Direct search for Higgs boson in LHCb and contribution to the development of the vertex detector

Laurent Locatelli
EPFL, 2007
Thèse EPFL

Résumé

The LHCb experiment (Large Hadron Collider beauty) is one of the four experiments under construction at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN near Geneva. It is planned to start in 2007 and its goal is the study of b-quark physics. The LHC is a circular accelerator in which collide protons-protons at a center-of-mass energy of √s = 14 TeV. This generates a large number of high energy bb pairs which are predominantly produced in the same forward cone. The LHCb detector is therefore a forward single arm spectrometer designed to exploit the large bb production cross section (σbb ~ 500 μb) and to perform precise measurements of CP violation in b-hadrons decays. One of the actual greatest challenges in High Energy Physics is the discovery of the Higgs boson which is responsible for the Model Standard particles mass generation through the Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking process. The Higgs mass is not known and cannot be predicted by the theory. However the recent results of LEP at CERN have shown that mH0 > 114 GeV/c2. Below ~ 150 GeV/c2 the Higgs decay into two b-quarks H0 → bb dominates. The two quarks emitted back-to-back in the H0 rest frame form a string which fragments, giving rise to hadronization in jets containing b-hadrons. The aim of this thesis is to assess the feasibility to discover a Higgs boson with intermediate mass at LHCb by using the detector sensibility to b-hadrons in order to reconstruct these jets using jets reconstruction algorithms. The study is focused on the mechanisms in which the Higgs boson is produced in association with a gauge boson decaying leptonically H0 + W± → bb + ℓνℓ and H0 + Z0 → bb + ℓ+ℓ- for Higgs masses in the range 100 - 130 GeV/c2. The gauge bosons decay produces hard leptons quite often isolated from the b-jets. Hence an isolated lepton with high transverse momentum is required in order to reject the large QCD background. Several important background channels which also provide two b-quarks and an isolated lepton – like tt → W+b W-b, Z0 + W± → bb + ℓνℓ, Z0 + Z0 → bb + ℓ+ℓ-, W± + b-jets, Z0 + b-jets and generic bb – are studied in parallel. The idea is to find observables which behave differently for backgrounds and Higgs signal and to exploit these differences in the framework of a neural network, precisely in order to discriminate background from signal. The LHCb experiment needs a high capability to identify b-hadrons despite their very short lifetime τB ~ 1.5 · 10-12 s. The Vertex Locator (VeLo) is a sub-detector placed around the p-p interaction point which has to provide accurate measurements of the b-hadrons production and decay points by reconstructing secondary vertices. The second part of this thesis is a technical contribution to the development of the VeLo analogue transmission line. It consists in testing several hardware and software methods to improve the VeLo analogue transmission between the on-detector part of the readout and the off-detector electronics. Because the ~ 60 m line introduces an important attenuation, several cables and line drivers configurations with frequency and gain compensation are studied in order to obtain the best results in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and channel crosstalk. The different contributions to the noise are also studied and an estimation of the contribution due to the Beetle pipeline non-uniformity is given in order to see if a specific correction is needed or if it can be suppressed by a standard common noise correction procedure.

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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/105206?ln=fr

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Laurent Locatelli
EPFL, 2007
Thèse EPFL

Résumé

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https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/105206?ln=fr

À propos de ce résultat

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A search for heavy long-lived staus in the LHCb detector at √s = 7 and 8 TeV

Thi Viet Nga La

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been producing pp collisions at 7 and 8 TeV since 2010 and promises a new era of discoveries in particle physics. One of its experiments, the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment, was constructed to study CP violation in the B meson system. In addition to B physics, new Physics beyond the Standard Model can also be searched for at this single-arm forward spectrometer. With the different sub-detectors and the high resolution of the tracking system, the LHCb detector has the ability to search for heavy, long-lived and charged particles, which are predicted by extensions of the Standard Model. One of these extensions, the minimal Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking (mGMSB), proposes such a particle, named stau (τ~) - the SUSY bosonic counterpart of the heavy lepton tau (τ). The theory proposes that the staus may be pair-produced in pp collisions or in the decays of heavier particles, and have only electromagnetic interactions with the atoms of the medium like the muons. Therefore, we expect that at the energy of the LHC these particles can be produced if they do exist and that we have a chance to discover them at LHCb, as well as at the other experiments of the LHC. This thesis is dedicated to the search for stau pairs produced in pp collisions at the centre-of-mass energies √s = 7 and 8 TeV in the LHCb detector. For this purpose, we generated the stau pairs with seven different particle masses ranging from 124 to 309 GeV/c2 and simulated their path through the LHCb detector, as well as their muon background from the decays Z0, γ∗ → μ+μ−. Based on the results from the simulation, a set of cuts are then defined to select the stau pairs. Some muon pairs at high energies will also pass the selection cuts. Thus, to separate the stau pairs from the muon pairs, the Neural Network technique has been used. A first Neural Network has been used to distinguish the stau tracks from the muon tracks using their signals left in the sub-detectors: the VELO silicon detector, the electromagnetic calorimeter, the hadron calorimeter and the RICH detectors. Then, two methods to select the stau pairs have been developed: the first one is based on the product of the two responses from the first Neural Network (NN1) for the two tracks, the second one employs a second Neural Network to separate the stau pairs from the muon pairs by using the above product of the two NN1 responses and the invariant mass of pair. Finally, a favourable region for the staus finding has been defined and the expected numbers of stau and muon pairs in this region have been evaluated. The training of the Neural Network has been achieved with the Monte Carlo variables, then the trained Neural Network has been used to classify the data. The data used in our work were collected by the LHCb experiment in 2011 and 2012 and correspond to integrated luminosities of 1 fb−1 at √s = 7 TeV and of 2 fb−1 at √s = 8 TeV. No significant excess of signal has been observed. Upper limits at 95% CL on the cross section for stau pair production in pp collisions at √s = 7 and 8 TeV have been computed by using the profile likelihood method, which is derived from the well known Feldman and Cousins method.

