An implicit version of the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) code SPHINX has been written and is working. In conjunction with the SPHINX code the new implicit code models fluids and solids under a wide range of conditions. SPH codes are Lagrangian, meshless and use particles to model the fluids and solids. The implicit code makes use of the Krylov iterative techniques for solving large linear-systems and a Newton-Raphson method for non-linear corrections. It uses numerical derivatives to construct the Jacobian matrix. It uses sparse techniques to save on memory storage and to reduce the amount of computation. It is believed that this is the first implicit SPH code to use Newton-Krylov techniques, and is also the first implicit SPH code to model solids. A description of SPH and the techniques used in the implicit code are presented. Then, the results of a number of tests cases are discussed, which include a shock tube problem, a Rayleigh-Taylor problem, a breaking dam problem, and a single jet of gas problem. The results are shown to be in very good agreement with analytic solutions, experimental results, and the explicit SPHINX code. In the case of the single jet of gas case it has …

The author performs image reconstruction for a novel Positron Emission Tomography camera that is optimized for breast cancer imaging. This work addresses for the first time, the problem of fully-3D, tomographic reconstruction using a septa-less, stationary, (i.e. no rotation or linear motion), and rectangular camera whose Field of View (FOV) encompasses the entire volume enclosed by detector modules capable of measuring Depth of Interaction (DOI) information. The camera is rectangular in shape in order to accommodate breasts of varying sizes while allowing for soft compression of the breast during the scan. This non-standard geometry of the camera exacerbates two problems: (a) radial elongation due to crystal penetration and (b) reconstructing images from irregularly sampled data. Packing considerations also give rise to regions in projection space that are not sampled which lead to missing information. The author presents new Fourier Methods based image reconstruction algorithms that incorporate DOI information and accommodate the irregular sampling of the camera in a consistent manner by defining lines of responses (LORs) between the measured interaction points instead of rebinning the events into predefined crystal face LORs which is the only other method to handle DOI information proposed thus far. The new procedures maximize the use …

An accelerator-based experiment was performed using the CEBAF accelerator of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility to investigate a predicted sensitivity of the beam polarization to the vertical betatron orbit in the recirculation arcs. This is the first measurement of any such effect at CEBAF, and provides information about the polarized beam delivery performance of the accelerator. A brief description of the accelerator is given, followed by the experimental methods used and the relevant issues involved in measuring a small ({approximately} 10{sup {minus}2}) change in the beam polarization. Results of measurements of the polarization sensitivity parameters and the machine energy by polarization transport techniques are presented. The parameters were obtained by measurement of the strength of the effect as a function of orbit amplitude and spin orientation, to confirm the predicted coupling between the spin orientation and the quadrupole fields in the beam transport system. This experiment included characterizing the injector spin manipulation system and 5 MeV Mott polarimeter, modeling of the polarization transport of the accelerator, installation of magnets to create a modulated orbit perturbation in a single recirculation arc, and detailed studies of the Hall C Moeller polarimeter.

Relationships between intrinsic mechanical hardness and atomic-scale properties are reviewed, Hardness scales closely and linearly with shear modulus for a given class of material (covalent, ionic or metallic). A two-parameter fit and a Peierls-stress model produce a more universal scaling relationship, but no model can explain differences in hardness between the transition metal carbides and nitrides. Calculations of ''ideal strength'' (defined by the limit of elastic stability of a perfect crystal) are proposed. The ideal shear strengths of fcc aluminum and copper are calculated using ab initio techniques and allowing for structural relaxation of all five strain components other than the imposed strain. The strengths of Al and Cu are similar (8-9% of the shear modulus), but the geometry of the relaxations in Al and Cu is very different. The relaxations are consistent with experimentally measured third-order elastic constants. The general thermodynamic conditions of elastic stability that set the upper limits of mechanical strength are derived. The conditions of stability are shown for cubic (hydrostatic), tetragonal (tensile) and monoclinic (shear) distortions of a cubic crystal. The implications of this stability analysis to first-principles calculations of ideal strength are discussed, and a method to detect instabilities orthogonal to the direction of …

