Muon Energy Loss Upsteam of the Muon Spectrometer

A method for the estimation of the muon energy loss downstream of the Muons Spectrometer is presented. The method provides an improved and updated parametrization of the muon energy loss in ATLAS, along with an estimation based on the actual energy deposition in the calorimeters. The latter aims to account, on an event-by-event basis, for the statistical fluctuations of the energy loss. The final implementation of the presented method combines both the energy loss parametrization and the calorimeter information. This hybrid method provides on average a 5% improvement on the muon stand-alone momentum resolution, reaching 10% for , and reduces the non-gaussian tails. The method is implemented inside the ATHENA framework, in the MuidCaloEnergyTools package

The ATLAS Student Event Challenge

The ASEC (ATLAS Student Event Challenge) is an educational project which allows the students to learn about the elementary particles by studying "events", the products of beam collisions at the LHC. The events are collected by the ATLAS detector and displayed graphically using the ATLANTIS package. The students are given the means to select and analyse the events on-line, and subsequently present the results and draw conclusions

A QCD space-time analysis of quarkonium formation and evolution in hadronic collisions

The production of heavy quarkonium as QQbar bound-states in hadron-hadron collisions is considered within the framework of a space-time description, combining parton-cascade evolution with a coalescence model for bound-state formation. The `hard' production of the initial QQbar, directly or via gluon fragmentation and including both color-singlet and color-octet contributions, is calculated from the PQCD cross-sections. The subsequent development of the QQbar system is described within a space-time generalization of the DGLAP parton-evolution formalism in position- and momentum-space. The actual formation of the bound-states is accomplished through overlap of the QQbar pair and a spectrum of quarkonium wave-functions. This coalescence can only occur after sufficent gluon radiation reduces the QQbar relative velocity to a value commensurate with the non-relativistic kinematics of these bound systems. The presence of gluon participants in the cascade then is both necessary and leads to the natural inclusion of both color-singlet and color-octet mechanisms. The application of this approach to pp (ppbar) collisions from sqrt(s)= 30 GeV - 14 TeV reveals very decent agreement with available data from ISR and Tevatron - without the necessity of introducing fit parameters. Moreover, production probabilities are calculated for a complete spectrum of charmonium and bottonium states, with the relative significance compared to open charm (bottom) production. An analysis of the space-time development is carried through which sheds light on the relevance of gluon radiation and color-structure, suggesting a correponding experimental investigation.Comment: 37 pages including 16 postscript figure

Color Octet Contribution to High p_T J/\Psi Production in pp Collisions at \sqrt s = 500 and 200 GeV at RHIC

We compute \frac{d\sigma}{dp_T} of the J/\psi production in pp collisions at RHIC at \sqrt s = 500 and 200 GeV by using both the color octet and singlet models in the framework of non-relativistic QCD. The J/\psi we compute here includes the direct J/\psi from the partonic fusion processes and the J/\psi coming from the radiative decays of \chi_J's both in the color octet and singlet channel. The high p_T J/\psi production cross section is computed within the PHENIX detector acceptance ranges: -0.35 < \eta < 0.35 and 1.2 < \|\eta| < 2.4, the central electron and forward muon arms. It is found that the color octet contribution to J/\psi production is dominant at RHIC energy in comparison to the color singlet contributions. We compare our results with the recent preliminary data obtained by PHENIX detector for the high p_T J/\psi measurements. While the color singlet model fails to explain the data completely the color octet model is in agreement with the single data point above 2 GeV transverse momentum. A measurement of J/\psi production at RHIC in the next run with better statistics will allow us to determine the validity of the color octet model of J/\psi production at RHIC energies. This is very important because it is necessary to know the exact mechanism for J/\psi production in pp collisions at RHIC if one is to make predictions of J/\psi suppression as a signature of quark-gluon plasma. These mechanisms also play an important role in determining the polarized spin structure function of the proton at RHIC.Comment: 16 pages latex, 6 figure

Relevance of baseline hard proton-proton spectra for high-energy nucleus-nucleus physics

