Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-particle-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/7/b/solution
Past exam of the particle physics course of the University of Oxford 2015 7 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
At the Z boson pole, the accessible primary fermion pairs are , , , the three channels, and . The top quark is too heavy. The charged channels also have photon exchange, and the electronic channel has a substantial nonresonant Bhabha scattering contribution. On-shell W boson pairs are above threshold; they are not primary decays.
A tau lepton pair gives two approximately back-to-back narrow low-multiplicity cones, usually one or three charged tracks per cone, with overall charge zero and missing energy and momentum from neutrinos. Opposite hemispheres can show electron, muon or hadronic tags. A decay vertex or track impact-parameter information helps establish the short tau lepton flight. Reject Bhabha scattering and dimuon events by their nearly full visible beam energy, particle identification and little missing momentum; reject ordinary quark multijets by their broader high-multiplicity activity and larger visible invariant masses. Control two-photon backgrounds with visible transverse momentum, forward activity and event geometry. Selection efficiencies depend on decay mode and must be calibrated.
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