Experimental High Energy Physics II

The course consists of two modules of 20 hours each. The first (Module A) focuses on electroweak precision measurements at e+e- (LEP) and hadron colliders (LHC) at the energy frontier, while the second (Module B) covers the domain of high-precision measurements in Heavy Flavour Physics at the intensity frontier.

Module A (Prof. Ligabue, 20 hours)

• Electroweak parameters, radiative corrections, pseudo-observables. Electroweak global fits and indirect constraints on quark top mass, and the mass of the Higgs boson before its discovery.

• General-purpose 4-pi detector at LEP: ALEPH’s design and performances.

• Precision EW measurements at LEP: lineshape and width of the Z boson, width of the Z boson decaying to invisible, number of light neutrino families, forward-backward asymmetries, and weak mixing angle determination.

• Physics of the W boson at LEP2: mass determination, WW production cross-section.

• General-purpose 4-pi detector at LHC: CMS’s design and performances.

• Precision EW physics at LHC: Higgs discovery and properties determination; measurement of the W boson properties, and weak mixing angle determination at LHC.

Module B (Prof. Morello, 20 hours)

• Introduction to the Heavy Flavour Physics within the Standard Model. 

• Flavour Changing Neutral Currents. The GIM mechanism. 

• Discrete symmetries: spatial parity, time reversal, charge conjugation. Implications of the  CPT theorem and relevance of CP Violation in the Standard Model. 

• The CKM quark-mixing matrix and CP violation in the SM.

• Neutral-meson mixing formalism and time evolution. 

• Classification of CP-violating manifestations and experimental observables in the charm and beauty sector: CPV in the decay, CPV in mixing, CPV in the interference between a decay with and without mixing. 

• Experimental environments for heavy flavour physics: B-Factories at asymmetric-energy e+e- colliders and LHCb at symmetric high energy hadron colliders. 

• Some of the most relevant and recent precision measurements of CKM parameters and CP-violating asymmetries in heavy flavor decays are presented, as well as searches for very rare or forbidden decays in the Standard Model.