A review of orbifold geometry is given, followed by a review of the construction of four-dimensional heterotic string models by compactification on a six-dimensional Z{sub 3} orbifold. Particular attention is given to the details of the transition from a classical theory to a first-quantized theory. Subsequently, a discussion is given of the systematic enumeration of all standard-like three generation models subject to certain limiting conditions. it is found that the complete set is described by 192 models, with only five possibilities for the hidden sector gauge group. It is argued that only four of the hidden sector gauge groups are viable for dynamical supersymmetry breaking, leaving only 175 promising models in the class. General features of the spectra of matter states in all 175 models are discussed. Twenty patterns of representations are found to occur. Accommodation of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) spectrum is addressed. States beyond those contains in the MSSM and nonstandard hypercharge normalization are shown to be generic, though some models do allow for the usual hypercharge normalization found in SU(5) embeddings of the Standard Model gauge group. Only one of the twenty patterns of representations, comprising seven of the 175 models, is found to be …

The work exposed in this thesis deals with the search for electroweak production of top quark (single top) in proton-antiproton collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. This production mode has not been observed yet. Analyzed data have been collected during the Run II of the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. These data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 370 pb{sup -1}. In the Standard Model, the decay of a top quark always produce a high momentum bottom quark. Therefore bottom quark jets identification plays a major role in this analysis. The large lifetime of b hadrons and the subsequent large impact parameters relative to the interaction vertex of charged particle tracks are used to tag bottom quark jets. Impact parameters of tracks attached to a jet are converted into the probability for the jet to originate from the primary vertex. This algorithm has a 45% tagging efficiency for a 0.5% mistag rate. Two processes (s and t channels) dominate single top production with slightly different final states. The searched signature consists in 2 to 4 jets with at least one bottom quark jet, one charged lepton (electron or muon) and missing energy accounting for a neutrino. This final …

The first analysis of diffractively produced Z bosons in the muon decay channel is presented, using data taken by the D0 detector at the Tevatron at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 109 pb{sup -1}. The diffractive sample is defined using the fractional momentum loss {zeta} of the intact proton or antiproton measured using the calorimeter and muon detector systems. In a sample of 10791 (Z/{gamma})* {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} events, 24 diffractive candidate events are found with {zeta} < 0.02. The first work towards measuring the cross section times branching ratio for diffractive production of (Z/{gamma})* {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} is presented for the kinematic region {zeta} < 0.02. The first work towards measuring the cross section times branching ratio for diffractive production of (Z/{gamma})* {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} is presented for the kinematic region {zeta} < 0.02. The systematic uncertainties are not yet sufficiently understood to present the cross section result. In addition, the first measurement of the efficiency of the Run II D0 Luminosity Monitor is presented, which is used in all cross section measurements. The efficiency is: {var_epsilon}{sub LM} = (90.9 {+-} 1.8)%.

The following work presents a preliminary measurement of the inclusive jet cross section for jet transverse momenta from 61 to 620 GeV in the rapidity range 0.1 < |Y| < 0.7. The result is based on 218 pb{sup -1} of data collected by the CDF detector at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab. The data are consistent with NLO pQCD predictions based on the CTEQ6.1 parton distribution functions.

We have measured the fraction of longitudinally polarized W bosons produced top-quark decays. The result of the analysis in single-lepton t{bar t} events is fully consistent with the Standard Model expectation. The 2{sigma} discrepancy in the dilepton analysis is suggestive of new phenomena. However, given the significance of the discrepancy, any claim of new physics based on this analysis is highly speculative. It is worth noting that another analysis of the kinematic properties of these data finds a similar discrepancy [63]. It will be interesting to see if this discrepancy persists as more data are collected during run II of the Tevatron. In order to make a stronger statement about the nature of the tWb coupling with this method, larger statistics are required. However alternative methods, particularly the matrix-element method developed at D0 [36, 35], should be especially powerful, even with limited statistics.