EPFL2013

Chargement

Non-perturbative processes with Fermion number non-conservation in different models of particle physics

Yannis Burnier

When a classical conservation law is broken by quantum corrections, the associated symmetry is said to be anomalous. This type of symmetry breaking can lead to interesting physics. For instance in strong interactions, the anomaly in the chiral current is important in the pion decay to two photons. In weak interactions, there is an anomaly in the baryon number current. Although anomalous baryon number violating transitions are strongly suppressed at small energies, they could be at the origin of the baryon asymmetry of the universe. In this thesis, we consider several issues related to the theoretical and phenomenological aspects of anomalies. Although our main aim is the study of the electroweak theory, most of the theoretical questions do not rely on its precise setup. In order to solve these problems, we design a 1+1 dimensional chiral Abelian Higgs model displaying similar nonperturbative physics as the electroweak theory and leading to many simplifications. This model contains sphaleron and instanton transitions and, as the electroweak theory, leads to anomalous fermion number nonconservation. The one-loop fermionic contribution to the probability of an instanton transition with fermion number violation is calculated in the chiral Abelian Higgs model where the fermions have a Yukawa coupling to the scalar field. These contributions are given by the determinant of the fermionic fluctuations. The dependence of the determinant on fermionic, scalar and vector mass is determined. We also show in detail how to renormalize the fermionic determinant in partial wave analysis. The 1+1 dimensional model has the remarkable property to enable the creation of an odd number of fractionally charged fermions. We point out that for 1+1 dimensions this process does not violate any symmetries of the theory, nor does it lead to any mathematical inconsistencies. We construct the proper definition of the fermionic determinant in this model and underline its non-trivial features that are of importance for realistic 3+1 dimensional models with fermion number violation. In theories with anomalous fermion number nonconservation, the level crossing picture is considered a faithful representation of the fermionic quantum number variation. It represents each created fermion by an energy level that crosses the zero-energy line from below. If several fermions of various masses are created, the level crossing picture contains several levels that cross the zero-energy line and cross each other. However, we know from quantum mechanics that the corresponding levels cannot cross if the different fermions are mixed via some interaction potential. The simultaneous application of these two requirements on the level behavior leads to paradoxes. For instance, a naive interpretation of the resulting level crossing picture gives rise to charge nonconservation. We resolve this paradox by a precise calculation of the transition probability, and discuss what are the implications for the electroweak theory. In particular, the nonperturbative transition probability is higher if top quarks are present in the initial state. Coming back to the electroweak theory, we point out that the results of many baryogenesis scenarios operating at or below the TeV scale are rather sensitive to the rate of anomalous fermion number violation across the electroweak crossover. Assuming the validity of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions, we estimate this rate for experimentally allowed values of the Higgs mass (mH = 100…300 GeV). We also discuss where the rate enters in the particle density evolution and how to compute the leading baryonic asymmetry.

EPFL2006

Chargement

The LHCb detector is one of the four experimental setups built to detect high-energy proton collisions to be produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Located at CERN (Geneva, Switzerland), the LHC machine and the LHCb experiment are expected to start in 2008, and will then operate for several years. Being the largest collider of its kind, the LHC will open the way to new investigations, in the very-high energies, but also in terms of statistics for the study of rare-phenomena and flavor physics. In this framework LHCb is dedicated to precise measurements of CP-violating and rare decays of beauty hadrons, in order to test (or over-constrain) the Standard Model of particle physics. From the hardware point of view, the construction of such detectors represents several challenges; one of them is the routing at a very high frequency of many signals in a harsh radiation environment. We designed to this purpose a hardware setup and a software filter which together reduce the cross-talk present in the readout of the LHCb vertex detector to a level of (1 ± 2)%, leading to an improved signal quality in the acquisition chain. From the physics point of view, many of the CP-violation measurements performed at LHCb using Bs decays, for example using Bs → Ds∓ K± decays, will require as input the Bs–Bs oscillation frequency Δms. Thus the measurement of Bs–Bs oscillations, which are best observed using the flavor-specific Bs → Ds- π+ decays, will play an important role. We have developed a complete selection of Bs → Ds- π+ and Bs → Ds∓ K± events, based on Monte Carlo simulations. Assuming 2 fb-1 of data, we expect a Bs → Ds- π+ signal yield, after the first level of trigger, of 155 k events over a background between 0.6 k and 7.8 k events at 90% confidence level. Moreover, we assess with fast Monte Carlo studies the corresponding statistical sensitivity on the Bs oscillation frequency, σ(Δms) = 0.008 ps-1, on the wrong tag fraction, σ(ω) = 0.003, as well as on other parameters related to the Bs-meson system. We also addressed an important aspect of the systematics associated with the Δms measurement, and developed a method to calibrate and assess the length scale. This calibration is performed through the reconstruction of secondary interactions occurring in the material of the vertex detector. We show that the statistical relative precision of this approach quickly matches 6 × 10-5, obtained from the survey measurements of the detector.

EPFL2008

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Non-perturbative processes with Fermion number non-conservation in different models of particle physics

Yannis Burnier

EPFL2006

A search for heavy long-lived staus in the LHCb detector at √s = 7 and 8 TeV

Thi Viet Nga La

EPFL2013

EPFL2008