Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Measurements of Plutonium in Sediment and Seawater from the Marshall Islands (open access)

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Measurements of Plutonium in Sediment and Seawater from the Marshall Islands

During the summer 2000, I was given the opportunity to work for about three months as a technical trainee at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, or LLNL as I will refer to it hereafter. University of California runs this Department of Energy laboratory, which is located 70 km east of San Francisco, in the small city of Livermore. This master thesis in Radioecology is based on the work I did here. LLNL, as a second U.S.-facility for development of nuclear weapons, was built in Livermore in the beginning of the 1950's (Los Alamos in New Mexico was the other one). It has since then also become a 'science center' for a number of areas like magnetic and laser fusion energy, non-nuclear energy, biomedicine, and environmental science. The Laboratory's mission has changed over the years to meet new national needs. The following two statements were found on the homepage of LLNL (http://www.llnl.gov), at 2001-03-05, where also information about the laboratory and the scientific projects that takes place there, can be found. 'Our primary mission is to ensure that the nation's nuclear weapons remain safe, secure, and reliable and to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons worldwide'. 'Our goal is to …
Date: August 1, 2001
Creator: Leisvik, M & Hamilton, T
System: The UNT Digital Library
Accelerator systems and instrumentation for the NuMI neutrino beam (open access)

Accelerator systems and instrumentation for the NuMI neutrino beam

None
Date: December 1, 2005
Creator: Zwaska, Robert Miles
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Adaptive Landscape Classification Procedure using Geoinformatics and Artificial Neural Networks (open access)

An Adaptive Landscape Classification Procedure using Geoinformatics and Artificial Neural Networks

The Adaptive Landscape Classification Procedure (ALCP), which links the advanced geospatial analysis capabilities of Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and particularly Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs), is proposed as a method for establishing and reducing complex data relationships. Its adaptive and evolutionary capability is evaluated for situations where varying types of data can be combined to address different prediction and/or management needs such as hydrologic response, water quality, aquatic habitat, groundwater recharge, land use, instrumentation placement, and forecast scenarios. The research presented here documents and presents favorable results of a procedure that aims to be a powerful and flexible spatial data classifier that fuses the strengths of geoinformatics and the intelligence of SOMs to provide data patterns and spatial information for environmental managers and researchers. This research shows how evaluation and analysis of spatial and/or temporal patterns in the landscape can provide insight into complex ecological, hydrological, climatic, and other natural and anthropogenic-influenced processes. Certainly, environmental management and research within heterogeneous watersheds provide challenges for consistent evaluation and understanding of system functions. For instance, watersheds over a range of scales are likely to exhibit varying levels of diversity in their characteristics of climate, hydrology, physiography, ecology, and anthropogenic …
Date: August 1, 2008
Creator: Coleman, Andre M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Aerosol Property Comparison Within and Above the ABL at the ARM Program SGP Site (open access)

Aerosol Property Comparison Within and Above the ABL at the ARM Program SGP Site

This thesis determines what, if any, measurements of aerosol properties made at the Earth surface are representative of those within the entire air column. Data from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement site at the Southern Great Plains, the only location in the world where ground-based and in situ airborne measurements are routinely made. Flight legs during the one-year period from March 2000 were categorized as either within or above the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) by use of an objective mixing height determination technique. Correlations between aerosol properties measured at the surface and those within and above the ABL were computed. Aerosol extensive and intensive properties measured at the surface were found representative of values within the ABL, but not of within the free atmosphere.
Date: May 1, 2002
Creator: Delle Monache, L
System: The UNT Digital Library
Air Pollutant Penetration Through Airflow Leaks Into Buildings (open access)

Air Pollutant Penetration Through Airflow Leaks Into Buildings

The penetration of ambient air pollutants into the indoor environment is of concern owing to several factors: (1) epidemiological studies have shown a strong association between ambient fine particulate pollution and elevated risk of human mortality; (2) people spend most of their time in indoor environments; and (3) most information about air pollutant concentration is only available from ambient routine monitoring networks. A good understanding of ambient air pollutant transport from source to receptor requires knowledge about pollutant penetration across building envelopes. Therefore, it is essential to gain insight into particle penetration in infiltrating air and the factors that affect it in order to assess human exposure more accurately, and to further prevent adverse human health effects from ambient particulate pollution. In this dissertation, the understanding of air pollutant infiltration across leaks in the building envelope was advanced by performing modeling predictions as well as experimental investigations. The modeling analyses quantified the extent of airborne particle and reactive gas (e.g., ozone) penetration through building cracks and wall cavities using engineering analysis that incorporates existing information on building leakage characteristics, knowledge of pollutant transport processes, as well as pollutant-surface interactions. Particle penetration is primarily governed by particle diameter and by the …
Date: September 1, 2002
Creator: Liu, De-Ling
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of Bs flavor oscillations at CDF (open access)

Analysis of Bs flavor oscillations at CDF

The search for and study of flavor oscillations in the neutral B{sub s}B{sub s} meson system is an experimentally challenging task. It constitutes a flagship analysis of the Tevatron physics program. In this dissertation, they develop an analysis of the time-dependent B{sub s} flavor oscillations using data collected with the CDF detector. The data samples are formed of both fully and partially reconstructed B meson decays: B{sub s} {yields} D{sub s}{pi}({pi}{pi}) and B{sub s} {yields} D{sub s}lv. A likelihood fitting framework is implemented and appropriate models and techniques developed for describing the mass, proper decay time, and flavor tagging characteristics of the data samples. The analysis is extended to samples of B{sup +} and B{sup 0} mesons, which are further used for algorithm calibration and method validation. The B mesons lifetimes are extracted. The measurement of the B{sup 0} oscillation frequency yields {Delta}m{sub d} = 0.522 {+-} 0.017 ps{sup -1}. The search for B{sub s} oscillations is performed using an amplitude method based on a frequency scanning procedure. Applying a combination of lepton and jet charge flavor tagging algorithms, with a total tagging power {epsilon}'D{sup 2} of 1.6%, to a data sample of 355 pb{sup -1}, a sensitivity of 13.0 …
Date: September 1, 2006
Creator: Leonardo, Nuno T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of Protein-RNA and Protein-Peptide Interactions in Equine Infectious Anemia (open access)

Analysis of Protein-RNA and Protein-Peptide Interactions in Equine Infectious Anemia

Macromolecular interactions are essential for virtually all cellular functions including signal transduction processes, metabolic processes, regulation of gene expression and immune responses. This dissertation focuses on the characterization of two important macromolecular interactions involved in the relationship between Equine Infectious Anemia Virus (EIAV) and its host cell in horse: (1) the interaction between the EIAV Rev protein and its binding site, the Rev-responsive element (RRE) and (2) interactions between equine MHC class I molecules and epitope peptides derived from EIAV proteins. EIAV, one of the most divergent members of the lentivirus family, has a single-stranded RNA genome and carries several regulatory and structural proteins within its viral particle. Rev is an essential EIAV regulatory encoded protein that interacts with the viral RRE, a specific binding site in the viral mRNA. Using a combination of experimental and computational methods, the interactions between EIAV Rev and RRE were characterized in detail. EIAV Rev was shown to have a bipartite RNA binding domain contain two arginine rich motifs (ARMs). The RRE secondary structure was determined and specific structural motifs that act as cis-regulatory elements for EIAV Rev-RRE interaction were identified. Interestingly, a structural motif located in the high affinity Rev binding site is …
Date: December 1, 2007
Creator: Lee, Jae-Hyung
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of the charmed semileptonic decay D+ ---> rho0 mu+ nu (open access)

Analysis of the charmed semileptonic decay D+ ---> rho0 mu+ nu

The search for the fundamental constituents of matter has been pursued and studied since the dawn of civilization. As early as the fourth century BCE, Democritus, expanding the teachings of Leucippus, proposed small, indivisible entities called atoms, interacting with each other to form the Universe. Democritus was convinced of this by observing the environment around him. He observed, for example, how a collection of tiny grains of sand can make out smooth beaches. Today, following the lead set by Democritus more than 2500 years ago, at the heart of particle physics is the hypothesis that everything we can observe in the Universe is made of a small number of fundamental particles interacting with each other. In contrast to Democritus, for the last hundred years we have been able to perform experiments that probe deeper and deeper into matter in the search for the fundamental particles of nature. Today's knowledge is encapsulated in the Standard Model of particle physics, a model describing the fundamental particles and their interactions. It is within this model that the work in this thesis is presented. This work attempts to add to the understanding of the Standard Model by measuring the relative branching fraction of the …
Date: December 1, 2008
Creator: Luiggi, Eduardo E. & U., /Vanderbilt
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of the Semileptonic Decay D0 --> anti-K0 pi- mu+ nu (open access)