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Discovery of the top quark in 1995 at the Fermilab Tevatron collider concluded a long search following the 1977 discovery of bottom (b) quark [1] and represents another triumph of the Standard Model (SM) of elementary particles. Top quark is one of the fundamental fermions in the Standard Model of electroweak interactions and is the weak-isospin partner of the bottom quark. A precise measurement of top pair production cross-section would be a test of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) prediction. Presently, Tevatron is the world's highest energy collider where protons (p) and anti-protons ({anti p}) collide at a centre of mass energy (ps) of 1.96 TeV. At Tevatron top (t) and anti-top ({anti t}) quarks are predominantly pair produced through strong interactions--quark annihilation ({approx_equal} 85%) and gluon fusion ({approx_equal} 15%). Due to the large mass of top quark, t or {anti t} decays ({approx} 10{sup -25} sec) before hadronization and in SM framework, it decays to a W boson and a b quark with {approx} 100% branching ratio (BR). The subsequent decay of W boson determines the major signatures of t{anti t} decay. If both W bosons (coming from t and {anti t} decays) decay into leptons (viz., ev{sub e}, {mu}{nu}{sub {mu}} …

We have studied the properties of a low emittance electron beam produced by laser pulses incident onto an rf gun photocathode. The experiments were carried out at the A0 photoinjector at Fermilab. Such beam studies are necessary for fixing the design of new Linear Colliders as well as for the development of Free Electron Lasers. An overview of the A0 photoinjector is given in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2 we describe the A0 photoinjector laser system. A stable laser system is imperative for reliable photoinjector operation. After the recent upgrade, we have been able to reach a new level of stability in the pulse-to-pulse fluctuations of the pulse amplitude, and of the temporal and transverse profiles. In Chapter 3 we present a study of transverse emittance versus the shape of the photo-cathode drive-laser pulse. For that purpose a special temporal profile laser shaping device called a pulse-stacker was developed. In Chapter 4 we discuss longitudinal beam dynamics studies using a two macro-particle bunch; this technique is helpful in analyzing pulse compression in the magnetic chicane, as well as velocity bunching effects in the rf-gun and the 9-cell accelerating cavity. In Chapter 5 we introduce a proposal for laser acceleration of …

During the last decades, particle physicists have studied the tiniest building blocks of matter--the quarks and the leptons--and the forces between them in great detail. From these experiments, a theoretical framework has been built that describes the observed results with high precision. The achievement of this theory, which is referred to as the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, was the elaboration of a unified description of the strong, weak and electromagnetic forces in the framework of quantum gauge-field theories. Moreover, the Standard Model combines the weak and electromagnetic forces in a single electroweak gauge theory. The fourth force which is realized in nature, gravity, is too weak to be observable in laboratory experiments carried out in high-energy particle physics and is not part of the Standard Model. Although the Standard Model has proven highly successful in correlating a huge amount of experimental results, a key ingredient is as yet untested: the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking. Currently, the only viable ansatz that is compatible with observation is the Higgs mechanism. It predicts the existence of a scalar particle, called the Higgs boson, and the couplings to the fundamental Standard Model particles, however not its mass. An upper limit on …

