Phenomenological studies of top quark production in the forward region of phase space at the LHC

Thesis

This thesis contains phenomenological studies of top quark production in the forward region of phase space at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The production of highly forward top quarks has so far not been observed in nature. As the LHCb detector at the LHC is instrumented in the forward region, this opens the possibility of studying top quark properties in this yet unexplored region of phase space. This feasibility of performing cross section and charge asymmetry measurements of top quark pairs with available and future LHCb data is studied in detail. In both cases, potential analysis strategies are proposed, and sophisticated theoretical predictions are provided for both signal and background. By studying the expected experimental sensitivity of cross section measurements, the potential constraints on parton distribution functions is quantified. The sensitivity of the proposed charge asymmetry measurements with the full Run II LHCb data is also considered.

Authors: Gauld, R

• Publication date: 2014
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-dqrevek66
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: QCD; forward physics; top quark physics
• Subjects: Particle physics; Theoretical physics