Analysis of the Semileptonic Decay D0 --> anti-K0 pi- mu+ nu

This thesis describes the analysis of the semileptonic decay D{sup 0} {yields} {bar K}{sup 0} {pi}{sup -} {mu}{sup +}{nu} using FOCUS data. FOCUS is a fixed target experiment at Fermilab that studies the physics of the charm quark. Particles containing charm are produced by photon-gluon fusion from the collision of a photon beam on a BeO target. The experiment is characterized by excellent vertex resolution and particle identification. The spectrometer consists of three systems for track reconstruction (two silicon systems and one multiwire proportional chamber system) and two magnets of opposite polarity. The polarity of the magnet is such that the events of e{sup +}e{sup -} pairs produced in the target (which constitutes the main background) travel through a central opening in the detectors without interactions. Particle momentum is measured from the deflection angle in the magnets. Three multicell Cerenkov counters are used for charged particle identification (for e, {pi}, K, and p). Two different tracking systems located after several interaction lengths of shielding material are used for muon identification. The energy of neutral pions and electrons is measured in two electromagnetic calorimeters, while an hadron calorimeter is used for measuring the neutron energy. During the last four years the …
Date: November 1, 2004
Creator: Segoni, Ilaria Maria Lucia
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analytic Tool to Investigate the Effect of Binder on the Sensitivity of HMX-Based Plastic Bonded Explosives in the Skid Test (open access)

An Analytic Tool to Investigate the Effect of Binder on the Sensitivity of HMX-Based Plastic Bonded Explosives in the Skid Test

This project will develop an analytical tool to calculate performance of HMX based PBXs in the skid test. The skid-test is used as a means to measure sensitivity for large charges in handling situations. Each series of skid tests requires dozens of drops of large billets. It is proposed that the reaction (or lack of one) of PBXs in the skid test is governed by the mechanical properties of the binder. If true, one might be able to develop an analytical tool to estimate skid test behavior for new PBX formulations. Others over the past 50 years have tried to develop similar models. This project will research and summarize the works of others and couple the work of 3 into an analytical tool that can be run on a PC to calculate drop height of HMX based PBXs. Detonation due to dropping a billet is argued to be a dynamic thermal event. To avoid detonation, the heat created due to friction at impact, must be conducted into the charge or the target faster than the chemical kinetics can create additional energy. The methodology will involve numerically solving the Frank-Kamenetskii equation in one dimension. The analytical problem needs to be bounded …
Date: February 1, 2005
Creator: Hayden, D. W.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Angular correlations in beauty production at the Tevatron at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV (open access)

Angular correlations in beauty production at the Tevatron at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

Measurements of the b quark production cross section at the Tevatron and at Hera in the final decades of the 20th century have consistently yielded higher values than predicted by Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) QCD. This discrepancy has led to a large efforts by theorists to improve theoretical calculations of the cross sections and simulations of b quark production. As a result, the difference between theory and experiment has been much reduced. New measurements are needed to test the developments in the calculations and in event simulation. In this thesis, a measurement of angular correlations between b jets produced in the same event is presented. The angular separation between two b jets is directly sensitive to higher order contributions. In addition, the measurement does not depend strongly on fragmentation models or on the experimental luminosity and efficiency, which lead to a large uncertainty in measurements of the inclusive cross section. At the Tevatron, b{bar b} quark pairs are predominantly produced through the strong interaction. In leading order QCD, the b quarks are produced back to back in phase space. Next-to-leading order contributions involving a third particle in the final state allow production of b pairs that are very close together in …
Date: June 1, 2005
Creator: Wijngaarden, Daniel A. & Nijmegen, /Radboud U.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Angular-momentum-dominated electron beams and flat-beam generation (open access)

