Beyond the Standard Model searches with the top quark at the Large Hadron Collider
Top quark events resulting from proton-proton collisions at high energies in the new Large Hadron Collider will be collected by the ATLAS and CMS experiments and have the potential to probe New Physics beyond the Standard Model. The study of the production and decay of the Top quarks might reveal high-mass resonances, extra-dimensions, new flavor dynamics, and evidence for a 4 th generation, among other possibilities. Specific experimental techniques for event reconstruction and for the control of the background are required to increase the reach for New Physics. An overview of some of these techniques is given along with the expected sensitivity of the ATLAS and CMS experiments for some scenarios.

title: Search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair in pp collisions at the LHC
abstract: A bstractA search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair is presented using data samples corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb−1 (5.1 fb−1) collected in pp collisions at the center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV (8 TeV). Events are considered where the top-quark pair decays to either one lepton+jets $ \left( {\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\to \ell \nu \mathrm{q}\overline{\mathrm{q}}\prime \mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}} \right) $ or dileptons $ \left( {\mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\to {\ell^{+}}\nu {\ell^{-}}\overline{\nu}\mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}}} \right) $, ℓ being an electron or a muon. The search is optimized for the decay mode $ \mathrm{H}\to \mathrm{b}\overline{\mathrm{b}} $. The largest background to the $ \mathrm{t}\overline{\mathrm{t}}\mathrm{H} $ signal is top-quark pair production with additional jets. Artificial neural networks are used to discriminate between signal and background events. Combining the results from the 7 TeV and 8 TeV samples, the observed (expected) limit on the cross section for Higgs boson production in association with top-quark pairs for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV is 5.8 (5.2) times the standard model expectation.

title: Alignment of the CMS muon system with cosmic-ray and beam-halo muons
abstract: The CMS muon system has been aligned using cosmic-ray muons collected in 2008 and beam-halo muons from the 2008 LHC circulating beam tests. After alignment, the resolution of the most sensitive coordinate is 80 microns for the relative positions of superlayers in the same barrel chamber and 270 microns for the relative positions of endcap chambers in the same ring structure. The resolution on the position of the central barrel chambers relative to the tracker is comprised between two extreme estimates, 200 and 700 microns, provided by two complementary studies. With minor modifications, the alignment procedures can be applied using muons from LHC collisions, leading to additional significant improvements.

title: Performance of the CMS Drift Tube Chambers with Cosmic Rays
abstract: Studies of the performance of the CMS drift tube barrel muon system are described, with results based on data collected during the CMS Cosmic Run at Four Tesla. For most of these data, the solenoidal magnet was operated with a central field of 3.8 T. The analysis of data from 246 out of a total of 250 chambers indicates a very good muon reconstruction capability, with a coordinate resolution for a single hit of about 260 microns, and a nearly 100% efficiency for the drift tube cells. The resolution of the track direction measured in the bending plane is about 1.8 mrad, and the efficiency to reconstruct a segment in a single chamber is higher than 99%. The CMS simulation of cosmic rays reproduces well the performance of the barrel muon detector.

title: Performance of tau-lepton reconstruction and identification in CMS
abstract: The performance of tau-lepton reconstruction and identification algorithms is studied using a data sample of proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 inverse picobarns collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The tau leptons that decay into one or three charged hadrons, zero or more short-lived neutral hadrons, and a neutrino are identified using final-state particles reconstructed in the CMS tracker and electromagnetic calorimeter. The reconstruction efficiency of the algorithms is measured using tau leptons produced in Z-boson decays. The tau-lepton misidentification rates for jets and electrons are determined.

title: Data filtering in the readout of the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter
abstract: For an efficient data taking, the Electromagnetic Calorimeter data of the CMS experiment must be limited to 10% of the full event size (1MB). Other requirements limit the average data size to 2kB per data acquisition link. These conditions imply a reduction factor of close to twenty on the data collected. The data filtering in the readout of the Electromagnetic Calorimeter detector is discussed. Test beam data are used to study the digital filtering applied in the readout channels and a full detector simulation allows to estimate the energy thresholds to achieve the desired data suppression factor.

title: Search for First Generation Scalar Leptoquarks in pp Collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV with the ATLAS Detector
abstract: We report a search for first generation scalar leptoquarks using 1.03 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions data produced by the Large Hadron Collider at and recorded by the ATLAS experiment. Leptoquarks are sought via their decay into an electron or neutrino and a quark, producing events with two oppositely charged electrons and at least two jets, or events with an electron, missing transverse momentum and at least two jets. Control data samples are used to validate background predictions from Monte Carlo simulation. In the signal region, the observed event yields are consistent with the background expectations. We exclude at 95% confidence level the production of first generation scalar leptoquark with masses when assuming the branching fraction of a leptoquark to a charged lepton is equal to 1.0 (0.5).

title: Expected Performance of the ATLAS Experiment - Detector, Trigger and Physics
abstract: A detailed study is presented of the expected performance of the ATLAS detector. The reconstruction of tracks, leptons, photons, missing energy and jets is investigated, together with the performance of b-tagging and the trigger. The physics potential for a variety of interesting physics processes, within the Standard Model and beyond, is examined. The study comprises a series of notes based on simulations of the detector and physics processes, with particular emphasis given to the data expected from the first years of operation of the LHC at CERN.

title: Search for anomalous production of prompt like-sign muon pairs and constraints on physics beyond the standard model with the ATLAS detector
abstract: An inclusive search for anomalous production of two prompt, isolated muons with the same electric charge is presented. The search is performed in a data sample corresponding to 1.6 fb(-1) of integr ...

title: What Lattice QCD tell us about the Landau Gauge Infrared Propagators
abstract: The calculation of the Landau gauge gluon propagator performed in Coimbra using lattice QCD simulations is reviewed. Particular attention is given to t he behavior of the gluon propagator in the infrared region and the value of D(0). In the second part of the article, the modeling of the lattic e data using massive type propagators and Gribov type propagators is discussed. Four different mass scales are required to describe the propagator over the full range of momenta accessed by the simulations discussed here. Furthermore, assuming a momentum dependent gluon mass, we sketch on its functional dependence.

title: A mobile data acquisition system
abstract: A mobile data aquisition (MobiDAQ) was developed for the ATLAS central hadronic calorimeter (TileCal). MobiDAQ has been designed in order to test the functionalities of the TileCal front-end electronics and to acquire calibration data before the final back-end electronics were built and tested. MobiDAQ was also used to record the first cosmic ray events acquired by an ATLAS subdetector in the underground experimental area.