In this thesis the application of machine learning algorithms as a tool in the search for top squark is studied. Two neural network models are trained with simulated stop events as signal against dileptonic and semi-leptonic top pair production events as background. There is a substantial class imbalance between the number of signal and background samples that are used. The performance of the neural network models are compared to the performance of a cut and count method. None of the models outperform the standard cut and count method.

Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are the heavier counterparts of the light neutrinos of the Standard Model of particle physics. HNLs can simultaneously solve several of the problems the Standard Model cannot yet resolve, one example being that they provide a candidate for Dark Matter. This thesis work aims to shed light on the nature of HNLs and study the displaced signature the particle gives rise to at colliders. The collider of interest is the Future Circular Collider that will be colliding electrons and positrons and the signal studied is the production of an HNL and a light neutrino from an intermediate Z boson, produced from the collision of an electron and a positron. The event generation was set up through MadGraph and PYTHIA and for the detector simulations DELPHES was used. Validation of three HNL samples were carried out in a standalone framework and in the FCC framework. The samples were validated by comparing theoretically calculated lifetimes with the lifetimes attained by simulation. Kinematic studies of the transverse momentum of the HNL and its decay particles showed correlation to the mass of the HNL. Reconstruction of the number of tracks created by the HNL decay was possible and the results of two track dominance were found to correlate with theory. For the vertexing study, the reconstruction of the production vertex of the decay particles was possible where displaced vertices were observed, hence proving the possibility of implementing displaced signatures in the FCC framework for the very first time. The next step in this trajectory of the study would be to investigate vertex fitting of the reconstructed vertices in order to carry out tracking studies of the HNL. This work hence sets the foundation for further exploration of HNLs and provides stepping stones for the possibility of discovery of HNLs in the FCC-ee.

Dark matter has a long history, but it was not until modern times that we have a chance of detecting it. This thesis focuses on the velocity distribution and its effect on indirect WIMP detection. Recently a new velocity distribution, based on data from SDSS and GAIA, was proposed. For this reason simulation of capture, annihilation and resulting flux of neutrinos from the Sun and Earth has been made both for the new and Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution. The newly proposed velocity can reduce the annihilation rate in Earth by two thirds. For the Sun the effect depends on the mass of the WIMPs. For 50 GeV WIMPs the newly proposed velocity distribution could increase the annihilation rate by 5%, while for 3 TeV WIMPs it could decrease the annihilation rate by 28%. For Earth and high mass WIMPs the low velocity tail is the important part and the low resolution of this region in the new velocity distribution result in some uncertainties.

The general fission process is well known and is applied in nuclear power plants all over the world. However many properties of fission fragments are still not well understood. The angular momentum distribution of fission fragments is an important property to gain a better understanding of the fission process, and that can be derived indirectly from isomeric yield ratios. The goal of this project has been to develop a script in Python that runs the nuclear reaction code TALYS with the Total Monte Carlo method to calculate the isomeric yield ratio. The script generates a matrix consisting of excitation energies and angular momenta that is provided to TALYS. One matrix corresponds to one calculation of the isomeric ratio. Thus, the dependency of the isomeric yield ratio on these matrices can be observed. After looking into the matrices, the dependencies of the isomeric yield ratios on the excitation energies and the angular momentum distribution are observed. In this project, the calculated isomeric yield ratios are compared with the experimental value obtained from an experiment conducted in August of 2019 at the IGISOL-JYFLTRAP facility in Jyväskylä, Finland. It is worth mentioning that, fission system is of Uranium-238 which was induced by a proton beam at an energy of 25 MeV. The dependency of the isomeric yield ratio (IYR) on the angular momentum and the excitation energy has been investigated. However, it has proved more difficult than expected, to deduce an estimation for the angular momentum distribution. Another finding of this project is that the two codes used, GEF and TALYS sometimes produce inconstant results.

The goal of this project was to develop a lightweight Monte-Carlo (MC) event generator for hyperon pair production in antiproton-proton collisions, and demonstrate it in one of the hyperon decay reaction channels, which is collisions of proton and antiproton to lambda hyperon and anti-lambda hyperon, and they decay to antiproton-positive pion pair, and proton-negative pion pair. The prototype of this external MC event generator we presented here is based on the software framework of ROOT. Compared to the corresponding framework of embedded MC event generators that is currently used in the PANDA experiment at FAIR, PandaRoot, it allows for easier and quicker testing of new models or formalisms on synthetic data, for example for studying spin observables like polarisation. The event generator was benchmarked by studying angular distributions in final states, which are constructed by kinematic relations of 4-momentum vectors in different reference frames for all mother and daughter particles.

