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Vector boson production with the ALICE detector

The main objective of this thesis is to study and investigate the production of massive vector bosons (W+ and W−). This a priori mentioned production is not sensitive to hot nuclear matter effects because of the weak coupling nature of these vector bosons. Thus, in heavy ion collisions they provide...

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Main Author: Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson
Other Authors: Cleymans, Jean
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Physics 2018
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access_status_str Open Access
author Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson
author2 Cleymans, Jean
author_browse Cleymans, Jean
Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson
author_facet Cleymans, Jean
Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson
author_sort Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson
collection Thesis
description The main objective of this thesis is to study and investigate the production of massive vector bosons (W+ and W−). This a priori mentioned production is not sensitive to hot nuclear matter effects because of the weak coupling nature of these vector bosons. Thus, in heavy ion collisions they provide a good reference for the medium-induced effects on other probes. The production mechanism of these vector bosons is highly isospin dependent and thus they are affected by the initial state effects. Initial state effects include isospin, Fermi motion, EMC effect, shadowing and nuclear absorption. Hence their production in lead-lead (Pb-Pb) and proton-lead (p-Pb) collisions can be used to test some of these initial state effects. In this thesis only two of these initial state effects will be considered namely, isospin and shadowing (referring to shadowing and anti-shadowing). Eke, these vector bosons can be used to provide a non-arbitrary reference to the probes affected by the medium. Traditionally, in heavy ion collisions, hard processes are expected to scale with the number of binary collision thus a precise study of these vector bosons can be used to test the factorisation assumed in models used to determine centrality. This unique property of electroweak (W) bosons makes them essential probes to study the possible inherent bias in centrality determination. In proton-proton (pp) collisions, their production can be used to obtain information on quark parton distribution functions (PDF). The data used in the analysis was collected by A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The ALICE detector is designed to study ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, in which a hot and dense, strongly-interacting medium is created. The production of W bosons is studied in p-Pb, p-p and Pb-Pb collisions at 5.023, 8 and 5.023 TeV centre-of-mass energies, respectively. The forward muon spectrometer with the pseudorapidity acceptance −4.0 < ŋ < −2.5 is used. W bosons are studied via the inclusive single muon differential pT spectrum.
format Thesis
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:33.643Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2018
publishDateRange 2018
publishDateSort 2018
publisher Department of Physics
publisherStr Department of Physics
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/27310 Vector boson production with the ALICE detector Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson Cleymans, Jean Buthelezi, E High Energy Physics Particle Physics The main objective of this thesis is to study and investigate the production of massive vector bosons (W+ and W−). This a priori mentioned production is not sensitive to hot nuclear matter effects because of the weak coupling nature of these vector bosons. Thus, in heavy ion collisions they provide a good reference for the medium-induced effects on other probes. The production mechanism of these vector bosons is highly isospin dependent and thus they are affected by the initial state effects. Initial state effects include isospin, Fermi motion, EMC effect, shadowing and nuclear absorption. Hence their production in lead-lead (Pb-Pb) and proton-lead (p-Pb) collisions can be used to test some of these initial state effects. In this thesis only two of these initial state effects will be considered namely, isospin and shadowing (referring to shadowing and anti-shadowing). Eke, these vector bosons can be used to provide a non-arbitrary reference to the probes affected by the medium. Traditionally, in heavy ion collisions, hard processes are expected to scale with the number of binary collision thus a precise study of these vector bosons can be used to test the factorisation assumed in models used to determine centrality. This unique property of electroweak (W) bosons makes them essential probes to study the possible inherent bias in centrality determination. In proton-proton (pp) collisions, their production can be used to obtain information on quark parton distribution functions (PDF). The data used in the analysis was collected by A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The ALICE detector is designed to study ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, in which a hot and dense, strongly-interacting medium is created. The production of W bosons is studied in p-Pb, p-p and Pb-Pb collisions at 5.023, 8 and 5.023 TeV centre-of-mass energies, respectively. The forward muon spectrometer with the pseudorapidity acceptance −4.0 < ŋ < −2.5 is used. W bosons are studied via the inclusive single muon differential pT spectrum. 2018-02-05T13:05:33Z 2018-02-05T13:05:33Z 2017 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27310 eng application/pdf Department of Physics Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle High Energy Physics
Particle Physics
Senosi, Kgotlaesele Johnson
Vector boson production with the ALICE detector
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Vector boson production with the ALICE detector
title_full Vector boson production with the ALICE detector
title_fullStr Vector boson production with the ALICE detector
title_full_unstemmed Vector boson production with the ALICE detector
title_short Vector boson production with the ALICE detector
title_sort vector boson production with the alice detector
topic High Energy Physics
Particle Physics
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27310
work_keys_str_mv AT senosikgotlaeselejohnson vectorbosonproductionwiththealicedetector