Thesis

Search for the supersymmetric partners of the top quark (stop) at the Large Hadron Collider

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2015

• Academic Year:

  2015 / 2016

• Domain:

  Experimental Particle Physics

• Supervisor:

  Pedrame Bargassa

• Co-Supervisor:

  Joao Varela

• Institution:

  Instituto Superior Técnico

• Host Institution:

  Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas

• Abstract:

  The study aims at the search for the supersymmetric (SUSY) partner of the top quark (stop) with the CMS experiment at the LHC. SUSY partners of quarks & gluons, namely squarks & gluinos, are among the most accessible SUSY particles at the LHC. For every quark, the mass splitting between pairs of squarks is proportional to the Standard Model (SM) quark mass. Since the top is the heaviest SM quark, the lightest stop may be the lightest squark, thus the most easily observable at LHC. Stop searches are at present among the most exciting searches at the LHC. The search for direct stop pair production will be led in the “lepton + missing energy + jets” final state. The energy reach & the expected integrated luminosity of the LHC for the coming years will allow a search for stop in mass regions yet unexplored, and across 3 different decay modes, rendering this search as model-independent as possible.