This 2006 book uses the standard model as a vehicle for introducing quantum field theory.

With the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) under construction and due to come online in 2007, it is appropriate to engage in a focused review on LHC phenomenology. At a time when most of the experimental effort is centered on detector construction and software development, it is vitally important to direct the experimental community and, in particular, new researchers on the physics phenomena expected from the LHC. Large Hadron Collider Phenomenology covers the capabilities of LHC, from searches for the Higgs boson and physics beyond the standard model to detailed studies of quantum chromodynamics, the B-physics sectors, and the properties of hadronic matter at high energy density as realized in heavy-ion collisions. Written by experienced researchers and experimentalists, this reference examines the basic properties and potentials of the machine, detectors, and software required for physics analyses. The book starts with a basic introduction to the standard model and its applications to the phenomena observed at high energy collisions. Later chapters describe the key technological challenges facing the construction of the LHC machine, the operating detectors of the LHC, and the vast computing grid needed to analyze the data. In the final sections, the contributors discuss the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), explore questions and predictions for the LHC program, and examine the physics opportunities of the LHC using information from the forward region. By surveying the difficult challenges of the LHC development while also assessing the novel processes that the LHC will perform, Large Hadron Collider Phenomenology aids less seasoned physicists as well as existing researchers in discovering the numerous possibilities of the LHC.

The Higgs Hunter's Guide is a definitive and comprehensive guide to the physics of Higgs bosons. In particular, it discusses the extended Higgs sectors required by those recent theoretical approaches that go beyond the Standard Model, including supersymmetry and superstring-inspired models.

This thesis presents a search for long-lived particles decaying into displaced electrons and/or muons with large impact parameters. This signature provides unique sensitivity to the production of theoretical lepton-partners, sleptons. These particles are a feature of supersymmetric theories, which seek to address unanswered questions in nature. The signature searched for in this thesis is difficult to identify, and in fact, this is the first time it has been probed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It covers a long-standing gap in coverage of possible new physics signatures. This thesis describes the special reconstruction and identification algorithms used to select leptons with large impact parameters and the details of the background estimation. The results are consistent with background, so limits on slepton masses and lifetimes in this model are calculated at 95% CL, drastically improving on the previous best limits from the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP).

This will be a required acquisition text for academic libraries. More than ten years after its discovery, still relatively little is known about the top quark, the heaviest known elementary particle. This extensive survey summarizes and reviews top-quark physics based on the precision measurements at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, as well as examining in detail the sensitivity of these experiments to new physics. Finally, the author provides an overview of top quark physics at the Large Hadron Collider.