Theses
You are interested in writing a thesis in the field of experimental particle physics?
We offer topics for bachelor and master theses on current research questions focussing on the reconstruction of hadronic signals in the ATLAS detector. An overview of the topics currently available in our junior research group can be found at the bottom of this page. Below there is also an overview of the theses written so far in our group on this topic.
If you are interested in one of the currently available topics, or if you would like to discuss other possiblities or topics in the field of particle physics, please feel free to contact us. We are looking forward to a chat with you.
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Currently available topics for theses
Differentiating between hadronically decaying W and Z bosons using ML
- Teilchenphysik - NWG Delitzsch
Machine learning has been used for many years to identify the origin of a particle, e.g. does the jet result from the hadronic decay of a W boson (W-jet) or from the emission of a hard gluon? For this purpose, the substructure of the jets is analysed in order to distinguish the signal from the background. A major distinguishing feature is the mass of the jets. A W-jet has approximately the mass of the W boson, whereas a jet initiated by a gluon has a very low mass. Distinguishing W-jets from Z-jets (relevant for some searches for new physics) is experimentally very challenging, since W and Z bosons differ mainly by their mass and charge but barely by their substructure. In addition, the experimental resolution of the calorimeter is not good enough to distinguish the small mass difference. In recent years, the reconstruction of jets and the development of machine learning techniques have made great advances such that improvements in the differentiation between W-jet and Z-jet can be expected.
In this project, a new identification algorithm should be developed using machine learning to distinguish W-jets from Z-jets.
Completed theses
Master theses
Jan Jäkel | Jet-Lepton Overlap Removal Optimization in context of the boosted H to WW to lnuqq measurement using Run 2 data in ATLAS | April 2024 |
Simone Ruscelli | Feasibility studies for the extraction of the efficiency of boosted W/Z identification algorithms in diboson events using 13 TeV proton-proton collisions in ATLAS | September 2023 |
Bachelor theses
Joel Koch | Quark versus gluon tagging in the forward direction using topo-towers with the ATLAS detector | August 2023 |
Bastian Schuchardt | Achievable performance of boosted object identification algorithms using machine learning techniques in ATLAS | Juli 2023 |
Simon Unterste-Wilms | Performance of boosted object identification in fast simulation at the ATLAS Experiment | Februar 2023 |