Hybrid Performance of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A key feature of the Pierre Auger Observatory is its hybrid design, in which ultra high energy cosmic rays are detected simultaneously by fluorescence telescopes and a ground array. The two techniques see air showers in complementary ways, providing important cross-checks and measurement redundancy. Much of the hybrid capability stems from the accurate geometrical reconstruction it achieves, with accuracy better than either the ground array detectors or a single telescope could achieve independently. We have studied the geometrical and longitudinal profile reconstructions of hybrid events. We present the results for the hybrid performance of the Observatory, including trigger efficiency, energy and angular resolution, and the efficiency of the event selection.Comment: Contribution to the 30th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Merida Mexico, July 200

Chiral-logarithmic Corrections to the S and T Parameters in Higgsless Models

Recently, Higgsless models have proven to be viable alternatives to the Standard Model (SM) and supersymmetric models in describing the breaking of the electroweak symmetry. Whether extra-dimensional in nature or their deconstructed counterparts, the physical spectrum of these models typically consists of ``towers'' of massive vector gauge bosons which carry the same quantum numbers as the SM W and Z. In this paper, we calculate the one-loop, chiral-logarithmic corrections to the S and T parameters from the lightest (i.e. SM) and the next-to-lightest gauge bosons using a novel application of the Pinch Technique. We perform our calculation using generic Feynman rules with generic couplings such that our results can be applied to various models. To demonstrate how to use our results, we calculate the leading chiral-logarithmic corrections to the S and T parameters in the deconstructed three site Higgsless model. As we point out, however, our results are not exclusive to Higgsless models and may, in fact, be used to calculate the one-loop corrections from additional gauge bosons in models with fundamental (or composite) Higgs bosons.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figures, added references, analysis of three site model expanded to include delocalized fermion

Higgs Boson Production with Bottom Quarks at Hadron Colliders

We present results for the production cross section of a Higgs Boson with a pair of bottom/anti-bottom quarks, including next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, uses ws-ijmpa.cls. Talk given by C.B. Jackson at the Meeting of the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF2004) in Riverside, CA, August 26-31, 200