Le réseau d'imageurs Cherenkov atmosphériques HESS (High Energy Stereoscopic System) est présenté. La simulation des gerbes atmosphériques et de l'instrument est détaillée et comparée aux données obtenues pendant les six premiers mois de fonctionnement. Après la présentation des méthodes d'étalonnage et d'extraction du signal gamma, ces techniques sont appliquées aux données prises sur la nébuleuse du Crabe. On obtient un signal significatif permettant d'estimer un flux différentiel à 1 TeV en accord avec les résultats obtenus par d'autres expériences dans le même domaine en énergie. Ces résultats sont exploités pour estimer le potentiel de détection de HESS au signal gamma d'annihilation de neutralinos en provenance du centre galactique et de l'amas globulaire Omega du Centaure. Dans cette étude, une modélisation des halos de matière noire est confrontée aux observations astrophysiques.

In the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, direct searches for the elusive Higgs boson will be conducted, as well as for physics beyond the Standard Model. The charged Higgs boson (H±) is interesting both as a part of the Higgs sector, and as a clear sign of new physics. This thesis focuses on H± searches, with H± production in top-antitop pair events, and in particular the  bW± bH±, H±→τhadν, W±→qq channel. Its potential was investigated  as  part of a larger study of the expected performance of the entire ATLAS experiment. Full simulation of the ATLAS detector and trigger was used, and all dominant systematics considered. It was shown to be the most promising H± discovery channel for mH±<mt. As hadronic τ decays are important for H± searches, their correct identification is critical. Possibilities of improving tau-jet identification in  pile-up and top-antitop pair events were investigated. Redundant or even performance-reducing variables in the default likelihood identification were identified, as were new variables showing discriminatory power. This allows for increased rejection of QCD jets in these environments, and higher robustness of the method. Before any physics studies, a commissioned and well-understood detector is required. The Lorentz angle of the ATLAS Semi-Conductor Tracker (SCT) barrel was measured using 2008 cosmic-ray data. It is an important observable for the performance of several detector aspects. Potential sources of systematics were investigated and evaluated. The Lorentz angle in the SCT barrel was measured as θL = 3.93 ± 0.03(stat) ± 0.10(syst) degrees, agreeing with the model prediction. The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a proposed successor to the LHC. The potential for charged and heavy neutral Higgs bosons at CLIC was investigated, in terms of both discovery and precision measurement of parameters like tanβ or the Higgs masses, up to and beyond 1 TeV, which would be challenging at the LHC

The Standard Model of particle physics successfully describes present collider data. Nevertheless, theoretical and cosmological results call for its extension. A softly broken supersymmetric completion around the TeV scale solves several of the outstanding issues. Supersymmetry requires two Higgs doublets, leading to five physical Higgs states. These include a pair of charged Higgs bosons H±, which are a generic feature of theories with multiple Higgs doublets. Using results from high-energy colliders and flavour physics, constraints are derived on the charged Higgs boson mass and couplings; both for constrained scenarios in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) with grand unification, and for general two-Higgs-doublet models. The MSSM results are compared to the projected reach for charged Higgs searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At the LHC, a light charged Higgs is accessible through top quark decay. Beyond a discovery, it is demonstrated how angular distributions sensitive to top quark spin correlations can be used to determine the structure of the H±tb coupling. The public code 2HDMC, which performs calculations in a general, CP-conserving, two-Higgs-doublet model, is introduced. In parallel to the developments at colliders, the most energetic particles ever recorded are the ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic rays. To gain more insight into their origin, new experiments are searching for UHE neutrinos. These searches require detectors of vast volume, which can be achieved by searching for coherent radio pulses arising from the Askaryan effect. The prospects of using a satellite orbiting the Moon to search for neutrino interactions are investigated, and a similar study for an Earth-based radio telescope is presented. In both cases, the method is found competitive for detection of the very highest energy neutrinos considered.

The identity of dark matter is one of the key outstanding problems in both particle and astrophysics. In this thesis, I describe a number of complementary searches for particle dark matter. I discuss how the impact of dark matter on stars can constrain its interaction with nuclei, focussing on main sequence stars close to the Galactic Centre, and on the first stars as seen through the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. The mass and annihilation cross-section of dark matter particles can be probed with searches for gamma rays produced in astronomical targets. Dwarf galaxies and ultracompact, primordially-produced dark matter minihalos turn out to be especially promising in this respect. I illustrate how the results of these searches can be combined with constraints from accelerators and cosmology to produce a single global fit to all available data. Global fits in supersymmetry turn out to be quite technically demanding, even with the simplest predictive models and the addition of complementary data from a bevy of astronomical and terrestrial experiments; I show how genetic algorithms can help in overcoming these challenges. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 5: Accepted. Paper 6: Submitted.

This thesis is concerned with experimental investigations of properties of the top quark and processes involving this particle. In the first part of the thesis, the first determination of the electric charge of the top quark is presented. The measurement was made using top quark pair events produced in proton-antiproton collisions recorded by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. It is based on the reconstruction of the charge of the top quarks decay products from the dominant decay to a W boson and a b-quark. The method uses a jet charge algorithm, calibrated with data, to discriminate between b- and antib-quark jets. A constrained kinematic fit is also performed to resolve the ambiguities of the pairing of the top quark decay products and to extract the top quark electric charge. The result is in good agreement with the Standard Model top quark electric charge of 2e/3 and an upper limit of 0.8 at 90\% confidence level on the fraction of exotic quarks with charge 4e/3 in the data sample is obtained. The second part of the thesis concerns the estimation of the top quark pair background to searches for new physics, such as supersymmetry, with the ATLAS  experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. These searches will require a robust estimation of standard model backgrounds in order to make any claims of discovery or to exclude models of new physics. For searches with a final state signature characterized by two isolated charged leptons, multiple jets and large missing transverse energy the largest source of background is expected to be top quark pairs with leptonic decay of the two W bosons from the top quarks in the event. A data-driven method to estimate this contribution based on full kinematic reconstruction of the top quark pair events is studied using simulated proton-proton collisions. It is shown that the method is capable of estimating the top quark pair background to within 12% using data corresponding to approximately 1fb-1. The systematic uncertainty is of the order of 20% and, depending on the model, the contamination of signal events can potentially be large. / QC 20100730