Angular-momentum-dominated electron beams and flat-beam generation

In the absence of external forces, if the dynamics within an electron beam is dominated by its angular momentum rather than other effects such as random thermal motion or self Coulomb-repulsive force (i.e., space-charge force), the beam is said to be angular-momentum-dominated. Such a beam can be directly applied to the field of electron-cooling of heavy ions; or it can be manipulated into an electron beam with large transverse emittance ratio, i.e., a flat beam. A flat beam is of interest for high-energy electron-positron colliders or accelerator-based light sources. An angular-momentum-dominated beam is generated at the Fermilab/NICADD photoinjector Laboratory (FNPL) and is accelerated to an energy of 16 MeV. The properties of such a beam is investigated systematically in experiment. The experimental results are in very good agreement with analytical expectations and simulation results. This lays a good foundation for the transformation of an angular-momentum-dominated beam into a flat beam. The round-to-flat beam transformer is composed of three skew quadrupoles. Based on a good knowledge of the angular-momentum-dominated beam, the quadrupoles are set to the proper strengths in order to apply a total torque which removes the angular momentum, resulting in a flat beam. For bunch charge around 0.5 nC, …
Date: June 1, 2005
Creator: Sun, Yin-e
System: The UNT Digital Library
Anisotropy in CdSe quantum rods (open access)

Anisotropy in CdSe quantum rods

The size-dependent optical and electronic properties of semiconductor nanocrystals have drawn much attention in the past decade, and have been very well understood for spherical ones. The advent of the synthetic methods to make rod-like CdSe nanocrystals with wurtzite structure has offered us a new opportunity to study their properties as functions of their shape. This dissertation includes three main parts: synthesis of CdSe nanorods with tightly controlled widths and lengths, their optical and dielectric properties, and their large-scale assembly, all of which are either directly or indirectly caused by the uniaxial crystallographic structure of wurtzite CdSe. The hexagonal wurtzite structure is believed to be the primary reason for the growth of CdSe nanorods. It represents itself in the kinetic stabilization of the rod-like particles over the spherical ones in the presence of phosphonic acids. By varying the composition of the surfactant mixture used for synthesis we have achieved tight control of the widths and lengths of the nanorods. The synthesis of monodisperse CdSe nanorods enables us to systematically study their size-dependent properties. For example, room temperature single particle fluorescence spectroscopy has shown that nanorods emit linearly polarized photoluminescence. Theoretical calculations have shown that it is due to the crossing …
Date: September 1, 2003
Creator: Li, Liang-shi
System: The UNT Digital Library
t anti-t production cross section measurement using soft electron tagging in p anti-p collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV (open access)

t anti-t production cross section measurement using soft electron tagging in p anti-p collisions at s**(1/2) = 1.96-TeV

We measure the production cross section of t{bar t} events in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. The data was collected by the CDF experiment in Run 2 of the Tevatron accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory between 2002 and 2007. 1.7 fb{sup -1} of data was recorded during this time period. We reconstruct t{bar t} events in the lepton+jets channel, whereby one W boson - resulting from the decay of the top quark pairs - decays leptonically and the other hadronically. The dominant background to this process is the production of W bosons in association with multiple jets. To distinguish t{bar t} from background, we identify soft electrons from the semileptonic decay of heavy flavor jets produced in t{bar t} events. We measure a cross section of {sigma}{sub p{bar p}} = 7.8 {+-} 2.4(stat) {+-} 1.6(syst) {+-} 0.5(lumi).
Date: September 1, 2008
Creator: Chou, John Paul & U., /Harvard
System: The UNT Digital Library
Antiproton Structure Function in P-Pbar Diffractive Interactions at Sqrt(s) = 1.96 Tev (open access)

Antiproton Structure Function in P-Pbar Diffractive Interactions at Sqrt(s) = 1.96 Tev

None
Date: July 1, 2007
Creator: Malbouisson, Helena & U., /Rio de Janeiro State
System: The UNT Digital Library
Application of optimal prediction to molecular dynamics (open access)

