Measuring physical properties of the W boson in 7 TeV p-p collisions
Abstract
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a recently-activated proton-proton collider operating at a center-of-mass energy of s = 7 TeV. The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) is one of two general-purpose collider-detectors centered at one of the interaction points of the LHC. A measurement of the W boson production cross-section and mass is presented to test the performance of the CMS detector in early ( dtL = 70 nb-1) LHC data and to test theoretical predictions at this never-before-experienced energy regime. The cross-section measurement uses standard event counting techniques, while the mass measurement is performed using fitting of the analytical differential cross-section formula to the mT spectrum from selected W → munumu events. The W production cross-section is measured to be spp→Wx BRW→mnm = 9013pb+/-540pb stat.+/- 552pbsys. +/-991pb lumi., consistent with theoretical predictions at next-to-leading order in alphas. The mass of the W is measured to be mW=80.07GeV/ c2+/-0.64GeV/ c2stat. +/-0.48 GeV/c2 sys., consistent with previous experimental measurements.
- Publication:
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Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010PhDT.......173K
- Keywords:
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- Physics, Elementary Particles and High Energy