280 research outputs found
Casimir interaction between two concentric cylinders: exact versus semiclassical results
The Casimir interaction between two perfectly conducting, infinite,
concentric cylinders is computed using a semiclassical approximation that takes
into account families of classical periodic orbits that reflect off both
cylinders. It is then compared with the exact result obtained by the
mode-by-mode summation technique. We analyze the validity of the semiclassical
approximation and show that it improves the results obtained through the
proximity theorem.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures include
Model-independent extraction of matrix elements from top-quark measurements at hadron colliders
Current methods to extract the quark-mixing matrix element from
single-top production measurements assume that : top quarks decay into quarks with 100% branching fraction,
s-channel single-top production is always accompanied by a quark and
initial-state contributions from and quarks in the -channel
production of single top quarks are neglected. Triggered by a recent
measurement of the ratio
performed by the D0 collaboration, we consider a extraction method
that takes into account non zero d- and s-quark contributions both in
production and decay. We propose a strategy that allows to extract consistently
and in a model-independent way the quark mixing matrix elements ,
, and from the measurement of and from single-top
measured event yields. As an illustration, we apply our method to the Tevatron
data using a CDF analysis of the measured single-top event yield with two jets
in the final state one of which is identified as a -quark jet. We constrain
the matrix elements within a four-generation scenario by combining
the results with those obtained from direct measurements in flavor physics and
determine the preferred range for the top-quark decay width within different
scenarios.Comment: 36 pages, 17 figure
Is Vtb=1 ?
The strongest constraint on Vtb presently comes from the 3 x 3 unitarity of
the CKM matrix, which fixes Vtb to be very close to one. If the unitarity is
relaxed, current information from top production at Tevatron still leaves open
the possibility that Vtb is sizably smaller than one. In minimal extensions of
the standard model with extra heavy quarks, the unitarity constraints are much
weaker and the EW precision parameters entail the strongest bounds on Vtb. We
discuss the experimental perspectives of discovering and identifying such new
physics models at the Tevatron and the LHC, through a precise measurement of
Vtb from the single top cross sections and by the study of processes where the
extra heavy quarks are produced.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure
Single-top Wt-channel production matched with parton showers using the POWHEG method
We present results for the next-to-leading order calculation of single-top
Wt-channel production interfaced to Shower Monte Carlo programs, implemented
according to the POWHEG method. A comparison with MC@NLO is carried out.
Results obtained using the PYTHIA shower are also shown and the effect of
typical cuts is briefly discussed.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure
SU(4) Chiral Quark Model with Configuration Mixing
Chiral quark model with configuration mixing and broken SU(3)\times U(1)
symmetry has been extended to include the contribution from c\bar c
fluctuations by considering broken SU(4) instead of SU(3). The implications of
such a model have been studied for quark flavor and spin distribution functions
corresponding to E866 and the NMC data. The predicted parameters regarding the
charm spin distribution functions, for example, \Delta c, \frac{\Delta
c}{{\Delta \Sigma}}, \frac{\Delta c}{c} as well as the charm quark distribution
functions, for example, \bar c, \frac{2\bar c}{(\bar u+\bar d)}, \frac{2 \bar
c}{(u+d)} and \frac{(c+ \bar c)}{\sum (q+\bar q)} are in agreement with other
similar calculations. Specifically, we find \Delta c=-0.009, \frac{\Delta
c}{{\Delta \Sigma}}=-0.02, \bar c=0.03 and \frac{(c+ \bar c)}{\sum (q+\bar
q)}=0.02 for the \chiQM parameters a=0.1, \alpha=0.4, \beta=0.7,
\zeta_{E866}=-1-2 \beta, \zeta_{NMC}=-2-2 \beta and \gamma=0.3, the latter
appears due to the extension of SU(3) to SU(4).Comment: 10 RevTeX pages. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Higgs-Boson Production Induced by Bottom Quarks
Bottom quark-induced processes are responsible for a large fraction of the
LHC discovery potential, in particular for supersymmetric Higgs bosons.
Recently, the discrepancy between exclusive and inclusive Higgs boson
production rates has been linked to the choice of an appropriate bottom
factorization scale. We investigate the process kinematics at hadron colliders
and show that it leads to a considerable decrease in the bottom factorization
scale. This effect is the missing piece needed to understand the corresponding
higher order results. Our results hold generally for charged and for neutral
Higgs boson production at the LHC as well as at the Tevatron. The situation is
different for single top quark production, where we find no sizeable
suppression of the factorization scale. Turning the argument around, we can
specify how large the collinear logarithms are, which can be resummed using the
bottom parton picture.Comment: 18 page
Improved tests of extra-dimensional physics and thermal quantum field theory from new Casimir force measurements
We report new constraints on extra-dimensional models and other physics
beyond the Standard Model based on measurements of the Casimir force between
two dissimilar metals for separations in the range 0.2--1.2 m. The Casimir
force between an Au-coated sphere and a Cu-coated plate of a
microelectromechanical torsional oscillator was measured statically with an
absolute error of 0.3 pN. In addition, the Casimir pressure between two
parallel plates was determined dynamically with an absolute error of mPa. Within the limits of experimental and theoretical errors, the results
are in agreement with a theory that takes into account the finite conductivity
and roughness of the two metals. The level of agreement between experiment and
theory was then used to set limits on the predictions of extra-dimensional
physics and thermal quantum field theory. It is shown that two theoretical
approaches to the thermal Casimir force which predict effects linear in
temperture are ruled out by these experiments. Finally, constraints on Yukawa
corrections to Newton's law of gravity are strengthened by more than an order
of magnitude in the range 56 nm to 330 nm.Comment: Revtex 4, 35 pages, 14 figures in .gif format, accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
Evading the CKM Hierarchy: Intrinsic Charm in B Decays
We show that the presence of intrinsic charm in the hadrons' light-cone wave
functions, even at a few percent level, provides new, competitive decay
mechanisms for B decays which are nominally CKM-suppressed. For example, the
weak decays of the B-meson to two-body exclusive states consisting of strange
plus light hadrons, such as B\to\pi K, are expected to be dominated by penguin
contributions since the tree-level b\to s u\bar u decay is CKM suppressed.
However, higher Fock states in the B wave function containing charm quark pairs
can mediate the decay via a CKM-favored b\to s c\bar c tree-level transition.
Such intrinsic charm contributions can be phenomenologically significant. Since
they mimic the amplitude structure of ``charming'' penguin contributions,
charming penguins need not be penguins at all.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures, published version. References added, minor
change
Normal and Lateral Casimir Forces between Deformed Plates
The Casimir force between macroscopic bodies depends strongly on their shape
and orientation. To study this geometry dependence in the case of two deformed
metal plates, we use a path integral quantization of the electromagnetic field
which properly treats the many-body nature of the interaction, going beyond the
commonly used pairwise summation (PWS) of van der Waals forces. For arbitrary
deformations we provide an analytical result for the deformation induced change
in Casimir energy, which is exact to second order in the deformation amplitude.
For the specific case of sinusoidally corrugated plates, we calculate both the
normal and the lateral Casimir forces. The deformation induced change in the
Casimir interaction of a flat and a corrugated plate shows an interesting
crossover as a function of the ratio of the mean platedistance H to the
corrugation length \lambda: For \lambda \ll H we find a slower decay \sim
H^{-4}, compared to the H^{-5} behavior predicted by PWS which we show to be
valid only for \lambda \gg H. The amplitude of the lateral force between two
corrugated plates which are out of registry is shown to have a maximum at an
optimal wavelength of \lambda \approx 2.5 H. With increasing H/\lambda \gtrsim
0.3 the PWS approach becomes a progressively worse description of the lateral
force due to many-body effects. These results may be of relevance for the
design and operation of novel microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and other
nanoscale devices.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
On the Perturbative Stability of the QCD Predictions for the Ratio in Heavy-Quark Leptoproduction
We analyze the perturbative and parametric stability of the QCD predictions
for the Callan-Gross ratio in heavy-quark leptoproduction.
We consider the radiative corrections to the dominant photon-gluon fusion
mechanism. In various kinematic regions, the following contributions are
investigated: exact NLO results at low and moderate ,
asymptotic NLO predictions at high , and both NLO and NNLO
soft-gluon (or threshold) corrections at large Bjorken . Our analysis shows
that large radiative corrections to the structure functions and
cancel each other in their ratio with good accuracy. As
a result, the NLO contributions to the Callan-Gross ratio are less than 10% in
a wide region of the variables and . We provide compact LO predictions
for in the case of low . A simple formula connecting the
high-energy behavior of the Callan-Gross ratio and low- asymptotics of the
gluon density is derived. It is shown that the obtained hadron-level
predictions for are stable under the DGLAP evolution of the
gluon distribution function. Our analytic results simplify the extraction of
the structure functions and from measurements of
the corresponding reduced cross sections, in particular at DESY HERA.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, revtex4; minor correction
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