Optimal prediction is a general system reduction technique for large sets of differential equations. In this method, which was devised by Chorin, Hald, Kast, Kupferman, and Levy, a projection operator formalism is used to construct a smaller system of equations governing the dynamics of a subset of the original degrees of freedom. This reduced system consists of an effective Hamiltonian dynamics, augmented by an integral memory term and a random noise term. Molecular dynamics is a method for simulating large systems of interacting fluid particles. In this thesis, I construct a formalism for applying optimal prediction to molecular dynamics, producing reduced systems from which the properties of the original system can be recovered. These reduced systems require significantly less computational time than the original system. I initially consider first-order optimal prediction, in which the memory and noise terms are neglected. I construct a pair approximation to the renormalized potential, and ignore three-particle and higher interactions. This produces a reduced system that correctly reproduces static properties of the original system, such as energy and pressure, at low-to-moderate densities. However, it fails to capture dynamical quantities, such as autocorrelation functions. I next derive a short-memory approximation, in which the memory term is …

The phenomenon of flavour oscillations of neutrinos created in the atmosphere was first reported by the Super-Kamiokande collaboration in 1998 and since then has been confirmed by Soudan 2 and MACRO. The MINOS Far Detector is the first magnetized neutrino detector able to study atmospheric neutrino oscillations. Although it was designed to detect neutrinos from the NuMI beam, it provides a unique opportunity to measure the oscillation parameters for neutrinos and anti-neutrinos independently. The MINOS Far Detector was completed in August 2003 and since then has collected 2.52 kton-years of atmospheric data. Atmospheric neutrino interactions contained within the volume of the detector are separated from the dominant background from cosmic ray muons. Thirty seven events are selected with an estimated background contamination of less than 10%. Using the detector's magnetic field, 17 neutrino events and 6 anti-neutrino events are identified, 14 events have ambiguous charge. The neutrino oscillation parameters for {nu}{sub {mu}} and {bar {nu}}{sub {mu}} are studied using a maximum likelihood analysis. The measurement does not place constraining limits on the neutrino oscillation parameters due to the limited statistics of the data set analysed. However, this thesis represents the first observation of charge separated atmospheric neutrino interactions. It also …

The b quark fragmentation distribution has been measured, using data registered by the DELPHI experiment at the Z pole, in the years 1994-1995. The measurement made use of 176000 inclusively reconstructed B meson candidates. The errors of this measurement are dominated by systematic effects, the principal ones being related to the energy calibration. The distribution has been established in a nine bin histogram. Its mean value has been found to be <x{sub E}> = 0.704 {+-} 0.001(stat.) {+-} 0.008(syst.). Using this measurement, and other available analyses of the b-quark fragmentation distribution in e{sup +}e{sup -} collisions, the non-perturbative QCD component of the distribution has been extracted independently of any hadronic physics modeling. This distribution depends only on the way the perturbative QCD component has been defined. When the perturbative QCD component is taken from a parton shower Monte-Carlo, the non-perturbative QCD component is rather similar with those obtained from the Lund or Bowler models. When the perturbative QCD component is the result of an analytic NLL computation, the non-perturbative QCD component has to be extended in a non-physical region and thus cannot be described by any hadronic modeling. In the two examples, used to characterize these two situations, which are …

Electromagnetic, thermal and structural analyses of radio-frequency (RF) cavities were performed as part of a developmental RF cavity program for muon cooling. RF cavities are necessary to provide longitudinal focusing of the muons and to compensate for their energy loss. Closing the cavity ends by electrically conducting windows reduces the power requirement and increases the on-axis electric field for a given maximum surface electric field. Many factors must be considered in the design of RF cavity windows. RF heating can cause the windows to deform in the axial direction of the cavity. The resulting thermal stresses in the window must be maintained below the yield stress of the window material. The out-of-plane deflection must be small enough so that the consequent frequency shift is tolerable. For example, for an 805 MHz cavity, the out-of-plane deflection must be kept below 25 microns to prevent the frequency of the cavity from shifting more than 10 kHz. In addition, the window design should yield smooth electric and magnetic fields, terminate field leakage beyond the window, and minimize beam scattering. In the present thesis, gridded-tube window designs were considered because of their high structural integrity. As a starting point in the analysis, a cylindrical …

This thesis describes a measurement of the B{sub d}{sup 0} lifetime in the decay to (J/{psi}K{sub S}{sup 0}), using 114 pb{sup -1} of data collected by the D0 experiment at the Tevatron from October 15, 2002, to June 10, 2003. The measurement is motivated by the tests of the Standard Model that it makes possible. These include tests of Heavy Quark Effective Theory predicting B-meson lifetimes, and of the complex phase in the CKM-matrix as the source of CP-violation in B{sub d}{sup 0} decays to (J/{psi}K{sub S}{sup 0}).

