Enhancing the heavy Higgs signal with jet-jet profile cuts

The jet-jet profile, or detailed manner, in which transverse energy and mass are distributed around the jet-jet system resulting from the hadronic decay of a $Z$ boson in the process Higgs$\to ZZ$ at a proton-proton collider energy of 40\tev is carefully examined. Two observables are defined that can be used to help distinguish the $\ell^+\ell^-$-jet-jet signal from Higgs decay from the ``ordinary'' QCD background arising from the large transverse momentum production of single $Z$ bosons plus the associated jets. By making cuts on these observables, signal to background enhancement factors greater than $100$ can be obtained.Comment: 16 pages, Univ. Florida IFT-93-

Status of the LUX Dark Matter Search

The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter search experiment is currently being deployed at the Homestake Laboratory in South Dakota. We will highlight the main elements of design which make the experiment a very strong competitor in the field of direct detection, as well as an easily scalable concept. We will also present its potential reach for supersymmetric dark matter detection, within various timeframes ranging from 1 year to 5 years or more.Comment: 4 pages, in proceedings of the SUSY09 conferenc

Search for associated Higgs boson production using like charge dilepton events in p(p)over-bar collisions at root s=1.96 TeV

We present a search for associated Higgs boson production in the process p (p) over bar -> W/ZH -> l(+/-)l'(+/-) + X in ee, e mu, and mu mu final states. The search is based on data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider at root s = 1.96 TeV corresponding to 5.3 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity. We require two isolated leptons (electrons or muons) with the same electric charge and additional kinematic requirements. No significant excess above background is observed, and we set 95% C. L. observed (expected) upper limits on ratio of the production cross section to the standard model prediction of 6.4 (7.3) for a Higgs boson mass of 165 GeV and 13.5 (19.8) for a mass of 115 GeV

Global QCD Analysis and the CTEQ Parton Distributions

The CTEQ program for the determination of parton distributions through a global QCD analysis of data for various hard scattering processes is fully described. A new set of distributions, CTEQ3, incorporating several new types of data is reported and compared to the two previous sets of CTEQ distributions. Comparison with current data is discussed in some detail. The remaining uncertainties in the parton distributions and methods to further reduce them are assessed. Comparisons with the results of other global analyses are also presented.Comment: (Change in Latex style only: 2up style removed since many don't have it.) 35 pages, 23 figures separately submitted as uuencoded compressed ps-file; Michigan State Report # MSU-HEP/41024 and CTEQ 40

A GLOBAL QCD STUDY OF DIRECT PHOTON PRODUCTION

A global QCD analysis of the direct photon production process from both fixed target and collider experiments is presented. These data sets now completely cover the parton $x$ range from 0.01 to 0.6, thereby providing a stringent test of perturbative QCD and parton distributions. Previous detailed studies of direct photons emphasized fixed target data. We find most data sets have a steeper $p_t$ distribution than the QCD prediction. Neither global fits with new parton distributions nor improved photon fragmentation functions can resolve this problem since the deviation occurs at different $x$ values for experiments at different energies. A more likely explanation is the need for additional broadening of the $k_t$ of the initial state partons. The magnitude and the possible physical origin of this effect are investigated and discussed.Comment: 8 page Latex file using epsf.sty for figures. 6 eps figures submitted separately in uuencoded file

Evaluation of a Microbial Inhibitor in Artificial Diets of a Generalist Caterpillar, Heliothis virescens

Controlling microbial growth in artificial diets is a key component in the rearing of laboratory insects. In this study an antimicrobial agent, Diet Antimicrobial Agent (DAA), was tested for its ability to suppress microbial growth on a range of different diets, and for its effect on larval and pupal performance of individuals from two different strains of Heliothis virescens Fabricus (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). In the first experiment, it was found that the presence of DAA in a pinto bean-based diet was highly effective at suppressing microbial growth relative to other methods, and that survival of caterpillars on diets with DAA was superior to other treatments. Caterpillars also performed best on diets with DAA, although this may have been the result of laboratory selection pressure as these caterpillars had been reared on pinto bean-based diets with DAA for several hundred generations. A second experiment was conducted, using different diets and a different strain of H. virescens to more fully evaluate DAA. Here it was found that DAA significantly suppressed microbial growth and development, particularly in synthetic diets. There was no significant effect of DAA on pupal development time or mass gain. There was a statistically significant effect of DAA on eclosion time for two of the diets, although the effect did not seem to be biologically meaningful. The findings suggest that DAA is an effective suppressor of microbial growth on artificial diets, and that its net effect on developing diet-reared insects is neutral

Evidence for Parton kT Effects in High pT Particle Production

Inclusive pizero and direct-photon cross sections in the kinematic range 3.5 < pT < 12 GeV/c with central rapidities are presented for 530 and 800 GeV/c proton beams and a 515 GeV/c pi- beam incident on beryllium targets. Current Next-to-Leading-Order perturbative QCD calculations fail to adequately describe the data for conventional choices of scales. Kinematic distributions from these hard scattering events provide evidence that the interacting partons carry significant initial-state parton transverse momentum (kT). Incorporating these kT effects phenomenologically greatly improves the agreement between calculations and the measured cross sections.Comment: 11 pages including 6 pages of figures with caption

Measurement of Semileptonic Branching Fractions of B Mesons to Narrow D** States

Using the data accumulated in 2002-2004 with the DO detector in proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron collider with centre-of-mass energy 1.96 TeV, the branching fractions of the decays B -> \bar{D}_1^0(2420) \mu^+ \nu_\mu X and B -> \bar{D}_2^{*0}(2460) \mu^+ \nu_\mu X and their ratio have been measured: BR(\bar{b}->B) \cdot BR(B-> \bar{D}_1^0 \mu^+ \nu_\mu X) \cdot BR(\bar{D}_1^0 -> D*- pi+) = (0.087+-0.007(stat)+-0.014(syst))%; BR(\bar{b}->B)\cdot BR(B->D_2^{*0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X) \cdot BR(\bar{D}_2^{*0} -> D*- \pi^+) = (0.035+-0.007(stat)+-0.008(syst))%; and (BR(B -> \bar{D}_2^{*0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X)BR(D2*0->D*- pi+)) / (BR(B -> \bar{D}_1^{0} \mu^+ \nu_\mu X)\cdot BR(\bar{D}_1^{0}->D*- \pi^+)) = 0.39+-0.09(stat)+-0.12(syst), where the charge conjugated states are always implied.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Let