Measurement of the Top Quark Mass in the Dilepton Final State using the Matrix Element Method

The top quark, discovered in 1995 by the CDF and D0 experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, is the heaviest known fundamental particle. The precise knowledge of its mass yields important constraints on the mass of the yet-unobserved Higgs boson and allows to probe for physics beyond the Standard Model. The first measurement of the top quark mass in the dilepton channel with the Matrix Element method at the D0 experiment is presented. After a short description of the experimental environment and the reconstruction chain from hits in the detector to physical objects, a detailed review of the Matrix Element method is given. The Matrix Element method is based on the likelihood to observe a given event under the assumption of the quantity to be measured, e.g. the mass of the top quark. The method has undergone significant modifications and improvements compared to previous measurements in the lepton+jets channel: the two undetected neutrinos require a new reconstruction scheme for the four-momenta of the final state particles, the small event sample demands the modeling of additional jets in the signal likelihood, and a new likelihood is designed to account for the main source of background containing tauonic Z decay. The Matrix Element method is validated on Monte Carlo simulated events at the generator level. For the measurement, calibration curves are derived from events that are run through the full D0 detector simulation. The analysis makes use of the Run II data set recorded between April 2002 and May 2008 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.8 fb{sup -1}. A total of 107 t{bar t} candidate events with one electron and one muon in the final state are selected. Applying the Matrix Element method to this data set, the top quark mass is measured to be m{sub top}{sup Run IIa} = 170.6 {+-} 6.1(stat.){sub -1.5}{sup +2.1}(syst.)GeV; m{sub top}{sup Run IIb} = 174.1 {+-} 4.4(stat.){sub -1.8}{sup +2.5}(syst.)GeV; m{sub top}{sup comb} = 172.9 {+-} 3.6(stat.) {+-} 2.3(syst.)GeV. Systematic uncertainties are discussed, and the results are interpreted within the Standard Model of particle physics. As the main systematic uncertainty on the top quark mass comes from the knowledge of the absolute jet energy scale, studies for a simultaneous measurement of the top quark mass and the b jet energy scale are presented. The prospects that such a simultaneous determination offer for future measurements of the top quark mass are outlined

A new LHC search for dark matter produced via heavy Higgs bosons using simplified models

Searches for dark matter produced via scalar resonances in final states consisting of Standard Model (SM) particles and missing transverse momentum are of high relevance at the LHC. Motivated by dark-matter portal models, most existing searches are optimized for unbalanced decay topologies for which the missing momentum recoils against the visible SM particles. In this work, we show that existing searches are also sensitive to a wider class of models, which we characterize by a recently presented simplified model framework. We point out that searches for models with a balanced decay topology can be further improved with more dedicated analysis strategies. For this study, we investigate the feasibility of a new search for bottom-quark associated neutral Higgs production with a $b \bar b Z + p_\text{T}^\text{miss}$ final state and perform a detailed collider analysis. Our projected results in the different simplified model topologies investigated here can be easily reinterpreted in a wide range of models of physics beyond the SM, which we explicitly demonstrate for the example of the Two-Higgs-Doublet model with an additional pseudoscalar Higgs boson.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures, 4 table

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT