The Ratio of W + N jets To Z/gamma + N jets As a Precision Test of the Standard Model

We suggest replacing measurements of the individual cross-sections for the production of W + N jets and Z/gamma + N jets in searches for new high-energy phenomena at hadron colliders by the precision measurement of the ratios (W+0 jet)/(Z+0 jet), (W+1 jet)/(Z+1 jet), (W+2 jets)/(Z+2 jets),... (W+N jets)/(Z+N jets), with N as large as 6 (the number of jets in ttbarH). These ratios can also be formed for the case where one or more of the jets is tagged as a b or c quark. Existing measurements of the individual cross sections for Wenu + N jets at the Tevatron have systematic uncertainties that grow rapidly with N, being dominated by uncertainties in the identification of jets and the jet energy scale. These systematics, and also those associated with the luminosity, parton distribution functions (PDF's), detector acceptance and efficiencies, and systematics of jet finding and b-tagging, are expected to substantially cancel in calculating the ratio of W to Z production in each N-jet channel, allowing a greater sensitivity to new contributions in these channels in Run II at the Tevatron and at the LHC.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, added reference

Present Limits on the Precision of SM Predictions for Jet Energies

We investigate the impact of theoretical uncertainties on the accuracy of measurements involving hadronic jets. The analysis is performed using events with a Z boson and a single jet observed in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV in 4.6 $\mathrm{fb^{-1}}$ of data from the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF). The transverse momenta (\pt) of the jet and the boson should balance each other due to momentum conservation in the plane transverse to the direction of the $p$ and $\bar{p}$ beams. We evaluate the dependence of the measured \pt-balance on theoretical uncertainties associated with initial and final state radiation, choice of renormalization and factorization scales, parton distribution functions, jet-parton matching, calculations of matrix elements, and parton showering. We find that the uncertainty caused by parton showering at large angles is the largest amongst the listed uncertainties. The proposed method can be re-applied at the LHC experiments to investigate and evaluate the uncertainties on the predicted jet energies. The distributions produced at the CDF environment are intended for comparison to those from modern event generators and new tunes of parton showering.Comment: Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth.

Squark Mixing in Electron-Positron Reactions

Squark mixing plays a large role in the phenomenology of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, determining the mass of the lightest Higgs boson and the electroweak interactions of the squarks themselves. We examine how mixing may be investigated in high energy $e^+ e^-$ reactions, both at LEP-II and the proposed linear collider. In particular, off-diagonal production of one lighter and one heavier squark allows one to measure the squark mixing angle, and would allow one to test the mass relations for the light Higgs boson. In some cases off-diagonal production may provide the best prospects to discover supersymmetry. In the context of the light bottom squark scenario, we show that existing data from LEP-II should show definitive evidence for the heavier bottom squark provided that its mass $m_{\tilde{b}_2} \le 120$ GeV.Comment: 22 pages, latex, 6 figure

Polarization of Upsilon(nS) at the Tevatron

The polarization of inclusive Upsilon(nS) at the Fermilab Tevatron is calculated within the nonrelativistic QCD factorization framework. We use a recent determination of the NRQCD matrix elements from fitting the CDF data on bottomonium production from Run IB of the Tevatron. The result for the polarization of Upsilon(1S) integrated over the transverse momentum bin 8 < p_T < 20 GeV is consistent with a recent measurement by the CDF Collaboration. The transverse polarization of Upsilon(1S) is predicted to increase steadily for p_T greater than about 10 GeV. The Upsilon(2S) and Upsilon(3S) are predicted to have significantly larger transverse polarizations than Upsilon(1S).Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Heavy Flavours in Collider Experiments

Current issues in the studies of Heavy Flavours in colliders are described with particular emphasis on experiments in which the UK is involved. Results on charm production at HERA are examined and compared to those at the Tevatron. B production rates at the Tevatron as well as the status of B lifetimes and mixing in the LEP collaborations and at the Tevatron are highlighted. The measurement of sin2beta from CDF is described as well as the most recent results on top physics at the Tevatron

Systematic event generator tuning for the LHC

In this article we describe Professor, a new program for tuning model parameters of Monte Carlo event generators to experimental data by parameterising the per-bin generator response to parameter variations and numerically optimising the parameterised behaviour. Simulated experimental analysis data is obtained using the Rivet analysis toolkit. This paper presents the Professor procedure and implementation, illustrated with the application of the method to tunes of the Pythia 6 event generator to data from the LEP/SLD and Tevatron experiments. These tunes are substantial improvements on existing standard choices, and are recommended as base tunes for LHC experiments, to be themselves systematically improved upon when early LHC data is available.Comment: 28 pages. Submitted to European Physical Journal C. Program sources and extra information are available from http://projects.hepforge.org/professor

Electrical Properties of Carbon Fiber Support Systems

Carbon fiber support structures have become common elements of detector designs for high energy physics experiments. Carbon fiber has many mechanical advantages but it is also characterized by high conductivity, particularly at high frequency, with associated design issues. This paper discusses the elements required for sound electrical performance of silicon detectors employing carbon fiber support elements. Tests on carbon fiber structures are presented indicating that carbon fiber must be regarded as a conductor for the frequency region of 10 to 100 MHz. The general principles of grounding configurations involving carbon fiber structures will be discussed. To illustrate the design requirements, measurements performed with a silicon detector on a carbon fiber support structure at small radius are presented. A grounding scheme employing copper-kapton mesh circuits is described and shown to provide adequate and robust detector performance.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, submitted to NI

Determination of the Jet Energy Scale at the Collider Detector at Fermilab

A precise determination of the energy scale of jets at the Collider Detector at Fermilab at the Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ collider is described. Jets are used in many analyses to estimate the energies of partons resulting from the underlying physics process. Several correction factors are developed to estimate the original parton energy from the observed jet energy in the calorimeter. The jet energy response is compared between data and Monte Carlo simulation for various physics processes, and systematic uncertainties on the jet energy scale are determined. For jets with transverse momenta above 50 GeV the jet energy scale is determined with a 3% systematic uncertainty

Popping out the Higgs boson off vacuum at Tevatron and LHC

In the prospect of diffractive Higgs production at the LHC collider, we give an extensive study of Higgs boson, dijet, diphoton and dilepton production at hadronic colliders via diffraction at both hadron vertices. Our model, based on non factorizable Pomeron exchange, describes well the observed dijet rate observed at Tevatron Run I. Taking the absolute normalization from data, our predictions are given for diffractive processes at Tevatron and LHC. Stringent tests of our model and of its parameters using data being taken now at Tevatron Run II are suggested. These measurements will also allow to discriminate between various models and finally to give precise predictions on diffractive Higgs boson production cross-section at the LHC.Comment: 27 pages, 16 figures. Published version, incorporating corrections listed in the Erratum to appea

Helicity conservation in inclusive nonleptonic decay B to VX: Test of long-distance final state interaction

The polarization measurement in the inclusive B decay provides us with a simple test of how much the long-distance final-state interaction takes place as the energy of the observed meson varies in the final state. We give the expectation of the perturbative QCD for the energy dependence of the helicity fractions in a semiquantitative form. Experiment will tell us for which decay processes the perturbative calculation should be applicable.Comment: 15 pages in Revtex with 3 figures embedde