the results obtained in this thesis is follows. We have developed a general procedure to construct observables with specific CP and T˜transformation properties to probe various anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to a pair of vector bosons (V = W/Z) at an e+/e−Linear Collider. We investigate probes of these couplings in the process e+e−ffH. This process gives access to those anomalous couplings which cannot be probed using angular distribution of the Z boson in the process e+eZH. We showed that it would be possible to obtain stringent bounds on some of the parts of the anomalous ZZH vertex even without using polarized beams and/or information on polarization of final state particles. Use of longitudinal beam polarization and/or final state τ polarization can significantly enhance the sensitivity in probing most of the anomalous parts of a general ZZH vertex. Use of longitudinal beam polarization also reduces the contamination from the ZZH couplings in the determination of the ˜T-even anomalous WWH couplings (ℜ(bW), ℑ(˜bW)). However, two missing neutrinos in the final state do not allow any direct probe of the T˜-odd WWH couplings (ℑ(bW), ℜ(˜bW)).We find that use of transverse polarization of the beams is essential to construct independent probes of the two anomalous ZZH couplings, which are even under CP and T˜transformations, viz.ΔaZand ℜ(bZ).We observed that there will be no significant gain 500 GeV), but with polarized beams is preferable from the point of view of studying anomalous V V H coupling. (For mathematical equations pl see the pdf file.)

