Top quark pair production in proton anti-proton collisions (open access)

Top quark pair production in proton anti-proton collisions

This thesis presents a measurement of the t{bar t} cross section in the all-jets channel, measured in p{bar p} collisions at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV, using data collected with the D0 detector. The dataset used for this analysis has an integrated luminosity equivalent to L = 162.5 {+-} 10.6 pb{sup -1}. A t{bar t} cross section measurement is a test of the Standard Model predictions for heavy quark production, and the first step towards measurements of the mass and other properties of the top quark. The presented measurement of the cross section for the process p{bar p} {yields} t{bar t} uses the decay channel where both top quarks decay to quarks. The top quark first decays to a b quark and a W boson, and then, for this particular channel, the W boson decays hadronically. Hence, events with six energetic quarks are expected, which ideally leads to events with six jets. These so called all-jets events have a significantly larger branching fraction than other t{bar t} decay channels. The large branching fraction in the all-jets channel means that a significant sample of t{bar t} candidates can be extracted, which can subsequently be used for studies of …
Date: April 1, 2005
Creator: Blekman, Freya & /NIKHEF, Amsterdam
System: The UNT Digital Library
Search for electroweak top quark production in the electron + jets channel in the D0 experiment at the Tevatron (open access)

Search for electroweak top quark production in the electron + jets channel in the D0 experiment at the Tevatron

None
Date: April 1, 2005
Creator: Busato, Emmanuel
System: The UNT Digital Library
Electroweak Production of the Top Quark in the Run II of the D0 Experiment (open access)

Electroweak Production of the Top Quark in the Run II of the D0 Experiment

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 …
Date: April 1, 2006
Creator: Clement, Benoit & /Strasbourg, IReS
System: The UNT Digital Library
Exposure-Relevant Ozone Chemistry in Occupied Spaces (open access)

Exposure-Relevant Ozone Chemistry in Occupied Spaces

Ozone, an ambient pollutant, is transformed into other airborne pollutants in the indoor environment. In this dissertation, the type and amount of byproducts that result from ozone reactions with common indoor surfaces, surface residues, and vapors were determined, pollutant concentrations were related to occupant exposure, and frameworks were developed to predict byproduct concentrations under various indoor conditions. In Chapter 2, an analysis is presented of secondary organic aerosol formation from the reaction of ozone with gas-phase, terpene-containing consumer products in small chamber experiments under conditions relevant for residential and commercial buildings. The full particle size distribution was continuously monitored, and ultrafine and fine particle concentrations were in the range of 10 to>300 mu g m-3. Particle nucleation and growth dynamics were characterized.Chapter 3 presents an investigation of ozone reactions with aircraft cabin surfaces including carpet, seat fabric, plastics, and laundered and worn clothing fabric. Small chamber experiments were used to determine ozone deposition velocities, ozone reaction probabilities, byproduct emission rates, and byproduct yields for each surface category. The most commonly detected byproducts included C1?C10 saturated aldehydes and skin oil oxidation products. For all materials, emission rates were higher with ozone than without. Experimental results were used to predict byproduct exposure …
Date: April 1, 2009
Creator: Coleman, Beverly Kaye
System: The UNT Digital Library
WW production cross section measurement and limits on anomalous trilinear gauge couplings at sqrt(s) = 1.96-TeV (open access)

WW production cross section measurement and limits on anomalous trilinear gauge couplings at sqrt(s) = 1.96-TeV

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.
Date: April 1, 2008
Creator: Cooke, Michael P. & U., /Rice
System: The UNT Digital Library
Search for the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons in the ditau decay channels at CDF Run II (open access)

Search for the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons in the ditau decay channels at CDF Run II

This thesis presents the results on a search for the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons decaying to tau pairs, with least one of these taus decays leptonically. The search was performed with a sample of 1.8 fb{sup -1} of proton-antiproton collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV provided by the Tevatron and collected by CDF Run II. No significant excess over the Standard Model prediction was found and a 95% confidence level exclusion limit have been set on the cross section times branching ratio as a function of the Higgs boson mass. This limit has been translated into the MSSM Higgs sector parameter plane, tan{beta} vs. M{sub A}, for the four different benchmark scenarios.
Date: April 1, 2008
Creator: Cuenca Almenar, Cristobal & /Valencia U., IFIC
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon production cross section at the Tevatron using the CDF detector (open access)

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon production cross section at the Tevatron using the CDF detector

In this thesis we present the measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross section with a total integrated luminosity of 2.5 fb{sup -1} of data collected with the CDF Run II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The prompt photon cross section is a classic measurement to test perturbative QCD (pQCD) with potential to provide information on the parton distribution function (PDF), and sensitive to the presence of new physics at large photon transverse momentum. Prompt photons also constitute an irreducible background for important searches such as H {yields} {gamma}{gamma}, or SUSY and extra-dimensions with energetic photons in the final state. The Tevatron at Fermilab (Batavia, U.S.A.) is currently the hadron collider that operates at the highest energies in the world. It collides protons and antiprotons with a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The CDF and the D0 experiments are located in two of its four interaction regions. In Run I at the Tevatron, the direct photon production cross section was measured by both CDF and DO, and first results in Run II have been presented by the DO Collaboration based on 380 pb{sup -1}. Both Run I and Run II results show agreement with the theoretical predictions except …
Date: April 1, 2009
Creator: Deluca Silberberg, Carolina
System: The UNT Digital Library
Cross section measurements for quasi-elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering with the MINOS near detector (open access)

Cross section measurements for quasi-elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering with the MINOS near detector

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.
Date: April 1, 2008
Creator: Dorman, Mark Edward & London, /University Coll.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of cross-section (p anti-p --> Z0) x BF (Z0 --> tau anti-tau) at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV using the D0 detector at the Tevatron (open access)

Measurement of cross-section (p anti-p --> Z0) x BF (Z0 --> tau anti-tau) at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV using the D0 detector at the Tevatron

In this thesis the first measurement of {sigma}(p{bar p}) {yields} Z{sup 0} {yields} {tau}{bar {tau}} with the D0 detector at the Tevatron is presented. The tau pair candidates are recorded by the D0 detector using p{bar p} interactions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. Events in which one tau decays into a muon and the other tau final state is hadronic with one charged particle are selected for this analysis. The selection criteria for the hadronic tau decay are based on the tau final state, hence for two channels of one-prong taus: single charged pion ({tau}{sub {pi}}) and rho decays ({tau}{sub {rho}}). The selection is based on simple cuts on a number of discriminating variables and the cut values have been optimized for the best cross section measurement. Of hadronic tau candidates that have been reconstructed as {tau}{sub {pi}} candidates, 0.801 {+-} 0.017 {+-} 0.066 pass the selection cut; in the case of {tau}{sub {rho}} taus, the selection efficiency is 0.676 {+-} 0.009 {+-} 0.009. Of all QCD jets that are reconstructed as hadronic tau candidates, 0.0093 {+-} 0.0002 pass the {tau}{sub {pi}} selection cuts and 0.0122 {+-} 0.0002 the {tau}{sub {rho}} cuts. The cross section has been measured …
Date: April 1, 2004
Creator: Duensing, Silke & U., /Nijmegen
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurements of the Differential Cross Sections for the Inclusive Production of a Photon and Heavy Flavor Jet (open access)

Measurements of the Differential Cross Sections for the Inclusive Production of a Photon and Heavy Flavor Jet

This thesis presents the first measurement of the differential production cross section of a heavy flavor (bottom or charm) jet and direct photon at the Fermilab Tevatron. These measurements were performed using data recorded with the D0 detector from proton-antiproton collisions at a center of mass energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. These results probe a kinematic range for the photon transverse momentum of 30 < p{sub T}{sup {gamma}} < 150 GeV and rapidity of |y{sup {gamma}}| < 1.0 and for jet transverse momentum p{sub T}{sup jet} > 15 GeV and rapidity of |y{sup jet}| < 0.8. These results are compared to next-to-leading-order theoretical calculations.
Date: April 1, 2009
Creator: Duggan, Daniel
System: The UNT Digital Library
Diffractively produced Z bosons in the muon decay channel in p-pbar collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV, and the measurement of the efficiency of the D0 Run II luminosity monitor (open access)

Diffractively produced Z bosons in the muon decay channel in p-pbar collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV, and the measurement of the efficiency of the D0 Run II luminosity monitor

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)%.
Date: April 1, 2006
Creator: Edwards, Tamsin L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The inclusive jet cross-section in proton anti-proton collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV using the MidPoint jet algorithm (open access)

The inclusive jet cross-section in proton anti-proton collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV using the MidPoint jet algorithm

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.
Date: April 1, 2005
Creator: Flanagan, Gene U.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Study of B→c$\bar{c}$γK in the BaBar Experiment (open access)

A Study of B→c$\bar{c}$γK in the BaBar Experiment

The BABAR Collaboration is a high energy physics experiment located at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The primary goal of the experiment is to study charge and parity violation in the B-meson sector, however the copious production of B mesons decaying to other final states allows for a wide-ranging physics program. In particular, one can access the charmonium system via colour-suppressed b → c decays of the type B → c$\bar{c}$K. This thesis presents a study of B →c$\bar{c}$γK decays where c$\bar{c}$ includes J/Ψ and Ψ(2S), and K includes K<sup>±</sup>, K<sub>S</sub><sup>0</sup> and K*(892). The particular emphasis is on a search for the radiative decays X(3872) → J/Ψγ and X(3872) → Ψ(2S)γ. The X(3872) state is a recently-discovered resonance of undetermined quark composition, speculatively a conventional charmonium state or exotic four-quark di-meson molecule. This research is also sensitive to the well-known radiative charmonium decays B → χ<sub>c1,2</sub>K, which are used as verification for the analysis technique. This dissertation sets the best B → χ<sub>c1</sub>K branching fraction measurements to date, and sees the first evidence for factorization-suppressed B<sup>0</sup> → χ<sub>c2</sub>}K*<sup>0</sup> decay at a level of 3.6σ. It also provides evidence for X(3872) → J/Ψγ and X(3872) → Ψ(2S)γ with 3.6σ and 3.3σ …
Date: April 1, 2009
Creator: Fulsom, Brian Gregory
System: The UNT Digital Library
Evidence for electroweak top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV (open access)

Evidence for electroweak top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96 TeV

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}.
Date: April 1, 2007
Creator: Gadfort, Thomas & /Washington U., Seattle
System: The UNT Digital Library
Heterotic orbifolds (open access)

Heterotic orbifolds

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 …
Date: April 1, 2002
Creator: Giedt, Joel
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Measurement of the Helicity of W Bosons Produced in Top-Quark Decays (open access)

A Measurement of the Helicity of W Bosons Produced in Top-Quark Decays

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.
Date: April 1, 2005
Creator: Goldschmidt, Nathan Joel
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of a Weak Polarization Sensitivity to the Beam Orbit of the CEBAF Accelerator (open access)

Measurement of a Weak Polarization Sensitivity to the Beam Orbit of the CEBAF Accelerator

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.
Date: April 1, 2000
Creator: Grames, Joseph
System: The UNT Digital Library
Observation and properties of X(3872) at D0 (open access)

Observation and properties of X(3872) at D0

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.
Date: April 1, 2007
Creator: Hall, Isaac Nathaniel
System: The UNT Digital Library
Optical galaxy cluster detection across a wide redshift range (open access)

Optical galaxy cluster detection across a wide redshift range

The past decade is one of the most exciting period in the history of physics and astronomy. The discovery of cosmic acceleration dramatically changed our understanding about the evolution and constituents of the Universe. To accommodate the new acceleration phase into our well established Big Bang cosmological scenario under the frame work of General Relativity, there must exist a very special substance that has negative pressure and make up about 73% of the total energy density in our Universe. It is called Dark Energy. For the first time people realized that the vast majority of our Universe is made of things that are totally different from the things we are made of. Therefore, one of the major endeavors in physics and astronomy in the coming years is trying to understand, if we can, the nature of dark energy. Understanding dark energy cannot be achieved from pure logic. We need empirical evidence to finally determine about what is dark energy. The better we can constrain the energy density and evolution of the dark energy, the closer we will get to the answer. There are many ways to constrain the energy density and evolution of dark energy, each of which leads to …
Date: April 1, 2009
Creator: Hao, Jiangang
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Pion Charge Form Factor Through Pion Electroproduction (open access)

The Pion Charge Form Factor Through Pion Electroproduction

The goal of Jefferson Lab experiment E01-004 (F?-2) was the measurement of the longitudinal and transverse cross sections via pion electroproduction from hydrogen and deuterium for the purpose of extracting the charged pion form factor using pole dominance. The data were taken at two values of Q2 (1.60 and 2.45 GeV/c)2. In order to attain full coverage in R?, charged pions were detected in parallel kinematics (along the direction of momentum transfer, q), and at ±3 degrees off the direction of momentum transfer. For each Q2 data were taken for two values of the virtual photon polarization, ?, respectively. All data were taken at a fixed center of mass energy, W=2.22 GeV. The longitudinal and transverse pieces of the cross section were separated using the Rosenbluth separation method.
Date: April 1, 2006
Creator: Horn, Tanja
System: The UNT Digital Library
Search for a Neutral Long-Lived Particle Decaying to B-Jets (open access)

Search for a Neutral Long-Lived Particle Decaying to B-Jets

The existence of the Higgs boson is required by the Standard Model of particle physics, yet it has not been observed. The precise nature of the Higgs boson is unknown and the mechanism by which it interacts with known Standard Model particles is also not known. Long-lived, electrically neutral hadrons have recently been proposed in hidden-valley models and could constitute a pathway through which the Higgs boson communicates with the Standard Model. Such a scenario may provide a novel path to Higgs discovery at the Tevatron. This thesis describes a search for a neutral, long-lived particle produced in decays of Higgs bosons in p{bar p} collisions at a center-of-mass energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV, which decays to b-jets and lives long enough to travel at least 1.6 cm before decaying. This analysis uses 3.65 fb{sup -1} of data recorded with the Run II D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider from April 2002 to August of 2008. We perform a search for eight possible hidden-valley scenarios resulting from a Higgs decay. No significant excess over background is observed and cross-section limits are placed at 95% CL.
Date: April 1, 2009
Creator: Johnson, Chad
System: The UNT Digital Library
An implicit Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic code (open access)

An implicit Smooth Particle Hydrodynamic code

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 …
Date: April 1, 2000
Creator: Knapp, Charles E.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The ideal strength and mechanical hardness of solids (open access)

The ideal strength and mechanical hardness of solids

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 …
Date: April 1, 2000
Creator: Krenn, Christopher
System: The UNT Digital Library
A search for B_S0 oscillations at the Tevatron collider experiment D0 (open access)

A search for B_S0 oscillations at the Tevatron collider experiment D0

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 …
Date: April 1, 2007
Creator: Krop, Dan N.
System: The UNT Digital Library