The calorimetry at the future e+ e- linear collider

The physics programme for a coming electron linear collider is dominated by events with final states containing many jets. We develop in this paper the opinion that the best approach is to optimise the independent measurement of the tracks in the tracker, the photons in the electromagnetic calorimeter and the neutral hadrons in the camorimetry, together with a good lepton identification. This can be achieved with a high granularity calorimetry providing particle separation, through an efficient energy flow algorithm.Comment: 7 pages, 6 Postscript figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the APS / DPF / DPB Summer Study on the Future of Particle Physics (Snowmass 2001), Snowmass, Colorado, 30 Jun - 21 Jul 200

Measuring the Higgs Branching Fraction into two Photons at Future Linear \ee Colliders

We examine the prospects for measuring the \gaga branching fraction of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a mass of 120 GeV at the future TESLA linear \ee collider, assuming an integrated luminosity of 1 ab$^{-1}$ and center-of-mass energies of 350 GeV and 500 GeV. The Higgs boson is produced in association with a fermion pair via the Higgsstrahlung process \ee $\to ZH$, with $Z \to$ \qq or \nn, or the WW fusion reaction $e^+e^- \to \nu_e \bar{\nu_e} H$. A relative uncertainty on BF(\hgg) of~16% can be achieved in unpolarized \ee collisions at $\sqrt{s}$=~500 GeV, while for $\sqrt{s}$=~350 GeV the expected precision is slightly poorer. With appropriate initial state polarizations $\Delta$BF(\hgg)/BF(\hgg) can be improved to 10%. If this measurement is combined with the expected error for the total Higgs width, a precision of 10% on the \gaga Higgs boson partial width appears feasible.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

MICROMEGAS chambers for hadronic calorimetry at a future linear collider

Prototypes of MICROMEGAS chambers, using bulk technology and analog readout, with 1x1cm2 readout segmentation have been built and tested. Measurements in Ar/iC4H10 (95/5) and Ar/CO2 (80/20) are reported. The dependency of the prototypes gas gain versus pressure, gas temperature and amplification gap thickness variations has been measured with an 55Fe source and a method for temperature and pressure correction of data is presented. A stack of four chambers has been tested in 200GeV/c and 7GeV/c muon and pion beams respectively. Measurements of response uniformity, detection efficiency and hit multiplicity are reported. A bulk MICROMEGAS prototype with embedded digital readout electronics has been assembled and tested. The chamber layout and first results are presented

Measuring the top Yukawa coupling at the ILC at sqrt(s) = 500 GeV

We report on the feasibility of the direct measurement of the top Yukawa coupling g_t at the International Linear Collider (ILC) during its first phase of operation with a center-of-mass energy of 500 GeV. The signal and background models incorporate the non-relativistic QCD corrections which enhance the production cross section near the t-tbar threshold. The e+e- -> t tbar H signal is reconstructed in the 6-jet + lepton and the 8-jet modes. The results from the two channels are combined. The background processes considered are e+e- -> t bbar W- / tbar b W+ (which includes e+e- -> t tbar), e+e- -> t tbar Z, and e+e- -> t tbar g* -> t tbar b bar. We use a realistic fast Monte-Carlo detector simulation. Signal events are selected using event shape variables, through jet clustering, and by identifying heavy flavor jets. Assuming a Higgs mass of 120 GeV, polarized electron and positron beams with (Pe-,Pe+) = (-0.8,+0.3), and an integrated luminosity of 1 ab-1, we estimate that the e+e- -> t tbar H events can be seen with a statistical significance of 5.2 sigma, corresponding to the relative top Yukawa coupling measurement accuracy of |Delta g_t / g_t| = 10%.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

Testing the Higgs Mechanism in the Lepton Sector with multi-TeV e+e- Collisions

Multi-TeV e+e- collisions provide with a large enough sample of Higgs bosons to enable measurements of its suppressed decays. Results of a detailed study of the determination of the muon Yukawa coupling at 3 TeV, based on full detector simulation and event reconstruction, are presented. The muon Yukawa coupling can be determined with a relative accuracy of 0.04 to 0.08 for Higgs bosons masses from 120 GeV to 150 GeV, with an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse-ab. The result is not affected by overlapping two-photon background.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to J Phys G.: Nucl. Phy

Toward High Precision Higgs-Boson Measurements at the International Linear e+e- Collider

This report reviews the properties of Higgs bosons in the Standard Model (SM) and its various extensions. We give an extensive overview about the potential of the ILC operated at centre-of-mass energies up to 1 TeV (including the gamma gamma option) for the determination of the Higgs boson properties. This comprises the measurement of the Higgs boson mass, its couplings to SM fermions and gauge bosons, and the determination of the spin and the CP quantum numbers of the Higgs. The extensions of the SM that are analyzed in more detail are heavy SM-like Higgs bosons, heavy Higgs bosons in the framework of Supersymmetry (SUSY) and further exotic scenarios. We review recent theoretical developments in the field of Higgs boson physics. The important question what the ILC can contribute to Higgs boson physics after the LHC, the LHC/ILC interplay and synergy is discussed. The impact of Higgs boson physics on cosmology in several SUSY frameworks is analyzed. The impact of the accelerator and dector performance on the precision of measurements are discussed in detail. We propose a strategy to optimize future analyses. Open questions arising for the various topics are listed, further topics of study and corresponding roadmaps are suggested.Comment: 128 pages, lots of figures. One subsection added and other minor modification

Performance of Glass Resistive Plate Chambers for a high granularity semi-digital calorimeter

A new design of highly granular hadronic calorimeter using Glass Resistive Plate Chambers (GRPCs) with embedded electronics has been proposed for the future International Linear Collider (ILC) experiments. It features a 2-bit threshold semi-digital read-out. Several GRPC prototypes with their electronics have been successfully built and tested in pion beams. The design of these detectors is presented along with the test results on efficiency, pad multiplicity, stability and reproducibility.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure