Phenomenological aspects of new physics at high energy hadron colliders

• Main Author: Papaefstathiou, Andreas
• Other Authors: Webber, Bryan
• Published: University of Cambridge 2011
• Subjects: 530; Particle physics
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.541899

This thesis contains studies of phenomenological aspects of new physics at hadron colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). After a general introduction in chapter 1, in chapter 2 we outline the main features of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics and the theoretical motivations for going beyond it. We subsequently provide brief descriptions of a few popular models that aim to solve the issues that arise within the SM. In chapter 3 we describe the general Monte Carlo method for evaluating multidimensional integrals and show how it can be used to construct a class of computational tools called Monte Carlo event generators. We describe the main generic features of event generators and how these are implemented in the HERWIG++ event generator. By applying resummation techniques, we provide, in chapter 4, analytical calculations of two types of hadron collider observables. The first, global inclusive variables, are observables that make use of all measured particle momenta and can provide useful information on the scale of new physics. The second observable is the transverse energy of the QCD initial state radiation (ET ), associated with the either Drell-Yan gauge boson production or Higgs boson production. In both cases we provide comparisons to results obtained from Monte Carlo event generators. In chapter 5 we examine two well-motivated models for new physics: one of new heavy charged vector bosons (W prime), similar to the SM W gauge bosons, and a model motivated by strong dynamics electroweak symmetry breaking that contains new resonances, leptoquarks, that couple primarily to quarks and leptons of the third generation. In the prior model, we improve the current treatment of the W' by considering interference effects with the SM W and construct an event generator accurate to next-to-leading order which we use to conduct a phenomenological analysis. For the leptoquark model, starting from an effective Lagrangian for production and decay, we provide an implementation in the HERWIG++ event generator and use it to form a strategy for mass reconstruction. The thesis ends with some conclusions and suggestions for extensions of the work presented. Further details and useful formulæ are given in the appendices.