Z boson analysis for physics laboratory courses using CERN Open Data

This thesis describes an new exercise for data analysis in Particle Physics using CERN open data, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. It is intended to be part of the advanced physics lab in the Physics Department at KIT. After graphical inspection of collision data in the CMS detector, the first Python-based exercise consists in creating  the invariant-mass spectrum of events with two muons. A detailed investigation of the J/Psi resonance results in a determination of the momentum resulution of the CMS tracking system. The resolution is extrapolated to the Z resonance in order to disentangle the natural width of the Z boson  from resolution effects.