The Fermilab Tevatron is currently the world’s highest energy colliding beam facility. Its counter-rotating proton and antiproton beams collide at 2 TeV center-of-mass. Delivery of such intense beam fluxes to experiments has required improved knowledge of the Tevatron’s beam optical lattice. An oscillating dipole magnet, referred to as an AC dipole, is one of such a tool to non-destructively assess the optical properties of the synchrotron. We discusses development of an AC dipole system for the Tevatron, a fast-oscillating (f∼20 kHz) dipole magnet which can be adiabatically turned on and off to establish sustained coherent oscillations of the beam particles without affecting the transverse emittance. By utilizing an existing magnet and a higher power audio amplifier, the cost of the Tevatron AC dipole system became relatively inexpensive. We discuss corrections which must be applied to the driven oscillation measurements to obtain the proper interpretation of beam optical parameters from AC dipole studies. After successful operations of the Tevatron AC dipole system, AC dipole systems, similar to that in the Tevatron, will be build for the CERN LHC. We present several measurements of linear optical parameters (beta function and phase advance) for the Tevatron, as well as studies of non-linear perturbations from sextupole and octupole elements. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The Standard Model of particle physics which attempts to describe all matter and all forces in the universe (except gravity),has been in agreement with most of the experiments till date. However theoretically and phenomenologically many questions remain unanswered in the SM. The present and future colliders will help the physicists learn more about the nature of matter and all forces in the universe. In this thesis work we have mainly focused on the physics case of the future linear collider which will be a succession of the presently running Large Hadron Collider in CERN Geneva. As an introduction to the thesis work in Chapter 1 we have discussed in detail about the most planned future collider the International Linear Collider. This collider apart from being a high luminosity machine will have the advantage of beam polarization. Chapter 2 discusses about the basis structure of the Standard Model, along with its many unanswered questions. Some of the theories proposed to take care of these deficiencies are also discussed. These theories apart from explaining the shortcomings of the SM, also predicts many new particles and are thus phenomenologically rich. Exploration of these new physics scenarios can be done many ways. A detailed investigation of the direct production of particles which are not present in the SM spectrum, is one of the techniques provided the particles are within the collider reach. The other is an indirect way, where deviations from SM is studied by a through scrutinization of the SM processes. Provided new physics is observed in either of the way, in the present or future colliders it becomes necessary to pin point them. The main objective of this thesis work has been to look for various scenarios, both in a direct and indirect way and identify them. The different cases of beam polarization is also explored. Overall we find that the full potential of the linear collider can be realized only with the availability of the electron and positron beam polarization, both transverse and longitudinal. We give an overview of the importance of beam polarization and its inclusion in the calculation of e+e- collisions in Chapter 3. In Chapter 4 we have considered the possibility of finger printing the presence of heavy additional Z′bosons that arise naturally in extensions of the Standard Model such as E6 models and left-right symmetric models, through their mixing with the standard model Z boson. They are probed using W pair production and leptonic decay of one of the W’s. The Littlest Higgs Model which addresses the hierarchy problem and where the Z′arises naturally is also considered. By considering a class of observables including total cross sections, energy distributions and angular distributions of decay leptons we find significant deviation from the Standard Model predictions for these quantities with right-handed electrons and left-handed positrons at √s=800 GeV. This process complements the study of fermion pair production processes that have been considered before for discrimination between these models. We have then studied the possibility of identifying a strongly interacting Wboson sector inChapter5 which is consistent with present day Large Hadron Collider searches, at the International Linear Collider with longitudinal as well as transversely polarized electron and positron beams. We account for the final state interaction using a suitable Omnes formalism in terms of a plausible resonance description, and carry out thorough analyses of cross sections, asymmetries and angular distributions of the Ws. In order to have a fully comprehensive study we also carry out a comparison with other extensions of the Standard Model, where an s channel resonance like heavy additional Z′bosons arise naturally. We also consider the effect of the strong final state interaction on a correlation that depends on(φ- - φ+), where the φ∓are the azimuthal angles of decay leptons, and find that it is a useful discriminant. The importance of top polarization in the process e+e−→ tt with transverse beam polarization to probe interactions of the scalar and tensor type beyond the Standard Model and the way to disentangle their individual contributions is discussed in Chapter 6. 90% confidence level limits on the interactions with realistic integrated luminosity are presented and are found to improve by an order of magnitude compared to the case when the spin of the top quark is not measured. Sensitivities of the order of a few times 10−3 TeV−2 for real and imaginary parts of both scalar and tensor couplings at √s=500 and 800 GeV with an integrated luminosity of 500 fb−1 and completely polarized beams is shown to be possible. We next consider the process e+e- → γ Z with transverse beam polarization in the presence of anomalous CP-violating γZZ coupling λ1 and γγZ coupling λ2 in Chapter 7. We point out that similar to the approach in Chapter 6 if the final-state spins are resolved, then it becomes possible to fingerprint the anomalous coupling Reλ1. 90% confidence level limit on Reλ1 achievable with center-of-mass energy of 500 GeV or 800 GeV with realistic initial beam polarization and integrated luminosity is of the order of few times of 10−2 when the helicity of Zis used and 10−3 when the helicity of γis used. The resulting corrections at quadratic order to the cross section and its influence on these limits are also evaluated and are shown to be small. In Chapter 8 the production of the lightest neutralinos in the radiative process e+e−→ χ˜10χ˜10γ in supersymmetric models with grand unification is considered. We consider models wherein the standard model gauge group SU(3)c x SU(2)L x U(1)Y is unified in to the grand unified gauge groups SU(5),or SO(10). We compare and contrast the dependence of the signal cross section on the grand unified gauge group, and different representations of the grand unified gauge group, into which the standard model gauge group is unified. We carry out a comprehensive study of the radiative production process which includes higher order QED corrections in our calculations. In addition we carry out a detailed study of the background to the signal process coming from the Standard Model radiative neutrino production e+e−→ νv*γ, as well as from the radiative production of the scalar partners of the neutrinos (sneutrinos) e+e ν˜ν˜γ. The latter can be a major supersymmetric background to the radiative production of neutralinos when the sneutrinos decay invisibly. Finally in Chapter 9, we conclude and present the summary of the thesis.

No description available.

