Monte Carlo Samples

4.3.1. Signal Modelling

ThettH¯ signal modelling is performed using MadGraph5_aMC@NLO version 2.3.2 [62]

(referred to in the following as MG5_aMC) for the matrix element (ME) calculation, in-terfaced to Pythia 8.210 [63] parton shower (PS) generator using the A14 tune [64] for the tunable parameters used to model the UE. The used PDF setting is NNPDF3.0NLO [47], while the factorisation and renormalisation scales are both set toµF =µR = HT/2, where HT is the scalar sum of the transverse masses

q

p²_T +m² of all the particles appearing in the final state. The decay of the top quarks is simulated by MadSpin [65], which pre-serves all the spin correlations. The mass of the Higgs boson is set to 125 GeV and all its possible decay modes are included. ThettH¯ cross section is computed at NLO [66–70].

The branching fractions for the Higgs decays are calculated using HDECAY [71].

4.3. Monte Carlo Samples

4.3.2. t t ¯ +jets Background Modelling

The dominant tt¯background is modelled using the Powheg-Box v2 NLO generator [58, 72–74] using the CT10 PDF. The simulation is done setting thehdampparameter, which controls the pT of the first emission beyond the Born level, equal to the top quark mass.

To model the parton shower and the hadronisation, Pythia 6.428 [52] is used together with the CTEQ6L1 PDF set [46] and the Perugia2012 [75] UE tune. The obtained sample is normalised to the Top++2.0 [76] theoretical cross section of 832⁺₋₅₁⁴⁶ pb, which is calcu-lated at NNLO in QCD and includes resummation of NNLL soft gluon terms [77–81]. In addition, some alternativett¯samples are used to derive systematic uncertainties. They are described in Sec. 7.1.3.

For both, the nominal and the alternativett¯samples, a correction is computed for the top quark pT and the pT of the tt¯system in order to match predictions at NNLO accuracy in QCD [82, 83]. This method is referred to as a reweightingprocedure. The correction defined in this way is not applied to thett¯events with additionalb-jets. Those events have instead a dedicated reweighting which is described below.

A categorisation is defined for thett¯background according to the flavour of the additional jets produced in an event, this procedure is the same as in Ref. [84]. Such as it is ex-plained in Chapter 5, jets are reconstructed starting from stable particles using the anti-kt

algorithm. The flavour of the jets is determined by matching within a radius of∆R< 0.4 toborchadrons. Jets matched to exactly onebhadron, withpT above 5 GeV, are labelled b-jets, while those matched to two or morebhadrons are labelled B-jets (without pT re-quirement on the second hadron). For c and C jets the definition is analogous. Events which have at least a b or B-jet, excluding jets from top or W decays, are labelled as tt¯+≥ 1b, while the events without anybor B-jet but with at least onec orC-jet are la-belled astt¯+≥1c. These two contributions together are referred to astt¯+HF. The events with nott¯+HF jets are labelled astt¯+light.

It is possible to define a more detailed classification: the events which have at least three b or B-jets are labelled as tt¯+≥3b, those having exactly two b or B-jets are labelled as tt¯+bb, those having only one¯ B-jet are labelled as tt¯+B, and finally those having only one b-jet are labelled as tt¯+b. Events with c jets or C-jets can be divided anal-ogously. The latter classification is particularly useful for modelling studies, i.e. to compare the produced events among generators and to derive corrections or estimate uncertainties. Since the tt¯+ ≥1b is the main background, it is important to model it with the best possible precision. Thus the nominal Powheg+Pythia 6 sample and all the

4. Experimental Data and MC Modelling

other alternative tt¯samples are corrected in order to match the predictions of a NLO tt¯+ bb¯ sample generated using Sherpa+OpenLoops [56, 85]. This sample uses CT10 four-flavour scheme PDF set. For this sample, the renormalisation scale is set to the CMMPS [86] value ofµ_CMMPS =Q

i=t,¯t,b,b¯E_T,i^1/4, while for the factorisation scale, the value is set toHT/2= ¹₂P

i∈FS ET,i. The resummation scale, which sets an upper bound for the hardness of the parton shower emissions, is set to HT/2. The correction is performed by applying a kinematic reweighting separately in all of the tt¯+≥ 1b sub-categories (tt¯+bb,¯ tt¯+B, tt¯+b, tt¯+ ≥3b), in such a way that at the end the relative normalisa-tion of the sub-categories and the kinematic distribunormalisa-tions match the ones obtained with Sherpa+OpenLoops. In each sub-category, a reweighting is applied using thepT of the top quark and of thett¯system. This is followed in thett¯+≥3b andtt¯+bb¯ sub-categories by a reweighting of the∆Rbetween theb-jets and thepT of theb-jet system. In thett¯+Band tt¯+bsub-categories, theBorb-jet pT andηare used instead. Some topologies included in the NLO calculations and labelled astt¯+ ≥1bare not reweighted, these include events withb-jets from MPI and from FSR. The predicted cross section for all the sub-categories and for the different generators considered, is shown in Figure 4.8.

4.3.3. Other Backgrounds

Other background samples used in this analysis consist of single top production,W/Z+jets, diboson production in association with jets,ttV¯ (V =W,Z) events. TheWtands-channel single top quark backgrounds are obtained using the Powheg-Box 2.0 generator and the CT10 PDF set [87, 88]. To handle the overlap between the tt¯and Wt, the diagram re-moval scheme [89] is used. The t-channel single top-quark events are generated with the Powheg-Box v1 generator and the CT10f4 PDF. All these samples are interfaced to Pythia 6.428 with the Perugia 2012 UE tune. Thet- ands-channel samples are normalised to the NNLO cross sections predictions of [90–92].

TheW/Z+jets events and diboson production in association with jets samples are gener-ated with Sherpa 2.1. ForW/Z+jets samples, matrix elements are calculated for up to two partons at NLO and four partons at LO using the Comix [93] and OpenLoops genera-tors with the Sherpa parton shower [94] using the ME+PS@NLO prescription [95]. The events are normalised to the NNLO cross section as [96]. The diboson+jets samples are generated following the same approach but with up to one additional parton at NLO and up to three additional partons at LO. They are normalised to their respective NLO cross sections.

4.3. Monte Carlo Samples

Cross section [pb]

−1

10 1 10 102

103 ATLAS Simulation Internal

= 13 TeV s

b +b t Sherpa+OpenLoops t

b +b t MG5_aMC@NLO+P8 t

b +b t MG5_aMC@NLO+Hpp t

+jets Powheg+P6 t

t

t + b

t b

t + b

t tt + B tt + ≥ 3b

MC / SherpaOL 0.50.60.70.80.91 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

Figure 4.8.:The predicted cross sections for each of the tt¯+ ≥1b sub-categories [61].

The inclusive prediction obtained with Powheg+Pythia 6 is compared to the four-flavour calculations from Sherpa+OpenLoops and from MG5_aMC with different parton showers. The reweighting to Sherpa+OpenLoops has not been applied.

Events forttV¯ are generated using a NLO matrix element with MG5_aMC interfaced to Pythia 8.210 with theNNPDF3.0NLOPDF and A14 UE tune.

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