We report on the measurement of the top quark electric charge using the jet charge tagging method on events containing a single lepton collected by the CDF II detector at Fermilab between February 2002 and February 2010 at the center-of-mass energy {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. There are three main components to this measurement: determining the charge of the W (using the charge of the lepton), pairing the W with the b-jet to ensure that they are from the same top decay branch and finally determining the charge of the b-jet using the Jet Charge algorithm. We found, on a sample of 5.6 fb{sup -1} of data, that the p-value under the standard model hypothesis is equal to 13.4%, while the p-value under the exotic model hypothesis is equal to 0.014%. Using the a priori criteria generally accepted by the CDF collaboration, we can say that the result is consistent with the standard model, while we exclude an exotic quark hypothesis with 95% confidence. Using the Bayesian approach, we obtain for the Bayes factor (2ln(BF)) a value of 19.6, that favors very strongly the SM hypothesis over the XM one. The presented method has the highest sensitivity to the top quark …

Extensive studies of high-energy deuteron photodisintegration over the past two decades have probed the limits of meson-baryon descriptions of nuclei and nuclear reactions. At high energies, photodisintegration cross sections have been shown to scale as a power law in s (the total cm energy squared), which suggests that quarks are the relevant degrees of freedom. In an attempt to more clearly identify the underlying dynamics at play, JLab/Hall A experiment 03-101 measured the hard photodisintegration of {sup 3}He into p-p and p-d pairs at θ{sub c.m.} = 90◦ and E{sub {gamma}} = 0.8 - 4.7 GeV. The basic idea is that the measurement should be able to test theoretical predictions for the relative size of pp versus pn disintegrations. This document presents data for the energy dependence of the high energy 90◦ c.m. photodisintegration of {sup3]He: dσ/dt(γ + {sup3}He → p + p + n{sub spectator}), and dσ/dt(γ + {sup 3}He → p + d). The cross sections were observed to scale as a function of s{sup −n} where n was found to be 11.1±0.1 and 17.4±0.5 for the two reactions respectively. The degree of scaling found for d#27;{sigma}/dt (γ + {sup 3}He → p + d) is the highest …

This thesis presents the results a search for chargino and neutralino supersymmetric particles yielding same signed dilepton final states including one hadronically decaying tau lepton using 6.0 fb{sup -1} of data collected by the the CDF II detector. This signature is important in SUSY models where, at high tan {beta}, the branching ratio of charginos and neutralinos to tau leptons becomes dominant. We study event acceptance, lepton identification cuts, and efficiencies. We set limits on the production cross section as a function of SUSY particle mass for certain generic models.

Resonance Ionization Mass Spectrometry (RIMS) has been developed as a method to measure relative uranium isotope abundances. In this approach, RIMS is used as an element-selective ionization process to provide a distinction between uranium atoms and potential isobars without the aid of chemical purification and separation. We explore the laser parameters critical to the ionization process and their effects on the measured isotope ratio. Specifically, the use of broad bandwidth lasers with automated feedback control of wavelength was applied to the measurement of {sup 235}U/{sup 238}U ratios to decrease laser-induced isotopic fractionation. By broadening the bandwidth of the first laser in a 3-color, 3-photon ionization process from a bandwidth of 1.8 GHz to about 10 GHz, the variation in sequential relative isotope abundance measurements decreased from >10% to less than 0.5%. This procedure was demonstrated for the direct interrogation of uranium oxide targets with essentially no sample preparation. A rate equation model for predicting the relative ionization probability has been developed to study the effect of variation in laser parameters on the measured isotope ratio. This work demonstrates that RIMS can be used for the robust measurement of uranium isotope ratios.

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