Neutrino telescopes such as IceCube monitor for low-energy neutrinos O(10 MeV) produced in nuclear processes during core-collapse in supernovae. The detection horizon to the neutrino burst is 50 kpc, the distance to the Magellanic Clouds. However, this limits the number of supernovae accessible through low-energy neutrino detection, as the Galactic rate is only <img src="http://www.diva-portal.org/cgi-bin/mimetex.cgi?%5Csim" data-classname="equation" data-title="" />2 per century. Some models predict the production of high-energy O(&gt;GeV) neutrinos through acceleration mechanisms, such as the ejecta colliding with the circumstellar material or relativistic jets in the stellar envelope. This thesis examines how these high-energy neutrinos could be exploited with neutrino telescopes like IceCube to extend the detection horizon to core-collapse supernovae past the Magellanic clouds. To examine the detection horizon for IceCube, we use two data samples, one utilizing muon tracks which provide good sensitivity in the northern sky, and the other all flavor starting events, which provide good sensitivity in the southern sky. We demonstrate that extending the reach past 50 kpc and well into the 10s of Mpc is possible, where the expected rate is more than two core-collapse supernovae per year.

This thesis investigates the pair production of Higgs bosons (di-Higgs events) at the ATLAS experiment in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), focusing on the channel where one Higgs boson decays into two bottom quarks and the other decays into two tau leptons. The main objective was to determine whether introducing a split in the invariant mass of the decay products from the two Higgs bosons (the di-Higgs mass) and using this as an analysis variable improves the sensitivity of the Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) machine learning algorithm to the di-Higgs signal. A mass split was performed at 350 GeV, and the BDT algorithm was trained on both the split and un-split data sets, where the split data set included a high-mass region (di-Higgs mass above 350 GeV) using the Standard Model Higgs boson coupling constant of 1 and a low-mass region (di-Higgs mass below 350 GeV) using the enhanced coupling constant of 10 to create a low-mass region more sensitive to the signal.  The results showed that the BDT algorithm training performed on the split data set provided a 3.6% improvement in the exclusion limits, indicating an improvement in the algorithm's sensitivity to the di-Higgs signal compared to the training performed on the un-split data set. This finding suggests that the introduction of a split at 350 GeV can enhance the accuracy and efficiency of machine learning algorithms in detecting di-Higgs boson production at the LHC.  The improvement in sensitivity was attributed to the enhanced discrimination between signal and background events provided by the split in the di-Higgs mass analysis variable. The improved separation between the signal and background events lead to a higher signal-to-background ratio and a corresponding increase in the BDT algorithm's sensitivity to the di-Higgs signal.  In conclusion, this thesis provided evidence that introducing a split in the di-Higgs mass analysis variable can improve the sensitivity of machine learning algorithms to the di-Higgs signal in the channel where one Higgs boson decays into two bottom quarks and the other into two tau particles. This finding has important implications for future research on di-Higgs boson production at the LHC and could lead to more accurate and efficient detection of this rare and important process.

