Observation and measurement of a standard model Higgs Boson-like diphoton resonance with the CMS detector

This thesis concerns the observation of a new particle and the measurements of its properties, from the search of the Higgs boson through its decay into two photons at the CMS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), on the full LHC "Run I" data collected by the CMS detector during 2011 and 2012, consisting of proton-proton collision events at [square root of] s = 7 TeV with L = 5.1 fb-1 and at [square root of] s = 8 TeV with L = 19.7 fb-1, with the final calibration. In particular, an excess of events above the background expectation is observed, with a local significance of 5.7 standard deviations at a mass of 124.7 GeV, which constitutes the observation of a new particle through the two photon decay channel. A further measurement provides the precise mass of this new particle as 124.72+0.35 -0.36 GeV = 124.72+0.31 -0.32(stat)+0.16 -0.16(syst) GeV. Its total production cross section times two photon decay branching ratio relative to that of the Standard Model Higgs boson is determined as 1.12+0.26 -0.23 = 1.12+0.21 -0.21(stat)+0.15 -0.09(syst), compatible with the Higgs boson expectation. Further extractions of its properties relative to the Higgs boson, including the production cross section times decay branching ratios for separate Higgs production processes, couplings to bosons and to fermions, and effective couplings to the photon and to the gluon, are all compatible with the expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Yang, Mingming, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Christoph M.E. Paus.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/103183

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/103183