High-precision measurements are made of Z boson production in proton-antiproton collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV recorded by the Collider Detector at Fermilab, using the electron decay channel. The cross-section times branching ratio is measured to be ?Z · Br(Z → e+e-) = (255.7 ± 2.4stat ± 5.2sys ± 15.2lum)pb in a dataset of 194 pb-1 collected between March 2002 and June 2003. This agrees well with theoretical predictions. The cross-section for W boson production in the electron channel has also been measured in the subset of this dataset of 72 pb-1 collected up until January 2003. Using this smaller dataset the ratio of cross-sections is determined to be R ≡ ?W · Br(W → e?)/?Z · Br(Z → ee) = 10.82 ± 0.18stat ± 0.16sys. Combining these results with measurements made in the muon channel gives R = 10.92 ± 0.15stat ± 0.14sys (e + ? channels), from which the branching ratio of the W to electrons and muons, and the total width of the W, have been extracted: Br(W → l?) = 0.1089 ± 0.0022 (l = e,?); ?(W) = 2078.8 ± 41.4 MeV, which are in good agreement with the Standard Model values and with other measurements. The CKM quark mixing matrix element.

Experiments over the last decade at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory have yielded evidence for the formation of the new state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Normally, quarks (and their associated gluons) are found only in colorless doublets (mesons) or triplets (baryons), but when raised above the cross-over threshold at a temperature of ∼ 175 MeV, a strongly-coupled partonic medium of asymptotically free quarks and gluons is expected to form. The focus of heavy-ion physics at both the RHIC and Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments has been to study physical processes that allow for a better grasp of the properties of this medium. Because of the large center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair ([squareroot]s(NN)) of 2.76 TeV in Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC and substantial delivered integrated luminosities, the study of new processes in nucleus-nucleus collisions has become possible. One of those processes is Z-boson production, which due to it not interacting strongly, being produced in hard collisions and having a decay channel that does not interact with the QGP, can act as a control in understanding the cold nuclear matter effects present in heavy-ion collisions. This dissertation presents the measurement of the production of Z bosons in the dimuon and dielectron decay channels in Pb+Pb and p+p collisions at [squareroot]s(NN) of 2.76 TeV obtained by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The analysis is based on the data sample collected during the Pb+Pb run in 2011, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 150 [mu]b−1 and on the p+p data sample collected in 2013, at the same center-of-mass energy, with an integrated luminosity of 5.4 pb−1. The ratio of Pb+Pb to p+p yields, scaled by the number of incoherent nucleon-nucleon collisions, R(AA), is expected to be equal to unity if there are no nuclear effects modifying the production of the Z boson in the Pb+Pb collisions. The R(AA) for centrality-integrated Z-boson production is found to be 1.06 ± 0.05 (stat) ± 0.08 (syst) in the dimuon channel and 1.02 ± 0.08 (stat) ± 0.15 (syst) in the dielectron channel, and shows no nuclear modification across the rapidity, transverse momentum and centrality bins measured. This result demonstrates that the binary-collision scaling is seen to hold in the kinematic region studied, which is expected for a colorless probe that is unaffected by a deconfined QGP. It also opens avenues to study processes that are strongly modified by the QGP, by using Z production as a control.

"This thesis presents the measurements of the differential production cross-sections of a Z boson in association with at least one charm-quark-initiated jet, where the Z boson decays leptonically into a muon-antimuon pair. Data recorded in proton-proton collisions by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during the years of 2015 to 2018 is utilised, when the LHC was running at a center of mass energy of 13 TeV. The studied data corresponds to a total integrated luminosity of 139 fb^-1. The measurements are compared to simulated data produced at next-to-leading-order and normalized to theoretical predictions at next-to-next-leading order. The results show that predictions underestimate the total number of events by 50% but display a good modelling of all distribution shapes of the chosen observables in data. The discrepancy can be attributed to a problem in the normalisation but further studies need to be made to settle the issue"--

The inclusive cross section of vector boson production in proton-proton collisions is one of the key measurements for constraining the Standard Model and an important part of the physics program at the LHC. Measurement of the inclusive cross section requires calculating the detector acceptance of decay products. The acceptance of the CMS detector of leptonic decays of W and Z bosons produced in pp colisions at [square root of]s = 5 TeV is calculated using Monte Carlo event simulation. Statistical and systematic uncertainties on the acceptance measurement from PDF and a, uncertainty and higher-order correction are reported. The use of the calculated acceptance in combination with measurements of detector efficiency, luminosity, and particle counting to determine the inclusive cross section is outlined. A total integrated luminosity of 331.64 pb-1 from 2015 and 2017 CMS data at [square root of]s = 5 TeV is available for the calculation of the inclusive cross section.