Local charge compensation from colour preconfinement as a key to the dynamics of hadronization

If, as is commonly accepted, the colour-singlet, `preconfined', perturbative clusters are the primary units of hadronization, then the electric charge is necessarily compensated locally at the scale of the typical cluster mass. As a result, the minijet electric charge is suppressed at scales that are greater than the cluster mass. We hence argue, and demonstrate by means of Monte Carlo simulations using HERWIG, that the scale at which charge compensation is violated is close to the mass of the clusters involved in hadronization, and its measurement would provide a clue to resolving the nature of the dynamics. We repeat the calculation using PYTHIA and find that the numbers produced by the two generators are similar. The cluster mass distribution is sensitive to soft emission that is considered unresolved in the parton shower phase. We discuss how the description of the splitting of large clusters in terms of unresolved emission modifies the algorithm of HERWIG, and relate the findings to the yet unknown underlying nonperturbative mechanism. In particular, we propose a form of $\alpha_S$ that follows from a power-enhanced beta function, and discuss how this $\alpha_S$ that governs unresolved emission may be related to power corrections. Our findings are in agreement with experimental data.Comment: 37 pages, 20 figure

Spontaneous Breaking of Flavor Symmetry and Naturalness of Nearly Degenerate Neutrino Masses and Bi-maximal Mixing

The gauge model with $SO(3)_{F}$ flavor symmetry and three Higgs triplets is studied. We show how the intriguing nearly degenerate neutrino mass and bi-maximal mixing scenario comes out naturally after spontaneous breaking of the symmetry. The hierarchy between the neutrino mass-squared differences, which is needed for reconciling both solar and atmospheric neutrino data, is naturally resulted from an approximate permutation symmetry. The model can also lead to interesting phenomena on lepton-flavor violations via the $SO(3)_{F}$ gauge interactions.Comment: 13 pages, latex, no figures, the version appearing in SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series A), Vol.35 No.9 (2000

Electroweak Evolution Equations

Enlarging a previous analysis, where only fermions and transverse gauge bosons were taken into account, we write down infrared-collinear evolution equations for the Standard Model of electroweak interactions computing the full set of splitting functions. Due to the presence of double logs which are characteristic of electroweak interactions (Bloch-Nordsieck violation), new infrared singular splitting functions have to be introduced. We also include corrections related to the third generation Yukawa couplings.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

STAR inner tracking upgrade - A performance study

Anisotropic flow measurements have demonstrated development of partonic collectivity in $200\mathrm{GeV}$ Au+Au collisions at RHIC. To understand the partonic EOS, thermalization must be addressed. Collective motion of heavy-flavor (c,b) quarks can be used to indicate the degree of thermalization of the light-flavor quarks (u,d,s). Measurement of heavy-flavor quark collectivity requires direct reconstruction of heavy-flavor hadrons in the low \pt region. Measurement of open charm spectra to high \pt can be used to investigate heavy-quark energy loss and medium properties. The Heavy Flavor Tracker (HFT), a proposed upgrade to the STAR experiment at midrapidity, will measure $v_{2}$ of open-charm hadrons to very low \pt by reconstructing their displaced decay vertices. The innermost part of the HFT is the PIXEL detector (made of two low mass monolithic active pixel sensor layers), which delivers a high precision position measurement close to the collision vertex. The Intermediate Silicon Tracker (IST), a 1-layer strip detector, is essential to improve hit identification in the PIXEL detector when running at full RHIC-II luminosity. Using a full GEANT simulation, open charm measurement capabilities of STAR with the HFT will be shown. Its performance in a broad \pt range will be demonstrated on $v_{2}$ (\pt > 0.5\mathrm{GeV}/c) and $R_\mathrm{CP}$ (\pt < 10\mathrm{GeV}/c) measurements of \D meson. Results of reconstruction of \Lc baryon in heavy-ion collisions are presented.Comment: to appear in EPJ C (Hot Quarks 2008 conference volume

Hadronization effects in event shape moments

We study the moments of hadronic event shapes in $e^+e^-$ annihilation within the context of next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) perturbative QCD predictions combined with non-perturbative power corrections in the dispersive model. This model is extended to match upon the NNLO perturbative prediction. The resulting theoretical expression has been compared to experimental data from JADE and OPAL, and a new value for $\alpha_s(M_Z)$ has been determined, as well as of the average coupling $\alpha_0$ in the non-perturbative region below $\mu_I=2$ GeV within the dispersive model: \alpha_s(M_Z)&=0.1153\pm0.0017(\mathrm{exp})\pm0.0023(\mathrm{th}),\alpha_0&=0.5132\pm0.0115(\mathrm{exp})\pm0.0381(\mathrm{th}), The precision of the $\alpha_s(M_Z)$ value has been improved in comparison to the previously available next-to-leading order analysis. We observe that the resulting power corrections are considerably larger than those estimated from hadronization models in multi-purpose event generator programs.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, 15 tables. Few minor changes. Version accepted for publication in European Physical Journal C

A dynamical gluon mass solution in a coupled system of the Schwinger-Dyson equations

We study numerically the Schwinger-Dyson equations for the coupled system of gluon and ghost propagators in the Landau gauge and in the case of pure gauge QCD. We show that a dynamical mass for the gluon propagator arises as a solution while the ghost propagator develops an enhanced behavior in the infrared regime of QCD. Simple analytical expressions are proposed for the propagators, and the mass dependency on the $\Lambda_{QCD}$ scale and its perturbative scaling are studied. We discuss the implications of our results for the infrared behavior of the coupling constant, which, according to fits for the propagators infrared behavior, seems to indicate that $\alpha_s (q^2) \to 0$ as $q^2 \to 0$.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures - Revised version to be consistent with erratum to appear in JHE

Predicting air-borne droplet drift from agricultural areas

Non-Peer Reviewe

Charmless Bs→PP,PV,VVB_s\to PP, PV, VV Decays Based on the six-quark Effective Hamiltonian with Strong Phase Effects II

We provide a systematic study of charmless $B_s \to PP, PV, VV$ decays ($P$ and $V$ denote pseudoscalar and vector mesons, respectively) based on an approximate six-quark operator effective Hamiltonian from QCD. The calculation of the relevant hard-scattering kernels is carried out, the resulting transition form factors are consistent with the results of QCD sum rule calculations. By taking into account important classes of power corrections involving "chirally-enhanced" terms and the vertex corrections as well as weak annihilation contributions with non-trivial strong phase, we present predictions for the branching ratios and CP asymmetries of $B_s$ decays into PP, PV and VV final states, and also for the corresponding polarization observables in VV final states. It is found that the weak annihilation contributions with non-trivial strong phase have remarkable effects on the observables in the color-suppressed and penguin-dominated decay modes. In addition, we discuss the SU(3) flavor symmetry and show that the symmetry relations are generally respected

Following Gluonic World Lines to Find the QCD Coupling in the Infrared

Using a parametrization of the Wilson loop with the minimal-area law, we calculate the polarization operator of a valence gluon, which propagates in the confining background. This enables us to obtain the infrared freezing (i.e. finiteness) of the running strong coupling in the confinement phase, as well as in the deconfinement phase up to the temperature of dimensional reduction. The momentum scale defining the onset of freezing is found both analytically and numerically. The nonperturbative contribution to the thrust variable, originating from the freezing, makes the value of this variable closer to the experimental one.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure