Studies of Top Physics Sensitivity and of Pile-Up Effects on Energy Reconstruction in the ATLAS Detector : A Licentiate Thesis About the Treatment of Troublesome $\tau$ and Producing Pulses to Probe Pile-up Problems

Abstract: This thesis presents two studies conducted using the ATLAS detectorat the Large Hadron Collider. The first one is a technical study abouthow out-of-time pile-up affects energy reconstruction using the optimalfiltering 2 algorithm in the TILE calorimeter sub detector. The studyis conducted using a pulse simulator software that is also described.Although the algorithm is potentially sensitive to the effects ofout-of-time pile-up, the effects under actual running conditions areestimated to be lower than 1.5 ADC counts for 68 \% of the pulses,which is considered a small effect. It is also shown that out-of-timepile-up is a potential reason to get negatively reconstructed energies.The second study regards a measurement of the $t\bar{tZ}$ cross sectionwith one hadronically decaying $\tau$ leptons and two lighter leptonsin the final state using 8 TeV data. The conclusion is that it isnot possible to make a significant such measurement from the 8 TeVdata due to low efficiencies in reconstruction of $\tau$ leptons.In addition to these two studies, this thesis also contain brief overviewsof the atlas detector and the standard model of particles and interactions.