Thesis

Exploring the meson structure by the Drell-Yan process at the COMPASS Experiment from CERN

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2019

• Academic Year:

  2019 / 2020

• Domain:

  Experimental Particle Physics

• Supervisor:

  Catarina Quintans

• Co-Supervisor:

  Pedro Abreu

• Institution:

  Instituto Superior Técnico

• Host Institution:

  Laboratório de Instrumentação e Física Experimental de Partículas

• Abstract:

  The subject of this thesis is the study of the most recent pion-induced Drell-Yan data collected by the COMPASS experiment at CERN, with the aim of understanding the momentum distributions of partons inside hadrons. The Drell-Yan process consists in the quark-antiquark annihilation, with the detection of a pair of leptons in the final state. The COMPASS data now available is a unique data set, that can finally bring new input to the parton distribution functions of the pion, the lightest hadron, up to now very poorly known. The situation with the pion knowledge is at variance with the high precision already reached for the proton. The relevance of the intrinsic transverse momentum of quarks and gluons inside the hadrons, manifested in the measured angular dependencies of the Drell-Yan process, can be studied from the COMPASS data in a region of phase-space not accessible to collider experiments. These data shall have significant impact in our understanding of pion and proton internal dynamics. The PhD candidate will develop his work integrated in a team of experienced researchers.