A search for Z' bosons in the dimuon decay channel in 8 TeV proton-proton collisions
In this thesis, I present a search for $Z'$ bosons in the $\mu^+\mu^-$ decay channel using 20 fb$^{-1}$ of $p$-$p$ collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8 $ TeV, produced during the 2012 run at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, using the ATLAS detector to record the collision products. The search proceeds via a comparison of the reconstructed dimuon invariant mass distribution with the expected distribution, given Standard Model only sources of background. In addition to the ``official'' ATLAS dimuon selection, I present a new dimuon selection, designed for this analysis, whose purpose is to increase the sensitivity of the search relative to the official selection. I observe no statistically significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation, and proceed to place new lower limits on the masses of $Z'$ bosons inspired by the $E_6$ Grand Unified Theory.
Large Hadron Collider (LHC), European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System (ATLAS), Z', dilepton resonances, muon resolution
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign