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SYMD: Symposium SMuK Dissertation Prize 2022
SYMD 1: Symposium SMuK Dissertation Prize 2022
SYMD 1.3: Invited Talk
Monday, March 21, 2022, 14:50–15:15, Audimax
Watching the top quark mass run - for the first time! — •Matteo M. Defranchis1, Katerina Lipka2, and Sven-Olaf Moch3 — 1CERN, Geneva, Switzerland — 2DESY, Hamburg, Germany — 3UHH, Hamburg, Germany
In the Standard Model of particle physics, the masses of elementary particles are understood as the fundamental couplings to the Higgs field. A special role is played by the mass of the top quark, the most massive elementary particle currently known, whose value affects conclusions about the stability of the vacuum state of our universe. The interaction between quarks and gluons is described by a sector of the Standard Model known as Quantum Chromodynamics, with the strength of the interaction depending on a quantity called strong coupling constant. According to Quantum Chromodynamics, the strong coupling constant rapidly decreases at higher energy scales. The effect is known as the ``running of the coupling constant''. The same is also true for the masses of the quarks, and the experimental verification of this effect is an essential test of the validity of the Standard Model. Furthermore, the presence of physics beyond the Standard Model can lead to modifications of the mass running by means of the effect of virtual particles. In this work, the running of the top quark mass is measured using high-energy proton-proton collision data collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. In this way, the fundamental quantum effect of the mass running is investigated for the first time for the most massive elementary particle known.