J/psi meson production in association with a W boson: Cross section ratio measurement with the ATLAS detector using 8 TeV pp data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN

Abstract

The production mechanism of charmonium particles in hadronic collisions is not fully understood and is an active area of research. These mechanisms can be studied by examining the associated production of charmonium particles in association with vector bosons particles. This thesis examines the associated production of J/psi mesons (the charmonium particle) along with W boson particles using 20.3 fb^-1 of data collected using the ATLAS detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator from proton proton collisions at center of mass energy 8 TeV. A measurement of the prompt J/psi + W production rate as a ratio to the inclusive W production rate is made and the results used to provide some insights into the double parton scattering processes.