Veranstaltungsdaten

Sonstiges: Syllabus (lecture):
The lecture is aimed at students who have successfully participated in the particle physics introductory course. A participation in the follow-up lectures (physics of quarks, physics of leptons) is not required but recommended. The topic of the lecture is the top quark. An introduction to the theoretical description of the top quark within the Standard Model will be given. Experimental measurements and results will be discussed and compared to the theoretical predictions. Among these are the production cross-section for various processes containing top quarks, e.g., single top and top/anti-top pairs, and the possible decay channels. The properties of the top quark such as its mass and couplings will be discussed. Precision measurements of these properties are limited by systematic uncertainies. The most important sources of those uncertainties will be introduced as well as related experimental issues. An outlook to other processes containing top quarks such as couplings to the Higgs particle will given. The prospects of measurements at the LHC and a future linear collider will be studied.

Syllabus (exercises):
The topics covered in the accompanying lecture will be discussed in depth. The participants will perform theoretical studies related to the top quark, e.g., calculations of the production cross-section. Issues related to the analysis of data will be worked on, e.g., statistical methods and systematic uncertainties. Detector related topics such as the energy resolution or the jet energy scale will be covered and illustrated with examples. The analysis of Monte Carlo data is planned to demonstrate general analysis strategies in top quark physics.