We present a search for B{sub S}{sup 0} oscillations using semileptonic B{sub S} {yields} D{sub s}{mu}X (D{sub S} {yields} K{sub S}{sup 0}K). The data were collected using the D0 detector from events produced in {radical}s = 1.96 TeV proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron. The Tevatron is currently the only place in the world that produces B{sub S}{sup 0} mesons and will be until early 2008 when the Large Hadron Collider begins operating at CERN. One of the vital ingredients for the search for B s oscillations is the determination of the flavor of the B{sub S}{sup 0} candidate (B{sub S}{sup 0} or {bar B}{sub S}{sup 0} ) at the time of its production, called initial state flavor tagging. We develop an likelihood based initial state flavor tagger that uses objects on the side of the event opposite to the reconstructed B meson candidate. To improve the performance of this flavor tagger, we have made it multidimensional so that it takes correlations between discriminants into account. This tagging is then certified by applying it to sample of semimuonic B{sup (0,+)} decays and measuring the well-known oscillation frequency {delta}m{sub d}. We obtain {delta}m{sub d} = 0.486 {+-} 0.021 ps{sup -1}, consistent …

We present a measurement of the mass of the top quark using data from proton-antiproton collisions recorded at the CDF experiment in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron. Events are selected from the single lepton plus jets final state (t{bar t} {yields} W{sup +}bW{sup -}{bar b} {yields} {ell}{nu}bq{bar q}{prime}{bar b}). The top quark mass is extracted using a calculation of the probability density for a t{bar t} final state to resemble a data event. This probability density is a function of both top quark mass and energy scale of calorimeter jets, constrained in situ with the hadronic W boson mass. Using 167 events observed in 955 pb{sup -1} integrated luminosity, we achieve the single most precise measurement of top quark mass to date of 170.8 {+-} 2.2 (stat.) {+-} 1.4 (syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}, where the quoted statistical uncertainty includes uncertainty from the determination of the jet energy scale.

Since the X(3872) was discovered by the Belle Collaboration in August 2003, it's interpretation through the Standard Model has been difficult. Many possible interpretations have been proposed due to its close proximity to the D{bar D}* mass threshold, ranging from a new state in the charmonium spectrum to a 4-quark state to a weakly bound meson molecule. Probing the X(3872) is also made difficult due to low statistical samples at e{sup +}e{sup -} colliders and large combinatoric backgrounds at hadron colliders such as the Tevatron. This paper presented the results of probes of this state performed at the D0 detector.

A search was conducted for evidence of large extra dimensions (LED) at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron using the D0 detector. The Tevatron is a p{bar p} collider at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV. Events with particles escaping into extra dimensions will have large missing energy. The search was carried out using data from a total luminosity of 197 {+-} 13 pb{sup -1} with an observable high transverse momentum photon and a large transverse missing energy. The 70 observed events are consistent with photons produced by standard known reactions plus other background processes produced by cosmic muons. The mass limits on the fundamental mass scale at 95% confidence level for large extra dimensions of 2, 4, 6 and 8 are 500 GeV, 581 GeV, 630 GeV, and 668 GeV respectively.

This thesis presents two measurements of the to pquark using 230 pb{sup -1} of data recorded with the D0 detector at the Tevatron accelerator. The first measurement determines the top pair production cross section at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV in proton-antiproton collisions. In the standard model of particle physics the top quark decays almost exclusively into a W boson and a b quark. Candidate events are selected by requiring that at least one jet in the event is tagged with the secondary vertex algorithm.

Images of the Bullet Cluster of galaxies in visible light, X-rays, and through gravitational lensing confirm that most of the matter in the universe is not composed of any known form of matter. The combined evidence from the dynamics of galaxies and clusters of galaxies, the cosmic microwave background, big bang nucleosynthesis, and other observations indicates that 80% of the universe's matter is dark, nearly collisionless, and cold. The identify of the dar, matter remains unknown, but weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are a very good candidate. They are a natural part of many supersymmetric extensions to the standard model, and could be produced as a nonrelativistic, thermal relic in the early universe with about the right density to account for the missing mass. The dark matter of a galaxy should exist as a spherical or ellipsoidal cloud, called a 'halo' because it extends well past the edge of the visible galaxy. The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) seeks to directly detect interactions between WIMPs in the Milky Way's galactic dark matter halo using crystals of germanium and silicon. Our Z-sensitive ionization and phonon ('ZIP') detectors simultaneously measure both phonons and ionization produced by particle interactions. In order to find …