Στην παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή μελετάμε εφαρμογές οι οποίες σχετίζονται με την μη-Αβελιανή Τ-δυϊκότητα και την αντιστοιχία AdS/CFT. Στο πρώτο μέρος, το οποίο αντιστοιχεί στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο της διατριβής, παρουσιάζουμε συνοπτικά τα απαραίτητα μαθηματικά εργαλεία που απαιτούνται για την καλύτερη κατανόηση των κεφαλαίων που ακολουθούν. Στο δεύτερο μέρος, το οποίο αποτελείται από τα κεφάλαια 2,3 και 4, ασχολούμαστε με την έννοια της μη-Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητας. Ποιο συγκεκριμένα, στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζουμε τους κανόνες Buscher της Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητα καθώς και την γενίκευση τους στην μη-Αβελιανή περίπτωση. Επίσης στο κεφάλαιο αυτό δείχνουμε τον τρόπο με τον οποίο μπορούμε να εφαρμόσουμε τους κανόνες της μη-Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητας σε υπόβαθρα υπερβαρύτητας τύπου II τα οποία περιλαμβάνουν πεδία Ramond-Ramond. Η διαδικασία αυτή μπορεί να θεωρηθεί σαν μια τεχνική κατασκευής νέων λύσεων υπερβαρύτητας. Στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο θεωρούμε μια γενική κατηγορία υποβάθρων υπερβαρύτητας με ισομετρία SO(4) στα οποία εφαρμόζουμε τον μετασχηματισμό της μη-Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητας ως προς την υποομάδα SU(2) της ομάδας ισομετρίας. Πραγματοποιώντας διαστατική ελάττωση στην αρχική και την δυϊκή θεωρία καταλήγουμε στην ίδια επταδιάστατη θεωρία. Ως αποτέλεσμα, οποιαδήποτε λύση αυτής της επταδιάστατης θεωρίας μπορεί να ανυψωθεί ταυτόχρονα στο αρχικό και στο δυϊκό υπόβαθρο. Η παρατήρηση αυτή μας παρέχει μια αντιστρεπτή απεικόνιση μεταξύ δυο λύσεων υπερβαρύτητας τύπου II οι οποίες συνδέονται με έναν μετασχηματισμό μη-Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητας. Επίσης, για την συγκεκριμένη περίπτωση υποβάθρων αποδεικνύουμε ότι το δυϊκό υπόβαθρο διατηρεί τη μισή υπερσυμμετρία σε σχέση με το αρχικό. Στο τέταρτο κεφάλαιο μελετάμε τη δράση της μη-Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητας σε μια σειρά από υπόβαθρα με υπερσυμμετρία N=1 των οποίων οι δυϊκές θεωρίες πεδίου είναι γνωστές. Σκοπός του κεφαλαίου αυτού είναι η μελέτη της μη-Αβελιανής Τ-δυϊκότητας στα πλαίσια της αντιστοιχίας AdS/CFT. Αυτό το επιτυγχάνουμε μελετώντας διάφορες ποσότητες των θεωριών πεδίου που αντιστοιχούν στο αρχικό και στο δυϊκό υπόβαθρο. Τέλος, στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο κάνουμε χρήση τεχνικών ολογραφίας προκειμένου να μελετήσουμε το φαινόμενο της εισαγωγής φερμιονικών προσμίξεων σε τρισδιάστατες θεωρίες ύλης τύπου Chern-Simons, οι οποίες περιλαμβάνουν μεγάλο αριθμό γεύσεων. / In this thesis, we study applications which are related to the non-Abelian T-duality and the AdS/CFT correspondence. In the first part, which corresponds to the first chapter of the present thesis, we briefly present the basic mathematical tools required for the better understanding of the material included in the next chapters. In the second part, which consists of the chapters 2,3 and 4, we deal with the concept of non-Abelian T-duality. More concretely, in the second chapter we present the Buscher rules of the Abelian T-duality and we generalize them to the non-Abelian case. We also show how to implement the rules of non-Abelian T-duality in backgrounds of type II supergravity with non-vanishing Ramond-Ramond fields. This proccess can be seen as a generating technique of new supergravity backgrounds. In the third chapter we consider a general class of supergravity backgrounds with SO(4) isometry and we perform the non-Abelian T-duality transforation with respect to the SU(2) subgroup of SO(4). After a consistent truncation to seven dimensions of both the original and the dual background we reproduce the same seven dimensional theory. As a result, any solution of this seven dimensional theory can be uplifted simultaneously to both the original and the dual background. This provides an invertible map between two solutions of type II supergravity which are related with a non-Abelian T-duality transformation. Also, in the case of supergravity backgrounds considered here, we show that the dual background preserves the half supersymmetry with respect to the original one. In chapter 4, we study the action of non-Abelian T-duality on a series of N=1 supersymmetric backgrounds whose field theory duals are well understood. The aim of this chapter is to study the transformation of non-Abelian T-duality within the framework of the AdS/CFT correspondence. This is done by considering several observables of the field theories that correspond to both the original and the dual backgrounds. Finally, in chapter 5 we use holographic techniques in order to study the effect of the addition of fermionic impurities to the three dimensional Chern-Simons matter theories with a large number of flavors.

A complete non trivial supersymmetric deformation of the maximal supergravity in two dimensions is achieved by the gauging of a SO(9) group. The resulting theory describes the reduction of type IIA supergravity on an AdS_2 x S^8 background and is of first importance in the Domain-Wall / Quantum Field theory correspondence for the D0-brane case. To prepare the construction of the SO(9) gauged maximal supergravity, we focus on the eleven dimensional supergravity and the maximal supergravity in three dimensions since they give rise to important off-shell inequivalent formulations of the ungauged theory in two dimensions. The embedding tensor formalism is presented, allowing for a general desciption of the gaugings consistent with supersymmetry. The SO(9) supergravity is explicitly constructed and applications are considered. In particular, an embedding of the bosonic sector of the two-dimensional theory into type IIA supergravity is obtained. Hence, the Cartan truncation of the SO(9) supergravity is proved to be consistent. This motivated holographic applications. Therefore, correlation functions for operators in dual Matrix models are derived from the study of gravity side excitations around half BPS backgrounds. These results are fully discussed and outlooks are presented.