La Matière Sombre représente une des quêtes les plus importantes pour la compréhension des constituants élémentaires de l'Univers: la nature de la Matière Sombre est toujours mystérieuse. La dernière décennie a connu des développements expérimentaux remarquables dans la recherche de la Matière Sombre. Le but de ce travail est l'étude de candidats de Matière Sombre de nature supersymétrique (le neutralino) et au-delà (les particules scalaires), et de leurs aspects phénoménologiques et d'astroparticules. Le neutralino, dans l'intervalle de masses 1-100 GeV, est testé par les expériences du Grand Collisionneur d'Hadrons, de détection directe et de détection indirecte; ce travail montre que la combinaison de ces techniques est un outil décisif pour une recherche minutieuse des prédictions théoriques. Les particules scalaires sont des candidats non-standards de masses jusqu'à 1 MeV qui pourraient être produits abondamment dans le Grand Collisionneur d'Hadrons, et au même temps expliquer d'autres phénomènes tels que la masse des neutrinos et/ou le signal à 511 keV provenant du centre galactique de la Voie Lactée. / The Dark Matter problem is one of the most relevant quests for the understanding of the elementary constituents of the Universe: the nature of the Dark Matter is still unveiled. Experimental efforts aiming to detect the Dark Matter have shown a great progress in the last decade. This work is devoted to the phenomenological and astroparticle studies of Dark Matter candidates of supersymmetric nature -the neutralino- and beyond -scalar particles. The former, in the 1-100 GeV mass range, is currently being tested by the Large Hadron Collider, direct detection and indirect detection experiments; this work shows that the interplay between techniques is a decisive tool to thoroughly search for theoretical predictions. The latter is a non-standard candidate as light as 1 MeV which could be copiously produced at the Large Hadron Collider, and at the same time explain other phenomena such as neutrino masses and/or the 511 keV line from the galactic center of the Milky Way.

Elektronen- und Positronenstrahlen mit niedrigsten Emittanzen und hohen Strömen werden in zukünftigen Linearbeschleunigern, wie zum Beispiel dem Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), benötigt, um die geforderte Leuchtkraft für physikalische Experimente bereit zu stellen. Diese Strahlen können in Dämpfungsringen, ausgestattet mit starken, supraleitenden Dämpfungswigglermagneten, erzeugt werden. In dieser Arbeit sind Designkonzepte verschiedener supraleitender Dämpfungswigglermagnete entwickelt worden. Testspulen sowie Modelle sind gebaut und getestet, elektrische Verbindungstechniken entwickelt worden. Eine Wärmelastrechnung für den Betrieb in Dämpfungsringen und ein Designkonzept für den kryogenen Betrieb bei 4.2 K ist erstellt worden. Es konnte theoretisch und experimentell gezeigt werden, dass supraleitende Dämpfungswigglermagnete mit Nb-Ti und Nb3Sn Niedertemperatursupraleitern die magnetischen, mechanischen, elektrischen und thermischen Anforderungen erfüllen und in Dämpfungsringen betrieben werden können.

The biggest scientific experiment in history will begin taking data in late 2009 using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is designed to collide protons at an unprecedented 14 TeV centre of mass energy, enabling physicists to explore the constituents of matter at smaller scales than ever before. The Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs) are parametrizations of the proton structure and are best determined from experimental data. The PDFs are needed to calculate cross-sections or in other words the likelihood of observed physical processes, which are crucial in exploiting the discovery potential of the LHC. The prospects for measuring the Drell-Yan (DY) spectrum are assessed in the low invariant mass region below the Z boson resonance using e+e− pairs from the initial LHC data in order to probe the proton structure and further constrain the PDFs. The analysis is based on the full simulation of the ATLAS detector response to DY electrons and background processes. Assuming 100 pb−1 of LHC data, the total DY crosssection in the invariant mass range from 10 GeV to 60 GeV is expected to be measured as DY = 5.90±0.24(stat)±0.18(syst) nb. The result predicts an improvement over a current theoretical uncertainty of 7.6% and indicates that the PDF uncertainties can be reduced significantly with the early LHC data.