This thesis describes the stand-alone discovery and measurement of the Higgs boson in its decays to two W bosons using the Run-I ATLAS dataset. This is the most precise measurement of gluon-fusion Higgs boson production and is among the most significant results attained at the LHC. The thesis provides an exceptionally clear exposition on a complicated analysis performed by a large team of researchers. Aspects of the analysis performed by the author are explained in detail; these include new methods for evaluating uncertainties on the jet binning used in the analysis and for estimating the background due to associated production of a W boson and an off-shell photon. The thesis also describes a measurement of the WW cross section, an essential background to Higgs boson production. The primary motivation of the LHC was to prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson. In 2012, CERN announced this discovery and the resultant ATLAS publication contained three decay channels: gg, ZZ, and WW.

The recent observation of the Higgs boson has been hailed as the scientific discovery of the century and led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics. This book describes the detailed science behind the decades-long search for this elusive particle at the Large Electron Positron Collider at CERN and at the Tevatron at Fermilab and its subsequent discovery and characterization at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Written by physicists who played leading roles in this epic search and discovery, this book is an authoritative and pedagogical exposition of the portrait of the Higgs boson that has emerged from a large number of experimental measurements. As the first of its kind, this book should be of interest to graduate students and researchers in particle physics.

In July 2012, a Higgs boson was discovered by both the ATLAS and CMS experiments. This thesis presents the most recent version of the H ->[gamma][gamma] analysis that was used in the discovery. Since the discovery, focus has shifted to measure the properties of the Higgs boson. The analysis presented here is the analysis of the Higgs couplings, where events are divided into twelve categories defined to isolate the various production processes. Specific focus is given to the vector boson fusion (VBF) process where the Higgs boson is produced in association with two foward/backward jets. Due to its small theory errors, the VBF process can allow for very precise measurements of the Higgs boson's properties. Also presented are the first differential cross section measurements for the Higgs boson as measured in the diphoton decay channel. Distributions in data are unfolded to particle level and compared with the latest Monte Carlo event generators for gluon-gluon fusion. Many distributions concentrate on the kinematics of the Higgs boson produced in association with jets. Finally, a proposal for a 1-jet VBF region for the high-luminosity LHC is proposed based on the difference in rapidity between the Higgs boson and the leading jet. This region shows good discrimination power against gluon-gluon fusion events and has been shown to discriminate against beyond the Standard Model couplings.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the field of Higgs boson physics. It offers the first in-depth review of the complete results in connection with the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and based on the full dataset for the years 2011 to 2012. The fundamental concepts and principles of Higgs physics are introduced and the important searches prior to the advent of the Large Hadron Collider are briefly summarized. Lastly, the discovery and first mensuration of the observed particle in the course of the CMS experiment are discussed in detail and compared to the results obtained in the ATLAS experiment.

With 4.8~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected at $\sqrt{s}=7~\rm{TeV}$ in 2011, and 5.9~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ collected at $\sqrt{s}=8~\rm{TeV}$ in 2012 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, an excess of 4.5 standard deviations from the background-only hypothesis is observed near 126.5~GeV in the diphoton invariant mass spectra. Along with the excesses observed in the $H \rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\ell\ell\ell$ and $H \rightarrow WW^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\nu\ell\nu$ channels, the observation of a Higgs-like particle is established at 6.0 standard deviations level. With more data accumulated during LHC Run~1, the measurements of Higgs boson couplings and mass in the $H\to\gamma\gamma$ channel are conducted by the ATLAS experiment based on 4.5~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7~\rm{TeV}$ collected in 2011, and 20.3~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s}=8~\rm{TeV}$ collected in 2012. The combined signal strength, defined as number of observed Higgs boson decays to diphoton divided by the corresponding Standard Model prediction, is measured to be $1.17 \ ^{+0.28}_{-0.26}$ assuming the Higgs boson mass being 125.4~$\rm{GeV}$. The signal strengths for individual Higgs boson production processes are also measured, and are found to be in good consistency with the Standard Model. The mass of the Higgs boson is measured in $H\to\gamma\gamma$ channel by the ATLAS experiment to be $125.98 \pm 0.50$~\GeV. This measurement is combined with the ones from ATLAS $H \rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\ell\ell\ell$ as well as CMS $H\to\gamma\gamma$ and $H \rightarrow ZZ^{(*)}\rightarrow \ell\ell\ell\ell$. The Higgs boson mass measured from the combination is $125.09\pm0.24~\rm{GeV}$. With LHC center-of-mass energy increased to 13~TeV, a search for high mass Beyond the Standard Model scalar resonance is performed in the diphoton decay channel based on 15.4~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector during 2015 and 2016. While a notable wide excess was first observed in the diphoton invariant mass spectrum from the 2015 data (3.2~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$) with mass near 750~GeV, it is not confirmed by the 2016 data with much higher statistics (12.4~$\rm{fb}^{-1}$). Limits on the production cross section times branching ratio of such resonances are set.

This book provides a general description of the search for and discovery of the Higgs boson (particle) at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The goal is to provide a relatively brief overview of the issues, instruments and techniques relevant for this search; written by a physicist who was directly involved. The Higgs boson mat be the one particle that was studied the most before its discovery and the story from postulation in 1964 to detection in 2012 is a fascinating one. The story is told here while detailing the fundamentals of particle physics.

This Thesis describes the first measurement of, and constraints on, Higgs boson production in the vector boson fusion mode, where the Higgs decays to b quarks (the most common decay channel), at the LHC. The vector boson fusion mode, in which the Higgs is produced simultaneously with a pair of quark jets, provides an unparalleled opportunity to study the detailed properties of the Higgs, including the possibility of parity and CP violation, as well as its couplings and mass. It thus opens up this new field of study for precision investigation as the LHC increases in energy and intensity, leading the way to this new and exciting arena of precision Higgs research.

This first open access volume of the handbook series contains articles on the standard model of particle physics, both from the theoretical and experimental perspective. It also covers related topics, such as heavy-ion physics, neutrino physics and searches for new physics beyond the standard model. A joint CERN-Springer initiative, the "Particle Physics Reference Library" provides revised and updated contributions based on previously published material in the well-known Landolt-Boernstein series on particle physics, accelerators and detectors (volumes 21A, B1,B2,C), which took stock of the field approximately one decade ago. Central to this new initiative is publication under full open access