Measurements of Diffractive Processes at CDF

We review the results of measurements on hard diffractive processes performed by the CDF Collaboration and report preliminary CDF results on two soft diffractive processes with a leading antiproton and a rapidity gap in addition to that associated with the antiproton. All results have been obtained from data collected in Run I of the Fermilab Tevatron $\bar pp$ collider.Comment: 7 pages, Presented at 14$^{th}$ Topical Conference on Hadron Collider Physics, HCP-2002, Karlsruhe, Germany, 29 Sep - 4 Oct 200

Energy Level Diagrams for Black Hole Orbits

A spinning black hole with a much smaller black hole companion forms a fundamental gravitational system, like a colossal classical analog to an atom. In an appealing if imperfect analogy to atomic physics, this gravitational atom can be understood through a discrete spectrum of periodic orbits. Exploiting a correspondence between the set of periodic orbits and the set of rational numbers, we are able to construct periodic tables of orbits and energy level diagrams of the accessible states around black holes. We also present a closed form expression for the rational q, thereby quantifying zoom-whirl behavior in terms of spin, energy, and angular momentum. The black hole atom is not just a theoretical construct, but corresponds to extant astrophysical systems detectable by future gravitational wave observatories.Comment: 8 page

Diffraction in hadron-hadron interactions

Results on soft and hard diffraction in $pp$ and $\bar pp$ collisions are reviewed with emphasis on factorization and scaling properties of differential cross sections. While conventional factorization breaks down at high energies, a scaling behavior emerges, which leads to a universal description of diffractive processes in terms of a (re)normalized rapidity gap probability distribution.Comment: 12 pages, Late

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

QCD at high energy (experiments)

Recent measurements of QCD interactions involving large momentum transfers are reviewed. The status of measurements of the strong coupling constant is summarised. Recent developments in the measurement and interpretation of deep inelastic scattering, proton-anti-proton collisions and two-photon processes are discussed. While QCD at next-to-leading order gives a qualitative description of many processes, next-to-NLO calculations are now required to allow quantitative information to be extracted from hadron-initiated multijet data. This is illustrated by a discussion of recent data on the photoproduction of dijet events at HERA.Comment: Talk presented at the $31^{\rm st}$ International Conference on High Energy Physics, Amsterdam, 24-31 July 2002. 18 pages, 30 figure

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

On recent puzzles in the production of heavy quarkonia

Recently, several surprising experimental observations in the production of heavy quarkonium have been reported. In $e^+e^-$ annihilation at $\sqrt{s}=10.6$ GeV, Belle Collaboration finds that $J/\psi$ mesons are predominantly produced in association with an extra $\bar{c}c$ pair, with $\sigma(e^+e^- \to J/\psi \bar{c}c) / \sigma(e^+e^- \to J/\psi X) = 0.59^{+0.15}_{-0.13}\pm 0.12$, and the BaBar collaboration reports that the produced $J/\psi$'s have mostly longitudinal polarization. In $\bar{p}p$ collisions at the Tevatron, the CDF Collaboration reported an excess of $J/\psi$ and $\psi^{\prime}$ mesons at high $p_{\perp}$ over the perturbative QCD predictions; non--perturbative approach of NRQCD can accomodate the magnitude of the production cross section but not the observed experimentally polarization of quarkonia. In this note we propose possible solutions to these puzzles, and devise further experimental tests.Comment: 3 pages, 2 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

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

Resonant and Non-Resonant Effects in Photon-Technipion Production at Lepton Colliders

Lepton collider experiments can search for light technipions in final states made striking by the presence of an energetic photon: e+e- \to \photon\technipion. To date, searches have focused on either production through anomalous coupling of the technipions to electroweak gauge bosons or on production through a technivector meson (\technirho, \techniomega) resonance. This paper creates a combined framework in which both contributions are included. This will allow stronger and more accurate limits on technipion production to be set using existing data from LEP or future data from a higher-energy linear collider. We provide explicit formulas and sample calculations (analytic and Pythia) in the framework of the Technicolor Straw Man Model, a model that includes light technihadrons.Comment: 11 pages, including title page, 3 figures; version 2: references adde