Jet Physics At High Energy Colliders

The future of new physics searches at the LHC will be to look for hadronic signals with jets. In order to distinguish a hadronic signal from its background, it is important to develop advanced collider physics techniques that make accurate theoretical predictions. This work centers on phenomenological and formal studies of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), including resummation of hadronic observables using Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET), calculating anomalous dimensions of multi-Wilson line operators in AdS, and improving jet physics analysis using multiple event interpretations.

This book reviews the latest experimental results on jet physics from proton-proton collisons at the LHC. Jets allow to determine the strong coupling constant over a wide range of energies up the highest ones possible so far, and to constrain the gluon parton distribution of the proton, both of which are important uncertainties on theory predictions in general and for the Higgs boson in particular.A novel approach in this book is to categorize the examined quantities according to the types of absolute, ratio, or shape measurements and to explain in detail the advantages and differences. Including numerous illustrations and tables the physics message and impact of each observable is clearly elaborated.

Recent results from all types of high energy colliders (e⁺e⁻, pp, ep) are presented from the view point of electroweak interaction and QCD/Jet physics together with related phenomenological reviews. Expected physics at future colliders, both being built or planned, are also discussed including e+e- linear collider, pp collider and heavy ion collider.

This book describes research in two different areas of state-of-the-art hadron collider physics, both of which are of central importance in the field of particle physics. The first part of the book focuses on the search for supersymmetric particles called gluinos. The book subsequently presents a set of precision measurements of “multi-jet” collision events, which involve large numbers of newly created particles, and are among the dominant processes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Now that a Higgs boson has been discovered at the LHC, the existence (or non-existence) of supersymmetric particles is of the utmost interest and significance, both theoretically and experimentally. In addition, multi-jet collision events are an important background process for a wide range of analyses, including searches for supersymmetry.

In this thesis, I develop an exclusive cone jet algorithm based on the principles of jet substructure and demonstrate its use for physics analyses at the Large Hadron Collider. Based on the event shape N-jettiness, this algorithm, called "XCone," partitions the event into a fixed number of conical jets of size RO in the rapidity-azimuth plane. This algorithm is designed to locate substructure independent of momentum, allowing accurate resolution of jets at both low and high energy scales. I present three potential analyses using XCone to search for heavy resonances, Higgs bosons, and top quarks at various momenta and show that it reconstructs these particles with efficiencies between 60% and 80% without any additional substructure techniques, and maintains this efficiency over a wide kinematic range. This algorithm provides many key advantages over traditional jet algorithms that make it appealing for use at the LHC and other high energy particle colliders.

Jet physics is an exciting and rapidly growing branch of particle physics, particularly relevant to the energy frontier. Just a few years ago, jets were universally treated as structureless objects, representing the momentum of an underlying quark or gluon. Nowadays, jets are understood to be intricate, dynamical objects with interesting hidden properties worthy of investigation and relevant for understanding quantum field theory.

This concise primer reviews the latest developments in the field of jets. Jets are collinear sprays of hadrons produced in very high-energy collisions, e.g. at the LHC or at a future hadron collider. They are essential to and ubiquitous in experimental analyses, making their study crucial. At present LHC energies and beyond, massive particles around the electroweak scale are frequently produced with transverse momenta that are much larger than their mass, i.e., boosted. The decay products of such boosted massive objects tend to occupy only a relatively small and confined area of the detector and are observed as a single jet. Jets hence arise from many different sources and it is important to be able to distinguish the rare events with boosted resonances from the large backgrounds originating from Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). This requires familiarity with the internal properties of jets, such as their different radiation patterns, a field broadly known as jet substructure. This set of notes begins by providing a phenomenological motivation, explaining why the study of jets and their substructure is of particular importance for the current and future program of the LHC, followed by a brief but insightful introduction to QCD and to hadron-collider phenomenology. The next section introduces jets as complex objects constructed from a sequential recombination algorithm. In this context some experimental aspects are also reviewed. Since jet substructure calculations are multi-scale problems that call for all-order treatments (resummations), the bases of such calculations are discussed for simple jet quantities. With these QCD and jet physics ingredients in hand, readers can then dig into jet substructure itself. Accordingly, these notes first highlight the main concepts behind substructure techniques and introduce a list of the main jet substructure tools that have been used over the past decade. Analytic calculations are then provided for several families of tools, the goal being to identify their key characteristics. In closing, the book provides an overview of LHC searches and measurements where jet substructure techniques are used, reviews the main take-home messages, and outlines future perspectives.

Written by one of the detector developers for the International Linear Collider, this is the first textbook for graduate students dedicated to the complexities and the simplicities of high energy collider detectors. It is intended as a specialized reference for a standard course in particle physics, and as a principal text for a special topics course focused on large collider experiments. Equally useful as a general guide for physicists designing big detectors.

A detailed overview of the physics of high-energy colliders emphasising the role of QCD.

This book takes the readers through the science behind particle accelerators, colliders and detectors: the physics principles that each stage of the development of particle accelerators helped to reveal, and the particles they helped to discover. The book culminates with a description of the Large Hadron Collider, one of the world’s largest and most complex machines operating in a 27-km circumference tunnel near Geneva. The book provides the material honestly without misrepresenting the science for the sake of excitement or glossing over difficult notions. The principles behind each type of accelerator is made accessible to the undergraduate student and even to a lay reader with cartoons, illustrations and metaphors. Simultaneously, the book also caters to different levels of reader’s background and provides additional materials for the more interested or diligent reader.