"The intriguing nature of the top quark, by far the heaviest particle in the Standard Model of particle physics, has motivated the development of many theoretical extensions predicting the existence of new massive particles decaying to a pair of top-antitop quarks. The production of these hypothetical particles in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider would reveal itself as a resonance in the expected smooth distribution of the top-antitop quark invariant mass. This thesis presents a search for such a new heavy particle decaying to a pair of top-antitop quarks in the semi-leptonic final state. The analyzed data sample amounts to a total of 4.6 fb-1 at a proton-proton collision center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. Novel techniques specifically tailored to the identification of the decay products of highly energetic top quarks are developed and used. No evidence for resonant production of pairs of top-antitop quarks is found and, as a result, constraints are set on two theoretical models. Upper limits on the production cross-section times branching ratio are established at a 95% credibility level for a leptophobic Zʹ boson from the Topcolor model, and a Kaluza-Klein gluon from the Randall-Sundrum model. The Zʹ boson and the Kaluza-Klein gluon are excluded to exist (at a 95% credibility level) in the mass ranges 0.8-1.65 TeV and 0.8-1.88 TeV, respectively. The constraints de- rived in this thesis on the two theoretical models are more stringent than the ones obtained at other experiments, thanks to the large center-of-mass energy and the dedicated high-energy top quark identification techniques used." --

This book addresses one of the most intriguing mysteries of our universe: the nature of dark matter. The results presented here mark a significant and substantial contribution to the search for new physics, in particular for new particles that couple to dark matter. The first analysis presented is a search for heavy new particles that decay into pairs of hadronic jets (dijets). This pioneering analysis explores unprecedented dijet invariant masses, reaching nearly 7 TeV, and sets constraints on several important new physics models. The two subsequent analyses focus on the difficult low dijet mass region, down to 200 GeV, and employ a novel technique to efficiently gather low-mass dijet events. The results of these analyses transcend the long-standing constraints on dark matter mediator particles set by several existing experiments.