Prospects for Electroweak Measurements at the LHC

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential for electroweak measurements at the LHC, focusing on early data collection and key processes like W/Z production and gauge couplings, with implications for calibration and detector performance.

Contribution

It provides a detailed outlook on early electroweak measurements at the LHC, emphasizing the challenges and opportunities with initial calibration uncertainties.

Findings

Feasibility of early measurements with 10-100 pb^{-1} luminosity

Potential to measure W-boson mass and Z asymmetries

Constraints on electroweak gauge couplings from di-boson production

Abstract

The prospects for electroweak measurements at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are discussed. In addition to high-luminosity results, special emphasis is placed on early start-up measurements with a total luminosity ranging from 10/pb to 100/pb, using the general-purpose detectors ATLAS and CMS and their initially larger calibration and alignment uncertainties. Topics discussed here include inclusive W and Z production, W-boson mass, Z forward-backward asymmetry, Z-plus-jets production and di-boson production, the latter constraining trilinear electroweak gauge couplings. (Invited talk at the 34th ICHEP, Philadelphia, USA, July/August 2008)