One of the dominant backgrounds in new physics searches at the Large Hadron Collider comes from the leptonic decays of Standard Model W and Z bosons recoiling off jets associated with the underlying event. The ratio of the W+jets and Z+jets cross sections, Rn, is predicted with high precision due to the similar masses and production mechanisms of the W and Z bosons. Any significant departures of Rn from predicted values would be an indication of new physics. This thesis studies a strategy to enhance the sensitivity of Rn to a specific type of signal. A measurement of the ratio Rn is presented, and its sensitivity to pair production of top quarks and leptoquarks is studied. Using a set of topology-discriminating variables, based upon calorimeter topoclusters, the sensitivity of Rn to top quark and leptoquark signals is enhanced using multivariate analysis techniques. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/3713 |
| Date | 12 December 2011 |
| Creators | Pearce, James D. |
| Contributors | Kowalewski, Robert V. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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