Master student Projects

master student projects in the Nikhef ATLAS group

date: June 2012

General information

The Official SCT DQ shift twiki

The Nikhef ATLAS group leaders are Stan Bentvelsen and Paul de Jong.

Scrutinizing top quarks in ATLAS for signs of new physics

Scrutinizing top quarks in ATLAS for signs of new physics

Supervisors: prof. dr. Paul de Jong and Priscilla Pani (PhD student)

Research description

The LHC is a "top quark factory": more than 1 million top quark pairs are produced every year. Such large data sets give the opportunity to study top quark production and decay in great detail. New physics, such as 4th generation top-like quarks, or supersymmetric partners of the top quark, may lead to final states in the detector that look like top quark pairs, but are subtly different. A number of variables are suited to probe possible differences between Standard Model top quark production, and new physics. These include variables related to the missing energy in the event, but also other kinematic variables have been proposed. The goal of this master project is to study these variables in detail: what do they measure exactly and why are they sensitive? This will be done on simulated events, both representing SM top quark production and new physics production. Then, the knowledge gained will be applied to the ATLAS data of 2011 and 2012. If a deviation of SM-like behaviour is found, further studies will need to be done to estimate whether this is due to ununderstood detector behaviour, incomplete simulation of SM top quark pair production, or new physics.

Relevant papers:

Relavant publications: axXiv:1205.5805 axXiv:1205.4470 axXiv:1203.4813