We discuss three different cases of hard inclusive spectra in proton-proton collisions: high $p_T$ single hadron production at $\sqrt{s}\approx$ 20 GeV and at $\sqrt{s}$ = 62.4 GeV, and direct photon production at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV; with regard to their relevance for the search of Quark Gluon Plasma signals in A+A collisions at SPS and RHIC energies.Comment: Proceeds. Hot Quarks 2004 Int. Workshop on the Physics of Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions. 26 pages. 26 figs. [minor corrs., refs. added

J/Psi Suppression in Heavy Ion Collisions at the CERN SPS

We reexamine the production of J/Psi and other charmonium states for a variety of target-projectile choices at the SPS. For this study we use a newly constructed cascade code LUCIFER II, which yields acceptable descriptions of both hard and soft processes, specifically Drell-Yan and hidden charm production, and soft energy loss and meson production, at the SPS. Glauber calculations of other authors are redone, and compared directly to the cascade results. The modeling of the charmonium states differs from that of earlier workers in its unified treatment of the hidden charm meson spectrum, which is introduced from the outset as a set of coupled states. The result is a description of the NA38 and NA50 data in terms of a conventional hadronic picture. The apparently anomalous suppression found in the most massive Pb+Pb system arises from three sources: destruction in the initial nucleon-nucleon cascade, use of coupled channels to exploit the larger breakup in the less bound Chi and Psi' states, and comover interaction in the final low energy phase.Comment: 36 pages (15 figures

Hadroproduction and Polarization of Charmonium

In the limit of heavy quark mass, the production cross section and polarization of quarkonia can be calculated in perturbative QCD. We study the $p_\perp$-averaged production of charmonium states in $\pi N$ collisions at fixed target energies. The data on the relative production rates of \jp and $\chi_J$ is found to disagree with leading twist QCD. The polarization of the \jp indicates that the discrepancy is not due to poorly known parton distributions nor to the size of higher order effects ($K$-factors). Rather, the disagreement suggests important higher twist corrections, as has been surmised earlier from the nuclear target $A$-dependence of the production cross section.Comment: 19 page

Examination of direct-photon and pion production in proton-nucleon collisions

We present a study of inclusive direct-photon and pion production in hadronic interactions, focusing on a comparison of the ratio of gamma/pi0 yields with expectations from next-to-leading order perturbative QCD (NLO pQCD). We also examine the impact of a phenomenological model involving k_T smearing (which approximates effects of additional soft-gluon emission) on absolute predictions for photon and pion production and their ratio.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. Minor changes in wording and in figure

Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using √s=8 TeV proton-proton collision data

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing high-p T jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS experiment in s√=8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, with a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Results are interpreted in a variety of simplified and specific supersymmetry-breaking models assuming that R-parity is conserved and that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1330 GeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino. For a simplified model involving the strong production of first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 850 GeV (440 GeV) are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino, assuming mass degenerate (single light-flavour) squarks. In mSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan β = 30, A 0 = −2m 0 and μ > 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 1700 GeV. Additional limits are set for non-universal Higgs mass models with gaugino mediation and for simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos, each decaying to a top squark and a top quark, with the top squark decaying to a charm quark and a neutralino. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous searches with the ATLAS detector

Measurement of the production of a W boson in association with a charm quark in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production of a W boson in association with a single charm quark is studied using 4.6 fb−1 of pp collision data at s√ = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In events in which a W boson decays to an electron or muon, the charm quark is tagged either by its semileptonic decay to a muon or by the presence of a charmed meson. The integrated and differential cross sections as a function of the pseudorapidity of the lepton from the W-boson decay are measured. Results are compared to the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD calculations obtained from various parton distribution function parameterisations. The ratio of the strange-to-down sea-quark distributions is determined to be 0.96+0.26−0.30 at Q 2 = 1.9 GeV2, which supports the hypothesis of an SU(3)-symmetric composition of the light-quark sea. Additionally, the cross-section ratio σ(W + +c¯¯)/σ(W − + c) is compared to the predictions obtained using parton distribution function parameterisations with different assumptions about the s−s¯¯¯ quark asymmetry