The Impact of pPb W/Z LHC data on nCTEQ15 Parton Distribution Functions With An Emphasis on Reftting the nCTEQ15 nPDF Set

The full text of my Ph.D. Dissertation can be found here and the slides from my defense can be found here.

Abstract

As the LHC experiments increase their statistics and reduce their systematics, it is increasingly important to reduce the theoretical uncertainties so we can perform precision comparisons. The parton distribution functions (PDFs) which describe the hadronic structure of protons and nuclei are the critical link between the experimental data and the proposed theoretical models; hence, a better understanding of the PDFs is essential for improved predictions. Nuclear PDFs, in particular, have proven valuable in this regard, especially for flavor differentiation. I introduce "nCTEQ+LHC," the first PDF set fit using the nCTEQ formalism to include data from the LHC. This PDF set also represents the first results of the new (C++ based) "nCTEQ++" fitting code. To incorporate many new LHC processes into nCTEQ++, I developed and tested a novel way of uniting various theory tools in a modular framework to enable fast PDF fitting of complex higher-order theory calculations using modern grid techniques. This combination of tools provides a foundation for a wide variety of future analysis involving both proton and nuclear data.