Physics at the LHC Run-2 and Beyond

These lecture notes discuss methods, recent results and future prospects in proton-proton physics at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: Lecture notes from the 2016 European School of High-Energy Physics, 15-28 June 2016, Skeikampen, Norway (61 pages, 56 figures

Moriond Electroweak and Unified Theories 2016 - Experimental Summary

Summary of the experimental results presented at the 51st edition of the Moriond Electroweak and Unified Theories conference held in March 2016 at La Thuile, Italy.Comment: Proceedings of Moriond EW & UT 2016 (42 pages, 43 figures

Commissioning and early physics analysis with the ATLAS and CMS experiments

These lecture notes for graduate students and young postdocs introduce the commissioning and early physics programme of the high-transverse-momentum experiments ATLAS and CMS, operating at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.Comment: Lecture notes from the 5th Latin American School of High-Energy Physics, Recinto Quirama, Colombia, March 15-28, 2009; 84 pages, 92 Figure

Status of the global electroweak fit of the Standard Model

Results from the global Standard Model fit to electroweak precision data, including newest Tevatron measurements, are reviewed and discussed. The complete fit using also the constraints from the direct Higgs boson searches yields an upper limit on the Higgs mass of 153 GeV at 95% CL. The top mass is indirectly determined to be (177.2 +10.5 -7.8) GeV and (179.5 +8.8 -5.2) GeV for fits including or not the constraints from the direct Higgs searches, respectively. Using the 3NLO perturbative prediction of the massless QCD Adler function, the strong coupling constant at the Z-mass scale is determined to be alpha_s(MZ)=0.1193 +- 0.0028 +- 0.0001, which is in excellent agreement with the 3NLO result from hadronic tau decays. The perspectives of the electroweak fit for forthcoming and proposed future collider projects are discussed. The available constraints on the Higgs mass are convolved with the high-scale behaviour of the Higgs quartic coupling to derive likelihoods for the survival of the Standard Model versus its cut-off scale evolved up to the Planck mass.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, review talk given at the 2009 Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Krakow, Poland, July 16-22, 200

The Hadronic Contribution to the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment and to the Running Electromagnetic Fine Structure Constant at MZ - Overview and Latest Results

Quantum loops induce an anomaly, a_mu, in the magnetic moment of the muon that can be accurately measured. Its Standard Model prediction is limited in precision by contributions from hadronic vacuum polarisation of the photon. The dominant lowest-order hadronic term can be calculated with a combination of experimental cross section data, involving e+e- annihilation to hadrons, and perturbative QCD. These are used to evaluate an energy-squared dispersion integral that strongly emphasises low photon virtualities. The dominant contribution to the integral stems from the two-pion channel that can be measured both in e+e- annihilation and in tau decays. The corresponding e+e- and tau-based predictions of a_mu exhibit deviations by, respectively, 3.6 sigma and 2.4 sigma from experiment, leaving room for a possible interpretation in terms of new physics. This talk reviews the status of the Standard Model prediction with emphasis on the lowest-order hadronic contribution. Also given is the latest result for the running electromagnetic fine structure constant at the Z-mass pole, whose precision is limited by hadronic vacuum polarisation contributions, determined in a way similar to those of the magnetic anomaly.Comment: Proceedings of talk at Tau2010 Workshop, Manchester, UK, 13-17 Sep, 2010; 10 pages, 8 figure

Interpreting CP Asymmetries in B->pi+ pi- Decays

We discuss methods used to interpret the measurements of CP-asymmetry in B->pi+pi- within the framework of the Standard Model. Interpretations using various theoretical inputs are given, ranging from the rather general, yet unpredictive, properties based on strong isospin symmetry to highly predictive calculations using QCD Factorization. The calculations are performed using the software package CKMFitter and a frequentist method, Rfit.Comment: Invited talk at the Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle, IPPP Durham, April 2003 (eConf C0304052). 4 pages LaTeX, 4 eps figure

SVD-based unfolding: implementation and experience

With the first year of data taking at the LHC by the experiments, unfolding methods for measured spectra are reconsidered with much interest. Here, we present a novel ROOT-based implementation of the Singular Value Decomposition approach to data unfolding, and discuss concrete analysis experience with this algorithm.Comment: Presented at PHYSTAT 2011, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, January 2011, to be published in a CERN Yellow Repor

The Hadronic Contribution to the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment and to the Running Electromagnetic Fine Structure Constant at MZ - Overview and Latest Results

Quantum loops induce an anomaly, a_mu, in the magnetic moment of the muon that can be accurately measured. Its Standard Model prediction is limited in precision by contributions from hadronic vacuum polarisation of the photon. The dominant lowest-order hadronic term can be calculated with a combination of experimental cross section data, involving e+e- annihilation to hadrons, and perturbative QCD. These are used to evaluate an energy-squared dispersion integral that strongly emphasises low photon virtualities. The dominant contribution to the integral stems from the two-pion channel that can be measured both in e+e- annihilation and in tau decays. The corresponding e+e- and tau-based predictions of a_mu exhibit deviations by, respectively, 3.6 sigma and 2.4 sigma from experiment, leaving room for a possible interpretation in terms of new physics. This talk reviews the status of the Standard Model prediction with emphasis on the lowest-order hadronic contribution. Also given is the latest result for the running electromagnetic fine structure constant at the Z-mass pole, whose precision is limited by hadronic vacuum polarisation contributions, determined in a way similar to those of the magnetic anomaly.Comment: Proceedings of talk at Tau2010 Workshop, Manchester, UK, 13-17 Sep, 2010; 10 pages, 8 figure