Practical Collider Physics

Following the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, particle physics has entered its most exciting and crucial period for over 50 years. Particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN provide the means to search for the next theory of particle physics by performing precise measurements of the Higgs boson, and by looking directly for particles that can solve current cosmic mysteries such as the nature of dark matter.

Practical Collider Physics provides a self-contained summary of all of the necessary theoretical, experimental and statistical knowledge required to analyse hadron collider data, focussing on the skills and techniques that are rarely covered in standard textbooks. Whilst the topics are kept accessible to honours-level undergraduates and masters students, they also serve as a useful primer for particle theorists who want an exposure to experimental methods to further their own understanding of the LHC, making Practical Collider Physics a fundamental text for anyone studying particle physics. The book covers topics including parton distribution functions, resummation, parton showers, hadronisation, and the underlying event and jet algorithms, all of which are vital for understanding the form and function of Monte Carlo generators. A detailed overview of the ATLAS and CMS detectors is also provided, along with their object-reconstruction algorithms, followed by a pedagogical introduction to computing and data-processing approaches, data-analysis basics, and detailed methods for high-precision measurements and particle searches.