The Matrix Element Method and its Application to Measurements of the Top Quark Mass

Abstract

The most precise measurements of the top quark mass are based on the Matrix Element method. We present a detailed description of this analysis method, taking the measurements of the top quark mass in final states with one and two charged leptons as concrete examples. In addition, we show how the Matrix Element method is suitable to reduce the dominant systematic uncertainties related to detector effects, by treating the absolute energy scales for b-quark and light-quark jets independently as free parameters in a simultaneous fit together with the top quark mass. While the determination of the light-quark jet energy scale has already been applied in several recent measurements, the separate determination of the absolute b-quark jet energy scale is a novel technique with the prospect of reducing the overall uncertainty on the top quark mass in the final measurements at the Tevatron and in analyses at the LHC experiments. The procedure is tested on Monte Carlo generated events with a realistic detector resolution.

25 pages, 14 figures, version accepted by the journal

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• Measurement of the ttbar production cross section and top quark mass extraction using dilepton events in ppbar collisions
• Multivariate searches for single top quark production with the D0 detector
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• Unbinned multivariate observables for global SMEFT analyses from machine learning
• Precision-Machine Learning for the Matrix Element Method
• General analysis of signals with two leptons and missing energy at the Large Hadron Collider
• Matrix Element Method in HEP: Transfer Functions, Efficiencies, and Likelihood Normalization
• Optimal determination of New Physics couplings: A comparative study
• The matrix element method at next-to-leading order for arbitrary jet algorithms
• Application of the matrix element method to Higgs boson pair production in the channel $\text{HH}\to \text{b}\bar{\text{b}}\text{W}{\text{W}}^{\ast }$ at the LHC