Wednesday 23 November 2011

Speaker: Pat Ward (Cambridge University)

Title: “Standard Model Electroweak Physics at ATLAS”


Abstract:

The ATLAS experiment at the LHC has been recording data from proton-proton collisions at a 
centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV since March 2010, and has now collected an integrated luminosity 
of about 5 inverse femtobarns. While much of the physics analysis emphasis has been on searches 
for new phenomena, the large amount of data and excellent detector performance have allowed 
detailed measurements of many Standard Model processes. These measurements can be used to test 
the Standard Model in this new high energy regime. In this talk I will discuss measurements 
involving W and Z bosons, which test the electroweak sector of the Standard Model. While the 
production of single W and Z bosons is copious, diboson final states are much rarer. 
Measurements of these are a sensitive test of the gauge structure of the Standard Model, 
via the determination of triple gauge boson couplings. Recent ATLAS results on diboson production 
will be presented, and prospects for future electroweak measurements discussed.