In March 2001 the Tevatron accelerator entered its Run II phase, providing colliding proton and anti-proton beams with an unprecedented center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The Tevatron is currently the only accelerator to produce {Lambda}{sub b} baryons, which provides a unique opportunity to measure the properties of these particles. This thesis presents a measurement of the mean lifetime of the {Lambda}{sub b} baryon in the semileptonic channel {Lambda}{sub b}{sup 0} {yields} {Lambda}{sub c}{sup +} {mu}{sup -} {bar {nu}}{sub {mu}}. In total 186 pb{sup -1} of data were used for this analysis, collected with the CDF detector between February 2002 and September 2003. To select the long-lived events from b-decays, the secondary vertex trigger was utilized. This significant addition to the trigger for Run II allows, for the first time, the selection of events with tracks displaced from the primary interaction vertex at the second trigger level. After the application of selection cuts this trigger sample contains approximately 991 {Lambda}{sub b} candidates. To extract the mean lifetime of {Lambda}{sub b} baryons from this sample, they transverse decay length of the candidates is fitted with an unbinned maximum likelihood fit under the consideration of the missing neutrino momentum and the bias introduced …

This document presents a measurement of the top quark mass using the CDF run II detector at Fermilab. Colliding beams of protons and anti-protons at Fermilab's Tevatron ({radical}s = 1.96 TeV) produce top/anti-top pairs, which decay to W{sup +}W{sup -} b{bar b}; events are selected where one W decays hadronically, and one W decays to either e or {mu} plus a neutrino. The data sample was collected between March 2002 and September 2003, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of approximately 162 pb{sup -1}. Thirty-seven candidate t{bar t} events are found with at least one b jet identified by its displaced vertex. In each event, the best fit top quark invariant mass is determined by minimizing a {chi}{sup 2} for the overconstrained kinematic system. A likelihood fit of the reconstructed masses in the data sample to distributions from simulated signal and background events gives a top mass of 174.9{sub -7.7}{sup +7.1}(stat.) {+-} 6.5(syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}. The dominant systematic error is due to uncertainties in the jet energy measurements.

A measurement of the t{bar t} pair production cross section is presented using 162 pb{sup -1} of data collected by the CDF experiment during Run II at the Tevatron. t{bar t} events in the lepton+jets channel are isolated by identifying electrons and muons, reconstructing jets and transverse missing energy, and identifying b jets with a secondary vertex tagging algorithm. The efficiency of the algorithm is measured in a control sample using a novel technique that is less dependent on the simulation. For a top quark mass of 175 GeV/c{sup 2}, a cross section of {sigma}{sub t{bar t}} = 5.6{sub -1.1}{sup +1.2}(stat.){sub -0.6}{sup +0.9}(syst.)pb is measured.

The author presents a search for anomalous kinematics of t{bar t} dilepton events in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV using 193 pb{sup -1} of data collected with the CDF II detector. They developed a new a priori technique designed to silate the subset in a data sample revealing the largest deviation from Standard Model expectations and to quantify the significance of this departure. In the four-variable space considered, no particular subset shows a significant discrepancy and they find that the probability to obtain a data sample less consistent with the Standard Model than what is observed is 1.0-4.5%.

This dissertation describes two different projects from two different experiments. We have performed a search for CPT violation in neutral charm meson oscillations using data from the FOCUS Experiment. While flavor mixing in the charm sector is predicted to be small in the Standard Model, it is still possible to investigate CPT violation through a study of the proper time dependence of a CPT asymmetry in right-sign decay rates for D{sup 0} {yields} K{sup -} {pi}{sup +} and {bar D}{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}. This asymmetry is related to the CPT violating complex parameter {xi} and the mixing parameters x and y: A{sub CPT} {infinity} Re{xi}y - Im{xi}x. We determine a 95% confidence level limit of -0.0068 < Re{xi}y - Im{xi}x < 0.0234. Within the framework of the Standard Model Extension incorporating general CPT violation, we also find 95% confidence level limits for the expressions involving coefficients of Lorentz violation of (-2.8 < N(x,y,{delta}))({Delta}a{sub 0} + 0.6 {Delta}a{sub Z} < 4.8) x 10{sup -16} GeV, (-7.0 < N(x,y,{delta}){Delta}a{sub x} < 3.8) x 10{sup -16} GeV, and (-7.0 < N(x,y,{delta}){Delta}a{sub y} < 3.8) x 10{sup -16} GeV, where N(x,y,{delta}) is a normalization factor that incorporates mixing parameters x, y and …

We present results on a search for Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry in the di-photon final state using Run II data collected by the D0 Experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We discuss event selection, Standard Model backgrounds, and the lower limits on the lightest neutralino and chargino masses resulted from this analysis.

The authors present the results of a search for anomalous production of diphoton events with large missing transverse energy using the Collider Detector at Fermilab. In 202 pb{sup -1} of p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV they observe no candidate events, with an expected standard model background of 0.27 {+-} 0.07(stat) {+-} 0.10(syst) events. The results exclude a lightest chargino of mass less than 167 GeV/c{sup 2}, and lightest neutralino of 93 GeV/c{sup 2} at 95% confidence level in a gauge-mediated supersymmetry-breaking model with a light gravitino.

The authors have performed a search for the scalar bottom quark ({tilde b}{sub 1}) from gluino ({tilde g}) decays in an R-parity conserving SUSY scenario with m{sub {tilde g}} > m{sub {tilde b}{sub 1}}, by investigating a final state of large missing transverse energy, with three or more jets, and some of them from the hadronization of b-quarks. A data sample of 156 pb{sup -1} collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab at a center-of-mass energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV was used. For the final selection, jets containing secondary displaced vertices were required. This analysis has been performed ''blind'', in that the inspection of the signal region was only made after the Standard Model prediction was finalized. Comparing data with SUSY predictions, they can exclude masses of the gluino and sbottom of up to 280 and 240 GeV/c{sup 2} respectively.

The author presents the results of a search for the spin-singlet P-wave state h{sub c}(1{sup 1}P{sub 1}) of charmonium formed through proton-antiproton annihilation at Fermilab experiment E835. The decay channels which were studied were p{bar p} {yields} J/{psi} + X {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -} + X, p{bar p} {yields} J/{psi} + {pi}{sup 0} {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -} + {gamma}{gamma}, p{bar p} {yields} J/{psi} + {pi}{sup 0}{pi}{sup 0} {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -} + 4{gamma}, and the neutral channel p{bar p} {yields} {eta}{sub c}{gamma} {yields} ({gamma}{gamma}){gamma}. The decay p{bar p} {yields} J/{psi}{gamma} {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -}{gamma}, into which {sup 1}P{sub 1} decay is forbidden by C-parity conservation, was also examined for comparison. The 90% confidence upper limits for the decay channels studied in the mass range 3525.1-3527.3 MeV for a {sup 1}P{sub 1} resonance with a presumed width of 1.0 MeV were determined to be B(p{bar p} {yields} {sup 1}P{sub 1}) x B({sup 1}P{sub 1} {yields} J/{psi} + X) {le} 1.8 x 10{sup -7}, B(p{bar p} {yields} {sup 1}P{sub 1}) x B({sup 1}P{sub 1} {yields} J/{psi} + {pi}{sup 0}) {le} 1.2 x 10{sup -7}, and B(p{bar p} {yields} {sup 1}P{sub 1}) x B({sup 1}P{sub 1} {yields} J/{psi}{gamma}) {le} 1.0 x 10{sup -7}. …

This work describes the measurement of inclusive jets cross section in the D0 experiment. This cross section is computed as a function of jet transverse momentum, in several rapidity intervals. This quantity is sensitive to the proton structure and is crucial for the determination of parton distribution functions (PDF), essentially for the gluon at high proton momentum fraction. The measurement presented here gives the first values obtained for Tevatron Run II for the cross section in several rapidity intervals, for an integrated luminosity of 143 pb{sup -1}. The results are in agreement, within the uncertainties, with theoretical Standard Model predictions, showing no evidence for new physics. This work points out the aspects of the detector which need better understanding to reach Run I precision and to constrain the PDFs.

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