Detecting the (quasi-) two-body decays of tau leptons in short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments

Novel detector schemes are proposed for the short-baseline neutrino experiments of next generation, aimed at exploring the large-Delta m(2) domain of nu(mu)-nu(tau) oscillations in the appearance mode. These schemes emphasize good spectrometry for charged particles and for electromagnetic showers and efficient reconstruction of pi(0) –> gamma gamma decays. The basic elements are a sequence of relatively thin emulsion targets, immersed in magnetic field and interspersed with electronic trackers, and a fine-grained electromagnetic calorimeter built of lead glass. These elements act as an integral whole in reconstructing the electromagnetic showers. This conceptual scheme shows good performance in identifying the tau (quasi-) two-body decays by their characteristic kinematics and in selecting the electronic decays of the tau. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Tevatron Run II combination of the effective leptonic electroweak mixing angle

Drell-Yan lepton pairs produced in the process pp→â.,"+â.,"-+X through an intermediate γ∗/Z boson have an asymmetry in their angular distribution related to the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak force and the associated mixing of its neutral gauge bosons. The CDF and D0 experiments have measured the effective-leptonic electroweak mixing parameter sin2θefflept using electron and muon pairs selected from the full Tevatron proton-antiproton data sets collected in 2001-2011, corresponding to 9-10 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. The combination of these measurements yields the most precise result from hadron colliders, sin2θefflept=0.23148±0.00033. This result is consistent with, and approaches in precision, the best measurements from electron-positron colliders. The standard model inference of the on-shell electroweak mixing parameter sin2θW, or equivalently the W-boson mass MW, using the zfitter software package yields sin2θW=0.22324±0.00033 or equivalently, MW=80.367±0.017 GeV/c2

Design, calibration, and performance of the MINERvA detector

The MINERvA(6) experiment is designed to perform precision studies of neutrino-nucleus scattering using nu(mu) and (nu) over bar (mu) neutrinos incident at 1-20 GeV in the NuMI beam at Fermilab. This article presents a detailed description of the MINERvA detector and describes the ex situ and in situ techniques employed to characterize the detector and monitor its performance. The detector is composed of a finely segmented scintillator-based inner tracking region surrounded by electromagnetic and hadronic sampling calorimetry. The upstream portion of the detector includes planes of graphite, iron and lead interleaved between tracking planes to facilitate the study of nuclear effects in neutrino interactions. Observations concerning the detector response over sustained periods of running are reported. The detector design and methods of operation have relevance to future neutrino experiments in which segmented scintillator tracking is utilized. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

MINERvA : High statistics neutrino scattering using a fine-grained detector

The MINERvA experiment at Fermilab will use a fully-active scintillator based fine grained neutrino detector and the high rate NuMI neutrino beam. MINERvA will measure low energy neutrino interaction properties and cross sections to a new level of precision. These measurements will be critical input to present and future accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments in this energy range

Combination of measurements of the top-quark pair production cross section from the Tevatron Collider

We combine six measurements of the inclusive top-quark pair (t(sic)) production cross section (sigma(t)(sic)) from data collected with the CDF and D0 detectors at the Fermilab Tevatron with proton-antiproton collisions at root s = 1.96 TeV. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of up to 8.8 fb(-1). We obtain a value of sigma tt = 7.60 +/- 0.41 pb for a top-quark mass of m(t) = 172.5 GeV. The contributions to the uncertainty are 0.20 pb from statistical sources, 0.29 pb from systematic sources, and 0.21 pb from the uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The result is in good agreement with the standard model expectation of 7.35(-0.33)(+0.28) pb at next-to-next-to-leading order and next-to-next-to leading logarithms in perturbative QCD

Tevatron Constraints on Models of the Higgs Boson with Exotic Spin and Parity Using Decays to Bottom-Antibottom Quark Pairs

Combined constraints from the CDF and D0 Collaborations on models of the Higgs boson with exotic spin J and parity P are presented and compared with results obtained assuming the standard model value J(P) = 0(+). Both collaborations analyzed approximately 10 fb(-1) of proton-antiproton collisions with a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV collected at the Fermilab Tevatron. Two models predicting exotic Higgs bosons with J(P) = 0(-) and J(P) = 2(+) are tested. The kinematic properties of exotic Higgs boson production in association with a vector boson differ from those predicted for the standard model Higgs boson. Upper limits at the 95% credibility level on the production rates of the exotic Higgs bosons, expressed as fractions of the standard model Higgs boson production rate, are set at 0.36 for both the J(P) = 0(-) hypothesis and the J(P) = 2(+) hypothesis. If the production rate times the branching ratio to a bottom-antibottom pair is the same as that predicted for the standard model Higgs boson, then the exotic bosons are excluded with significances of 5.0 standard deviations and 4.9 standard deviations for the J(P) = 0(-) and J(P) = 2(+) hypotheses, respectively

Tevatron Combination of Single-Top-Quark Cross Sections and Determination of the Magnitude of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa Matrix Element V-tb

We present the final combination of CDF and D0 measurements of cross sections for single-top-quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The data correspond to total integrated luminosities of up to 9.7 fb(-1) per experiment. The t-channel cross section is measured to be sigma(t) = 2.25(-0.31)(+0.29) pb. We also present the combinations of the two-dimensional measurements of the s- vs t-channel cross section. In addition, we give the combination of the s + t channel cross section measurement resulting in sigma(s+t) = 3.30(-0.40)(+0.52) pb, without assuming the standard model value for the ratio sigma(s)/sigma(t). The resulting value of the magnitude of the top-to-bottom quark coupling is vertical bar V-tb vertical bar = 1.02(-0.05)(+0.06), corresponding to vertical bar V-tb vertical bar > 0.92 at the 95% C. L

Higgs boson studies at the Tevatron

We combine searches by the CDF and D0 Collaborations for the standard model Higgs boson with mass in the range 90-200 GeV/c(2) produced in the gluon-gluon fusion, WH, ZH, t (t) over barH, and vector boson fusion processes, and decaying in the H -> b (b) over bar, H -> W+W-, H -> ZZ, H -> tau(+)tau(-), and H -> gamma gamma modes. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of up to 10 fb(-1) and were collected at the Fermilab Tevatron in p (p) over bar collisions at root s = 1.96 TeV. The searches are also interpreted in the context of fermiophobic and fourth generation models. We observe a significant excess of events in the mass range between 115 and 140 GeV/c(2). The local significance corresponds to 3.0 standard deviations at m(H) = 125 GeV/c(2), consistent with the mass of the Higgs boson observed at the LHC, and we expect a local significance of 1.9 standard deviations. We separately combine searches for H -> b (b) over bar, H -> W+W-, H -> tau(+)tau(-), and H -> gamma gamma. The observed signal strengths in all channels are consistent with the presence of a standard model Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV/c(2)