Recently the radiative B-decay to strange axial-vector mesons, B--> K1(1270) gamma, was observed with a rather large branching ratio. This process is particularly interesting as the subsequent K1-decay into its three-body final state allows us to determine the polarization of the photon, which is mostly left(right)-handed for Bbar(B) in the Standard Model while various new physics models predict additional right(left)-handed components. In this thesis, a new method is proposed to determine the polarization, exploiting the full Dalitz plot distribution, which seems to reduce significantly the statistical errors on the polarization parameter lambda_gamma measurement.This polarization measurement requires, however a detailed knowledge of the K1--> K pi pi strong interaction decays, namely, the complex pattern of the various partial wave amplitudes into several possible quasi-two-body channels as well as their relative phases. A number of experiments have been done to extract all these information while there remain various problems in the previous studies. In this thesis, we investigate the details of these problems. As a theoretical tool, we use the 3P0 quark-pair-creation model in order to improve our understanding of strong K1 decays.Finally we try to estimate some theoretical uncertainties: in particular, the one coming from the uncertainty on the K1 mixing angle, and the effect of a possible ''off-set'' phase in strong decay S-waves. According to our estimations, the systematic errors are found to be of the order of sigma(lambda_gamma)^th<20%. On the other hand, we discuss the sensitivity of the future experiments, namely the SuperB factories and LHCb, to lambda_gamma. Naively estimating the annual signal yields, we found the statistical error of the new method to be sigma(lambda_gamma)^stat<10% which turns out to be reduced by a factor 2 with respect to using the simple angular distribution.We also discuss a comparison to the other methods of the polarization measurement using processes, such as B--> K* e^+ e^-, Bd--> K* gamma and Bs--> phi gamma, for the determination of the ratio of the Wilson coefficients C7gamma^'eff/C7gamma^eff. We show an example of the potential constraints on C7gamma^'eff/C7gamma^eff. in several scenarios of supersymmetric models.

The field of high-energy physics has been living a very exciting period of its history with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN collecting data. Indeed, this enormous machine able to collide protons at a center of mass energy of 14 TeV promises to unveil the mystery around the physics at such energy scales. From the physicists side, the expectations are very strong as it isnowadays a certitude that the Standard Model of particle physics is incomplete and should, in fact, be interpreted as the effective theory of a more fundamental one. Unfortunately, the 7 and 8 TeV runs of the LHC did not provide any sign of new physics yet but there has been at least one major discovery in 2010, namely the discovery of a scalar particle with a mass of 125 GeV and whichproperties are very close to those of the Standard Model Higgs boson. Since then, many questions have come up as we now want to understand if it really is the Standard Model Higgs boson or if it exhibits any deviations. It is in this peculiar context that my research work was carried. In a first project, we, my supervisors, our collaborator and I, have wanted to explore thephenomenology associated with the neutralinos and charginos sector of the left-right symmetric supersymmetric model. Such an analysis can be motivated by several reasons such as the fact that the supersymmetric nature of these models provides a natural explanation for the infamous hierarchy problem, implies the unification of the gauge coupling constants at very high energy and provides a natural candidate for dark matter. In addition to these nice features, the left-right symmetry introduces a natural framework for explaining the smallness of neutrino masses but also helps in addressing several other unresolved issues in the Standard Model framework. Only focusing on the lightest charginos and neutralinos decaying into one or more light leptons, we have shown in our study that these models can be easily discovered in multi-leptonic final states as theylead to signatures very different from those induced by the Standard Model or its supersymmetric version.[...]

Weak-scale supersymmetry is one of the most favoured theories beyond the Standard Model of particle physics that elegantly solves various theoretical and observational problems in both particle physics and cosmology. In this thesis, I describe the theoretical foundations of supersymmetry, issues that it can address and concrete supersymmetric models that are widely used in phenomenological studies. I discuss how the predictions of supersymmetric models may be compared with observational data from both colliders and cosmology. I show why constraints on supersymmetric parameters by direct and indirect searches of particle dark matter are of particular interest in this respect. Gamma-ray observations of astrophysical sources, in particular dwarf spheroidal galaxies, by the Fermi satellite, and recording nuclear recoil events and energies by future ton-scale direct detection experiments are shown to provide powerful tools in searches for supersymmetric dark matter and estimating supersymmetric parameters. I discuss some major statistical issues in supersymmetric global fits to experimental data. In particular, I further demonstrate that existing advanced scanning techniques may fail in correctly mapping the statistical properties of the parameter spaces even for the simplest supersymmetric models. Complementary scanning methods based on Genetic Algorithms are proposed. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Submitted.