Project Details
Projekt Print View

Precision Measurement of the W Boson Mass at the LHC

Subject Area Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
Term from 2012 to 2018
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 220064825
 
Final Report Year 2018

Final Report Abstract

Two major scientific goals have been associated with my Emmy Noether research group at the University of Mainz: the precision measurement of the W boson mass at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) as well as the construction of a forward muon tagger for the ATLAS experiment. Due to an management decision my the ATLAS experiment, the muon forward tagger could not be built. Hence it was agreed to develop instead a prototype detector based on the Micromegas technology in view of the upgrade of the ATLAS muon spectrometer. During the past yeas, I could aquire additional funding from the Volkswagen foundation and the federal ministry (BMBF), allowing me to expand my contributions to both research directions: Precision measurement of the W boson mass, using data from the LHC and Tevatron, and the development of Micromegas detectors. Both research goals have been met. My research group published the first measurement of the W boson mass at the LHC in 2016 with the ATLAS collaboration. It is the most precise measurement up to date, yielding a value of mW = 80370 ± 19 MeV, and relies fundamentally on the work performed within my research group. In the same year, my team installed a prototype detector based on Micromegas technology at the ATLAS detector for long term tests. This detector was designed and constructed in close collaboration with my previous colleagues at CERN. It builds the basis for the ongoing worldwide construction effort within the ATLAS New Small Wheel project. Both achievements led to several press articles. The W boson mass measurement was even selected as one of three research highlights of the Johannes Gutenberg University in 2016.

Publications

 
 

Additional Information

Textvergrößerung und Kontrastanpassung