Measurement of neutral current Drell-Yan production at 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

• Main Author: Kwan, Tony
• Other Authors: Keeler, Richard K.
• Format: Others
• Language: English; en
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Experimental particle physics; CERN; LHC; ATLAS; Standard Model; Drell-Yan; Parton distribution functions; Weak mixing angle
• Online Access: https://dspace.library.uvic.ca//handle/1828/8426

Neutral current Drell-Yan production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC was studied with the ATLAS detector. The 20.1 inverse femtobarn data set used in this precision measurement was collected in 2012 during which the LHC collided protons at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The production rate or differential cross-section was measured in three-dimensions: invariant mass, absolute rapidity, and cosine of the polar angle in the Collins-Soper frame. A measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry was obtained from the differential cross-section by summing over the forward and the backward events and taking their difference. The three-dimensional differential cross-section measurement presented in this dissertation can be used to constrain the invariant mass- and rapidity-dependent parton distribution functions of the proton and the forward-backward asymmetry results can be used to extract a measurement of the weak mixing angle. === Graduate