Application of optimal prediction to molecular dynamics

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 …
Date: December 1, 2004
Creator: Barber IV, John Letherman
System: The UNT Digital Library
Atmospheric electron neutrinos in the MINOS far detector (open access)

Atmospheric electron neutrinos in the MINOS far detector

Neutrinos produced as a result of cosmic-ray interactions in the earth's atmosphere offer a powerful probe into the nature of this three-membered family of low-mass, weakly-interacting particles. Ten years ago, the Super-Kamiokande Experiment has confirmed earlier indications that neutrinos undergo lepton-flavor oscillations during propagation, proving that they are massive contrary to the previous Standard Model assumptions. The Soudan Underground Laboratory, located in northern Minnesota, was host to the Soudan2 Experiment, which has made important contributions to atmospheric neutrino research. This same lab has more recently been host to the MINOS far detector, a neutrino detector which serves as the downstream element of an accelerator-based long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiment. This thesis has examined 418.5 live days of atmospheric neutrino data (fiducial exposure of 4.18 kton-years) collected in the MINOS far detector prior to the activation of the NuMI neutrino beam, with a specific emphasis on the investigation of electron-type neutrino interactions. Atmospheric neutrino interaction candidates have been selected and separated into showering or track-like events. The showering sample consists of 89 observed events, while the track-like sample consists of 112 observed events. Based on the Bartol atmospheric neutrino flux model of Barr et al. plus a Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of interactions …
Date: January 1, 2007
Creator: Speakman, Benjamin Phillip
System: The UNT Digital Library
An atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance measurement with the MINOS far detector (open access)

An atmospheric muon neutrino disappearance measurement with the MINOS far detector

It is now widely accepted that the Standard Model assumption of massless neutrinos is wrong, due primarily to the observation of solar and atmospheric neutrino flavor oscillations by a small number of convincing experiments. The MINOS Far Detector, capable of observing both the outgoing lepton and associated showering products of a neutrino interaction, provides an excellent opportunity to independently search for an oscillation signature in atmospheric neutrinos. To this end, a MINOS data set from an 883 live day, 13.1 kt-yr exposure collected between July, 2003 and April, 2007 has been analyzed. 105 candidate charged current muon neutrino interactions were observed, with 120.5 {+-} 1.3 (statistical error only) expected in the absence of oscillation. A maximum likelihood analysis of the observed log(L/E) spectrum shows that the null oscillation hypothesis is excluded at over 96% confidence and that the best fit oscillation parameters are sin{sup 2} 2{theta}{sub 23} = 0.95{sub -0.32} and {Delta}m{sub 23}{sup 2} = 0.93{sub -0.44}{sup +3.94} x 10{sup -3} eV{sup 2}. This measurement of oscillation parameters is consistent with the best fit values from the Super-Kamiokande experiment at 68% confidence.
Date: December 1, 2007
Creator: Gogos, Jeremy Peter
System: The UNT Digital Library
Atmospheric Neutrino Induced Muons in the MINOS Far Detector (open access)

Atmospheric Neutrino Induced Muons in the MINOS Far Detector

The Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. The MINOS Far Detector, located in the Soudan Underground Laboratory in Soudan MN, has been collecting data since August 2003. The scope of this dissertation involves identifying the atmospheric neutrino induced muons that are created by the neutrinos interacting with the rock surrounding the detector cavern, performing a neutrino oscillation search by measuring the oscillation parameter values of {Delta}m{sub 23}{sup 2} and sin{sup 2} 2{theta}{sub 23}, and searching for CPT violation by measuring the charge ratio for the atmospheric neutrino induced muons. A series of selection cuts are applied to the data set in order to extract the neutrino induced muons. As a result, a total of 148 candidate events are selected. The oscillation search is performed by measuring the low to high muon momentum ratio in the data sample and comparing it to the same ratio in the Monte Carlo simulation in the absence of neutrino oscillation. The measured double ratios for the ''all events'' (A) and high resolution (HR) samples are R{sub A} = R{sub low/high}{sup data}/R{sub low/high}{sup MC} = 0.60{sub -0.10}{sup +0.11}(stat) {+-} 0.08(syst) and R{sub HR} = R{sub low/high}{sup data}/R{sub low/high}{sup MC} …
Date: February 1, 2007
Creator: Rahman, Dipu
System: The UNT Digital Library
Atmospheric neutrino observations in the MINOS far detector (open access)

