Session C4: Anticipating LHC

Advances in perturbative QCD for LHC physics

We discuss recent results in perturbative QCD, with a focus on preparing to analyze LHC data. Significant progress has been made in predicting QCD backgrounds and quantifying theoretical uncertainties. Techniques from disparate fields such as b-physics and string theory have contributed to our understanding. The major themes of this talk are the necessity of QCD calculations to verify and improve Monte Carlo tools, and the importance of testing these calculations on data from HERA and the Tevatron.   

Anticipating New Physics at the LHC

Exploration of physics at the TeV scale holds the promise of addressing some of our most basic questions about the nature of matter, space, time, and energy. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN will break into this new energy frontier when it begins operation later this year. Discoveries of the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking mechanism, Supersymmetry, Extra Dimensions of space, Dark Matter particles, and new forces of nature are all possible. I will review the theoretical motivations for these anticipated discoveries and highlight their principal signatures at the Large Hadron Collider.   

Prospects for ATLAS and CMS at the LHC

The first proton-proton collisions at the LHC are expected later this year and the first physics run in 2008. The detectors are also in an advanced state of preparation. There are compelling theoretical arguments that new physics phenomena will appear within the energy range of this facility. This talk will review the physics potential of the ATLAS and CMS detectors in the early years of LHC operation.