Tara Shears

Physics studies at LHCb

LHCb is designed primarily to study CP violation, and to indirectly explore new physics through its contribution to B hadron decays. However it is also potentially sensitive to the many other physics processes that occur at LHC. I am particularly interested, with my group and colleagues, in electroweak boson reconstruction at LHCb. Our particular interest is probing precisely predicted electroweak quantities, which are sensitive to New Physics contributions, and where previous experimental results show discrepancies. We work to test lepton universality, and test the Z boson couplings to extract a value for the Weinberg angle.

We also actively collaborate on measurements of Z, W and low mass Drell-Yan production through decays to leptonic final states. These measurements provide valuable information about the underlying parton density functions (PDFs). In addition, precise Standard Model tests can be made by comparing the measured cross-section ratios to prediction. We collaborate with theorists to understand the best measurements that LHCb can make to constrain PDFs, and test electroweak predictions.

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