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.

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.

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 …

We describe studies of the decays of B mesons to final states {eta}K{sup *}(892), {eta}K{sup *}{sub 0}(S-wave), {eta}K{sup *}{sub 2}(1430), and {eta}'K based on data collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e{sup +}e{sup -} collier at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. We measure branching fractions and charge asymmetries for the decays B {yields} {eta}K{sup *}, where K{sup *} indicates a spin 0, 1, or 2 K{pi} system, making first observations of decays to final states {eta}K{sup *0}{sub 0}(S-wave), {eta}K{sup *+}{sub 0} (S-wave), and {eta}K{sup *0}{sub 2}(1430). We measure the time-dependent CP-violation parameters S and C for the decays B{sup 0} {yields} {eta}'K{sup 0}, observing CP violation in a charmless B decay with 5{sigma} significance considering both statistical and systematic uncertainties..

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.

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.

Ulrich in the forward to the Zenger and Folkman (2002) book, ''The Extraordinary Leader'', wrote about the importance of character in leadership stating, ''Everything about great leaders radiates from character. Character improves the probability of exhibiting strong interpersonal skill. Some of this perceived character is innate . . . but more is driven by the leader's self-awareness and interactions with others'' (p. ix). The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between leadership effectiveness and character using leader-managers of knowledge workers as the subject sample. Findings indicated that character, particularly those factors associated with honesty, setting the example, and valuing and strengthening others, were what set the most effective leader-managers apart from their peers. Technical competence and self-efficacy were found to be common characteristics of the study sample as was a drive for results. Who a leader-manager is, his/her substance, was found in this study to differentiate the ''best'' leader-managers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By their character, leader-managers establish the environment in which knowledge workers contribute and grow. As found by Pfeiffer (2000), Leaders of companies that experience smaller gaps between what they know and what they do (to turn knowledge into action), understand that their …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The analysis presented in this thesis focuses on kinematic distributions in the t{bar t} system and studies in detail selected differential cross sections of top quarks as well as the reconstructed t{bar t} pair, namely the top quark transverse momentum and the t{bar t} system mass. The structure of the thesis is organized as follows: first the Standard Model of the particle physics is briefly introduced in Chapter 1, with relevant aspects of electroweak and strong interactions discussed. The physics of the top quark and its properties are then outlined in Chapter 2, together with the motivation for measuring the transverse top quark momentum and other kinematic-related variables of the t{bar t} system. The concepts of present-day high energy physics collider experiments and the explicit example of Fermilab Tevatron collider and the D0 detector in Chapters 3 and 4 are followed by the description of basic detector-level objects, i.e. tracks, leptons and jets, in Chapter 5; their identification and calibration following in next chapter with the emphasis on the jet energy scale in Chapter 6 and jet identification at the D0. The analysis itself is outlined in Chapter 7 and is structured so that first the data and simulation samples …

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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.

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Protein phosphorylation is a general mechanism for signal transduction as well as regulation of cellular function. Unlike phosphorylation in eukaryotic systems that uses Ser/Thr for the sites of modification, two-component signal transduction systems, which are prevalent in bacteria, archea, and lower eukaryotes, use an aspartate as the site of phosphorylation. Two-component systems comprise a histidine kinase and a receiver domain. The conformational change of the receiver domain upon phosphorylation leads to signal transfer to the downstream target, a process that had not been understood well at the molecular level. The transient nature of the phospho-Asp bond had made structural studies difficult. The discovery of an excellent analogue for acylphosphate, BeF{sub 3}{sup -}, enabled structural study of activated receiver domains. The structure of activated Chemotaxis protein Y (CheY) was determined both by NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. These structures revealed the molecular basis of the conformational change that is coupled to phosphorylation. Phosphorylation of the conserved Asp residue in the active site allows hydrogen bonding of the T87 O{gamma} to phospho-aspartate, which in turn leads to the rotation of Y106 into the ''in'' position (termed Y-T coupling). The structure of activated CheY complexed with the 16 N-terminal residues of FliM (N16-FliM), …

Many scientific and industrial applications call for quantum-efficient high-energy-resolution microcalorimeters for the measurement of x rays. The applications driving the development of these detectors involve the measurement of faint sources of x rays in which few photons reach the detector. Interesting astrophysical applications for these microcalorimeters include the measurement of composition and temperatures of stellar atmospheres and diffuse interstellar plasmas. Other applications of microcalorimeter technology include x-ray fluorescence (XRF) measurements of industrial or scientific samples. We are attempting to develop microcalorimeters with energy resolutions of several eV because many sources (such as celestial plasmas) contain combinations of elements producing emission lines spaced only a few eV apart. Our microcalorimeters consist of a metal-film absorber (250 {micro}m x 250{micro}m x 3 {micro}m of copper) coupled to a superconducting transition-edge-sensor (TES) thermometer. This microcalorimeter demonstrated an energy resolution of 42 eV (FWHM) at 6 keV, excellent linearity, and showed no evidence of position dependent response. The response of our microcalorimeters depends both on the temperature of the microcalorimeter and on the electrical current conducted through the TES thermometer. We present a microcalorimeter model that extends previous microcalorimeter theory to include additional current dependent effects. The model makes predictions about the effects of …

This dissertation presents a search for {mu}{sub {nu}} and {bar {mu}{sub {nu}}} disappearance with the MiniBooNE experiment in the {Delta}m{sup 2} region of a few eV{sup 2}. Disappearance measurements in this oscillation region constrain sterile neutrino models and CPT violation in the lepton sector. Fits to the shape of the {mu}{sub {nu}} and {bar {mu}{sub {nu}}} energy spectra reveal no evidence for disappearance in either mode. This is the first test of {bar {mu}{sub {nu}}} disappearance between {Delta}m{sup 2} = 0:1 -- 10 eV2. In addition, prospects for performing a joint analysis using the SciBooNE detector in conjunction with MiniBooNE are discussed.

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}} …

In core-collapse supernovae, strong blast waves drive interfaces susceptible to Rayleigh-Taylor (RT), Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM), and Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instabilities. In addition, perturbation growth can result from material expansion in large-scale velocity gradients behind the shock front. Laser-driven experiments are designed to produce a strongly shocked interface whose evolution is a scaled version of the unstable hydrogen-helium interface in core-collapse supernovae such as SN 1987A. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop an understanding of the effect of hydrodynamic instabilities and the resulting transition to turbulence on supernovae observables that remain as yet unexplained. In this dissertation, we present a computational study of unstable systems driven by high Mach number shock and blast waves. Using multi-physics radiation hydrodynamics codes and theoretical models, we consider the late nonlinear instability evolution of single mode, few mode, and multimode interfaces. We rely primarily on 2D calculations but present recent 3D results as well. For planar multimode systems, we show that compressibility effects preclude the emergence of a regime of self-similar instability growth independent of the initial conditions (IC's) by allowing for memory of the initial conditions to be retained in the mix-width at all times. The loss of transverse spectral information is demonstrated, …

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.

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 …

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 …

Search engines, such as Google, assign scores to news articles based on their relevancy to a query. However, not all relevant articles for the query may be interesting to a user. For example, if the article is old or yields little new information, the article would be uninteresting. Relevancy scores do not take into account what makes an article interesting, which would vary from user to user. Although methods such as collaborative filtering have been shown to be effective in recommendation systems, in a limited user environment there are not enough users that would make collaborative filtering effective. I present a general framework for defining and measuring the ''interestingness'' of articles, called iScore, incorporating user-feedback including tracking multiple topics of interest as well as finding interesting entities or phrases in a complex relationship network. I propose and have shown the validity of the following: 1. Filtering based on only topic relevancy is insufficient for identifying interesting articles. 2. No single feature can characterize the interestingness of an article for a user. It is the combination of multiple features that yields higher quality results. For each user, these features have different degrees of usefulness for predicting interestingness. 3. Through user-feedback, a …

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 …