According to the standard model, the size of CP violation in the weak decay Λ → pπ- is predicted to be ∼ 10-5. This means that a very high precision is needed if we want to be able to measure it. It turns out that the precision mainly depends on three factors: if the decay already has a large parity-breaking effect, if we take more measurements, or if the Lambda baryon has a large polarization. The uncertainty is inversely proportional to the root mean square of the polarization, √⟨P2⟩, of Λ. Polarization is a measurement of the fraction of particles with parallel spin. In this project, we simulated the kinematic properties of the three-body decay of the charmed lambda baryon Λc+  → Λπ+ π0 by assuming that Λ+ c decays 100% of the times via the ρ+-resonance, i.e. Λc+ decays like Λc+ → Λρ+ , and ρ+ subsequently decays ρ+ → π+π0. The invariant masses of the daughter particles were then plotted in a so-called Dalitz plot. The fact that the ρ+-meson is a vector meson is exploited to compute the helicity amplitudes HλΛ,λρ, where λ is the helicity of respective particle, meaning the projection of the spin in the direction of the ρ+-mesons momentum. The helicity amplitudes describe the helicities of the particles involved before and after the decay. These are then used to compute the polarization of Λ. After doing the simulation, the invariant masses are plotted in the Dalitz plot and the polarization in each point is computed. The root mean square polarization of Λ was √⟨P2⟩ = 0.81 ± 0.08. This result gives a large polarization and points to this process being a good baryon polarizer. When conducting more research into the three-body decay of Λc+ as a potential source of Λ with large polarization, the contributions of other resonances should be taken into account. In light of these results, it would also be interesting to investigate if three-body decays could work as a baryon polarizer for other baryons. / CP brytning i sönderfallet Λ → pπ-, via den svaga växelverkan, kommer enligt standardmodellen att ha en storlek runt ∼ 10-5. Det betyder att en väldigt hög precision är nödvändig om man ska kunna observera denna effekt. Det visar sig att precisionen av mätningarna främst beror på tre faktorer: om sönderfallet redan har stor paritestbrytande effect, om man tar fler mätningar, eller om Lambdabaryonerna har stor polarisation. Osäkerheten är proportionerlig mot inversen av det kvadratiska medelvärdet, √⟨P2⟩ av Lambdabaryonerna. Polarisationen av en mängd partiklar är ett mått på andelen partiklar med parallellt spinn. I detta projekt kommer vi simulera de kinematiska egenskaperna hos trekroppssönderfallet av den charmade Lambdabaryonen Λc+ → Λπ+π0 genom att anta 100% sönderfall via ρ+-resonansen, dvs att Λc+ först sönderfaller som Λc+ → Λρ+, och att ρ+ sedan sönderfaller som ρ+ → π+π0. De invarianta massorna av dotterpartiklarna plottades sedan i en s.k Dalitz-plot. Vi utnyttjade att ρ+-mesonen är en vektormeson för att beräkna helisitetsamplituderna HλΛ,λρ, där λ är helisiteterna av respektive partikel, dvs projektionen av partiklarnas spinn längst ρ+-mesonens rörelsemängdsriktning. Helisitetsamplituderna beskriver helisiteten hos partiklarna före och efter sönderfallet. Dessa användes sedan för att beräkna polarisationen av Λ. Efter att simuleringen gjorts, plottades de invarianta massorna i en Dalitz-plott och polarisationen beräknades i varje punkt. Det kvadratiska medelvärdet av polarisationen hos Λ var √⟨P2⟩ = 0.81 ± 0.08. Detta är en stor polarisation som indikerar att trekroppsönderfall kan vara en bra baryonpolarisator. För vidare forskning om trekroppssönderfallet av Λc+ som en källa av Λ med stor polarisation, borde bidragen från andra resonanser också medräknas. Vidare skulle det även vara intressant att undersöka om trekroppssönderfall kan fungera som en baryonpolarisator för andra baryoner.

This licentiate thesis presents contributions to the luminosity measurement from the data recorded by the ATLAS detector in 2017 using a track-counting technique, as well as a search for dark matter in the ATLAS experiment using 139 fb-1 of √s = 13 TeV pp collision data delivered by the LHC from 2015 to 2018. Track-counting luminosity measurements in low-luminosity operations are performed to study the effect of low collision rates on luminosity determination. The luminosity measured in a calibration transfer procedure using the track-counting technique is used to correct the pile-up dependence observed in ATLAS’s main luminosity detector called LUCID. A search in the final state of a lepton, jets and missing transverse energy, where the final state is produced from a pair of top quarks and a spin-0 scalar/pseudoscalar mediator, is presented. A dedicated signal region is designed to target this final state in which the mediator decays into dark matter particles. The signal region covers the search in the mass plane of the mediator and the dark matter particle. Dedicated control regions are designed to estimate the top-quark background events, as well as the events where a Zboson is produced in association with the top quarks. The signal region event counts in the data have not been unblinded yet, but expected exclusion limits at 95% confidence level as a function of mediator mass are presented. Scalar and pseudoscalar mediators are expected to be excluded up to 200 and 250 GeV, respectively, for the dark matter mass of 1 GeV, and the coupling strengths of the mediator to the dark matter and Standard Model particles of 1.

The aims of this thesis project have been to determine the feasibility of hyperon reconstruction utilizing a newly developed and implemented vertex fitter based on the Lagrange multiplier method. This was achieved through simulation and subsequent analysis of the reaction specified below, detailing the production of Λ-hyperon and K+ -meson pairs from proton-proton collisions. 𝑝(4.5𝐺𝑒𝑉)𝑝 → ΛΛ𝐾+𝐾+ This reaction channel provides a more complicated topology than previous benchmark studies of the fitter performance and is of interest as it enables studies of the strong ΛΛ interaction via the femtoscopy method. For this reason, measurements of this reaction channel were among the physics goals of the HADES beam time taking place in February 2022. As such, this study has provided insight into the feasibility of performing a femtoscopy analysis on this data by reconstructing the Λ-pair using the fitter. The obtained results provide the Λ-pair reconstruction efficiency and purities based on the lower limit of expected events collected during this beamtime. As for the fitter performance, it was found from the reconstructed kinematics of the Λ-pair that the fitter can effectively remove background over most of the kinematic region. However, for low relative momentum, combinatorial background becomes especially prominent. As this region is of interest in a femtoscopy study, it has been identified as especially challenging for the developed analysis procedure.