Overview
- Nominated as an outstanding contribution by Simon Fraser University
- Explores the groundbreaking, long-sought-after discovery of single top quark production
- Documents one of the flagship measurements of the D0 experiment, a collaboration of more than 600 physicists from around the world
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Springer Theses (Springer Theses)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
The top quark is by far the heaviest known fundamental particle with a mass nearing that of a gold atom. Because of this strikingly high mass, the top quark has several unique properties and might play an important role in electroweak symmetry breaking—the mechanism that gives all elementary particles mass. Creating top quarks requires access to very high energy collisions, and at present only the Tevatron collider at Fermilab is capable of reaching these energies.
Until now, top quarks have only been observed produced in pairs via the strong interaction. At hadron colliders, it should also be possible to produce single top quarks via the electroweak interaction. Studies of single top quark production provide opportunities to measure the top quark spin, how top quarks mix with other quarks, and to look for new physics beyond the standard model. Because of these interesting properties, scientists have been looking for single top quarks for more than 15 years.
This thesis presents the first discovery of single top quark production. It documents one of the flagship measurements of the D0 experiment, a collaboration of more than 600 physicists from around the world. It describes first observation of a physical process known as “single top quark production”, which had been sought for more than 10 years before its eventual discovery in 2009. Further, his thesis describes, in detail, the innovative approach Dr. Gillberg took to this analysis. Through the use of Boosted Decision Trees, a machine-learning technique, he observed the tiny single top signal within an otherwise overwhelming background.
This Doctoral Thesis has been accepted by Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Discovery of Single Top Quark Production
Authors: Dag Gillberg
Series Title: Springer Theses
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7799-1
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4419-7798-4Published: 04 February 2011
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4614-2798-8Published: 11 October 2014
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4419-7799-1Published: 22 January 2011
Series ISSN: 2190-5053
Series E-ISSN: 2190-5061
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 142
Topics: Nuclear Physics, Heavy Ions, Hadrons, Elementary Particles, Quantum Field Theory