QED Interconnection Effects on W Momentum Distributions at LEP 2

The process \ee \to \W^+\W^- \to \f_1 \fbar_2 \, \f_3 \fbar_4 contains charges in the initial, intermediate and final stages. This gives a rich selection of possible QED interconnection effects. Coulomb interaction is the simplest of these, and can thus be used to explore consequences. We study a number of experimental observables, with emphasis on those related to the W momentum distribution. Second-order Coulomb effects are shown to be practically negligible. The limited LEP~2 statistics will not allow detailed tests, so any theory uncertainty will be reflected in the systematic error on the W mass. Currently the uncertainty from this source may be as high as 20~MeV.Comment: 1+27 pages, including 23 eps figures, use uudecode and gunzip to restore original file, run LaTeX2epsilon with epsfig package, figures are included in filecontents environments; alternatively ready-made postscript file is available at http://thep.lu.se/tf2/staff/torbjorn/Welcome.htm

Self-Calibration of Neutrino Detectors using characteristic Backgrounds

We introduce the possibility to use characteristic natural neutrino backgrounds, such as Geoneutrinos (\bar{\nu}_e) or solar neutrinos (\nu_e), with known spectral shape for the energy calibration of future neutrino detectors, e.g. Large Liquid Scintillator Detectors. This "CalEffect" could be used without the need to apply any modifications to the experiment in all situations where one has a suitable background with sufficient statistics. After deriving the effect analytically using \chi^2 statistics, we show that it is only tiny for reactor neutrino experiments, but can be applicable in other situations. As an example, we present its impact on the identification of the wiggles in the power spectrum of supernova neutrinos caused by Earth matter effects. The Self-Calibration Effect could be used for cross checking other calibration methods and to resolve systematical effects in the primary neutrino interaction processes, in particular in the low energy cross sections.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

On the use of C-stat in testing models for X-ray spectra

It has been shown that for the analysis of X-ray spectra the C-statistic, contrary to the chi^2-statistic, provides unbiased estimates of the model parameters and their uncertainty ranges. However, it is often stated that the C-statistic cannot be used to carry out statistical tests on the goodness of fit of the model, and therefore several investigations are still based on chi^2-statistics. Here we show that it is straightforward to calculate the expected value and variance of the C-statistic so that it can be used in tests. We provide formulae and simple numerical approximations to evaluate these expected values and variances. We also give examples indicating that tests based on only the expected value and variance of the C-statistic are reliable for spectra even with only ~30 counts. Therefore the C-statistic can be used for statistical tests such as assessing the goodness of fit of a spectral model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic