School of Physics - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemSearching for signals of Dark Matter produced with top quark pairs using the ATLAS detector( 2019)Understanding the nature of Dark Matter is a key goal in modern physics. The observed gravita-tional interactions of galaxies and galactic clusters, along with theories of structure formation in the early universe, indicate the existence of Dark Matter. Evidence of the specific nature of Dark Matter remains elusive however. Particle collider experiments search for evidence of Dark Matter production within energetic proton collisions. One strategy employed in this field is to make minimal assumptions about new particles and couplings to Standard Model particles, in order to explore the range of possibilities without being overly constrained by narrow assumptions. This thesis focuses on the assumption that Dark Matter couples strongly to the heavier quarks, which motivates searching for processes where it is produced in association with pairs of top quarks. An analysis is presented on the 2015 and 2016 “Run 2" dataset taken with the ATLAS detector, consisting of 36.1 fb -1 of proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. This analysis studies the hypothesis of Dark Matter production in conjunction with hadronically decaying top quarks. No excess above the estimated Standard Model backgrounds is observed, and constraints on the allowed cross-sections are presented. When making minimal assumptions about the nature of Dark Matter, scalar mediator masses below 20 GeV are excluded. These results are then translated to more specific and complete Two Higgs Doublet models that feature for example in Supersymmetry that also predict the same final states, and constraints on the parameter space of these models are presented.