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Prospects for Charged Higgs Boson Searches at the Large Hadron Collider with Early ATLAS Data
[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2010.
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Layman's Abstract
Why are you so massive?It might come as a surprise, but this is the biggest unanswered question in modern-day particle physics. Each time you step on a set of scales to measure your weight, you are measuring your mass multiplied by the force of gravity. But why do you have a mass in the first place? A solution to this puzzle is the goal of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. As you are reading this, the Large Hadron Collider is accelerating protons to speeds of around a billion kilometres per hour and smashing them together. Particle detectors such as ATLAS are acting as giant digital cameras, recording what happens during the split second in which the protons collide, shatter and form new particles. By studying these `pictures', we hope to find the Higgs boson, an elusive particle that is believed to be responsible for not only your mass, but the mass of the universe.If the Higgs boson does exist, it will only be produced in around one in 10,000,000,000 proton-proton collisions. This research studies computer simulations of Higgs bosons as they traverse the ATLAS detector, developing the analysis techniques that will be needed to spot the importantcollisions. This work will be invaluable to understand the real data that is currently being recorded, to draw conclusions about the existence of the Higgs boson and to solve the ultimate mystery of the mass of the universe.