Atmospheric neutrino observations in the MINOS far detector

This thesis presents the results of atmospheric neutrino observations from a 12.23 ktyr exposure of the 5.42 kt MINOS Far Detector between 1st August 2003 until 1st March 2006. The separation of atmospheric neutrino events from the large background of cosmic muon events is discussed. A total of 277 candidate contained vertex {nu}/{bar {nu}}{sub {mu}} CC data events are observed, with an expectation of 354.4{+-}47.4 events in the absence of neutrino oscillations. A total of 182 events have clearly identified directions, 77 data events are identified as upward going, 105 data events are identified as downward going. The ratio between the measured and expected up/down ratio is: R{sup data}{sub u/d}/R{sup MC}{sub u/d} = 0.72{sup +0.13}{sub -0.11}(stat.){+-} 0.04 (sys.). This is 2.1{sigma} away from the expectation for no oscillations. A total of 167 data events have clearly identified charge, 112 are identified as {nu}{sub {mu}} events, 55 are identified as {bar {nu}}{sub {mu}} events. This is the largest sample of charge-separated contained-vertex atmospheric neutrino interactions so far observed. The ratio between the measured and expected {bar {nu}}{sub {mu}}/{nu}{sub {mu}} ratio is: R{sup data}{sub {bar {nu}}{nu}} / R{sup MC}{sub {bar {nu}}{nu}} = 0.93 {sup +0.19}{sub -0.15} (stat.) {+-} 0.12 (sys.). This is …
Date: September 1, 2007
Creator: Chapman, John Derek & U., /Cambridge
System: The UNT Digital Library
Atmospheric Neutrinos in the MINOS Far Detector (open access)

Atmospheric Neutrinos in the MINOS Far Detector

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 …
Date: December 1, 2004
Creator: Howcroft, Caius L.F. & U., /Cambridge
System: The UNT Digital Library
Attainment of Electron Beam Suitable for Medium Energy Electron Cooling (open access)

Attainment of Electron Beam Suitable for Medium Energy Electron Cooling

None
Date: September 1, 2005
Creator: Seletskiy, Sergei M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
B Flavor Tagging Calibration and Search for B(s) Oscillations in Semileptonic Decays with the CDF Detector at Fermilab (open access)

B Flavor Tagging Calibration and Search for B(s) Oscillations in Semileptonic Decays with the CDF Detector at Fermilab

In this thesis we present a search for oscillations of B{sub s}{sup 0} mesons using semileptonic B{sub s}{sup 0} {yields} D{sub s}{sup -}{ell}{sup +}{nu} decays. Data were collected with the upgraded Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDFII) from events produced in collisions of 980 GeV protons and antiprotons accelerated in the Tevatron ring. The total proton-antiproton center-of-mass energy is 1.96 TeV. The Tevatron is the unique source in the world for B{sub s}{sup 0} mesons, to be joined by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN after 2007. We establish a lower limit on the B{sub s}{sup 0} oscillation frequency {Delta}m{sub s} > 7.7 ps{sup -1} at 95% Confidence Level. We also present a multivariate tagging algorithm that identifies semileptonic B {yields} {mu}X decays of the other B mesons in the event. Using this muon tagging algorithm as well as opposite side electron and jet charge tagging algorithms, we infer the B{sub s}{sup 0} flavor at production. The tagging algorithms are calibrated using high statistics samples of B{sup 0} and B{sup +} semileptonic B{sup 0/+} {yields} D{ell}{nu} decays. The oscillation frequency {Delta}m{sub d} in semileptonic B{sup 0} {yields} D{ell}{nu} decays is measured to be {Delta}m{sub d} = (0.501 {+-} 0.029(stat.) {+-} 0.017(syst.)) …
Date: September 1, 2005
Creator: Giurgiu, Gavril A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
The b Quark Fragmentation Function, From LEP to TeVatron (open access)

The b Quark Fragmentation Function, From LEP to TeVatron

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 …
Date: December 1, 2004
Creator: Ben-haim, Eli
System: The UNT Digital Library