The cross section for WW production is measured and limits on anomalous WW{gamma} and WWZ trilinear gauge couplings are set using WW {yields} ee/e{mu}/{mu}{mu} events collected by the Run II D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider corresponding to 1 fb{sup -1} of integrated luminosity at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. Across the three final states, 108 candidate events are observed with 40.8 {+-} 3.8 total background expected, consistent with {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} WW) = 11.6 {+-} 1.8(stat) {+-} 0.7(syst) {+-} 0.7(lumi) pb. Using a set of SU(2){sub L} {direct_product} U(1){sub Y} conserving constraints, the one-dimensional 95% C.L. limits on trilinear gauge couplings are -0.63 < {Delta}{kappa}{sub {gamma}} < 0.99, -0.15 < {lambda}{sub {gamma}} < 0.19, and -0.14 < {Delta}g{sub 1}{sup Z} < 0.34.

We present a search for the production of neutral Higgs bosons in association with bottom quarks in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. The cross section for this process is enhanced in many extensions of the Standard Model (SM), such as in its Minimal Supersymmetric extension (MSSM) at large tan {beta}. The data, corresponding to a recorded integrated luminosity of 1 fb{sup -1}, were collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. In the absence of a signal a 95% C.L. limit is set on the production cross section times branching ratio, and the results are also interpreted in the MSSM.

The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment based at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL) in Chicago, Illinois. MINOS measures neutrino interactions in two large iron-scintillator tracking/sampling calorimeters; the Near Detector on-site at FNAL and the Far Detector located in the Soudan mine in northern Minnesota. The Near Detector has recorded a large number of neutrino interactions and this high statistics dataset can be used to make precision measurements of neutrino interaction cross sections. The cross section for charged-current quasi-elastic scattering has been measured by a number of previous experiments and these measurements disagree by up to 30%. A method to select a quasi-elastic enriched sample of neutrino interactions in the MINOS Near Detector is presented and a procedure to fit the kinematic distributions of this sample and extract the quasi-elastic cross section is introduced. The accuracy and robustness of the fitting procedure is studied using mock data and finally results from fits to the MINOS Near Detector data are presented.

This Ph.D. thesis presents the measurement of inclusive jet cross sections in Z/{gamma}* {yields} e{sup +}e{sup -} events using 1.7 fb{sup -1} of data collected by the upgraded CDF detector during the Run II of the Tevatron. The Midpoint cone algorithm is used to search for jets in the events after identifying the presence of a Z/{gamma}* boson through the reconstruction of its decay products. The measurements are compared to next-to-LO (NLO) pQCD predictions for events with one and two jets in the final state. The perturbative predictions are corrected for the contributions of non-perturbative processes, like the underlying event and the fragmentation of the partons into jets of hadrons. These processes are not described by perturbation theory and must be estimated from phenomenological models. In this thesis, a number of measurements are performed to test different models of underlying event and hadronization implemented in LO plus parton shower Monte Carlo generator programs. Chapter 2 is devoted to the description of the theory of strong interactions and jet phenomenology at hadron colliders. Chapter 3 contains the description of the Tevatron collider and the CDF detector. The analysis is described in detail in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 shows the measurement of …

We present the first evidence for electroweak single top quark production using nearly 1 fb{sup -1} of Tevatron Run II data at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. We select single-top-like data events in the lepton+jets decay channel and separate them from backgrounds using the matrix element analysis method. This technique uses leading order matrix elements to compute an event probability for both signal and background hypotheses. Using the expected signal acceptance, background, and observed data we measure the single top quark cross section: {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} tb + tqb + X) = 4.6{sub -1.5}{sup +}1.8 pb. The probability for the background to have fluctuated up to give at least the cross section measured in this analysis is 0.21%, which corresponds to a Gaussian equivalent significance of 2.9{sigma}.