Limits on the production of scalar leptoquarks from Z (0) decays at LEP

A search has been made for pairs and for single production of scalar leptoquarks of the first and second generations using a data sample of 392000 Z0 decays from the DELPHI detector at LEP 1. No signal was found and limits on the leptoquark mass, production cross section and branching ratio were set. A mass limit at 95% confidence level of 45.5 GeV/c2 was obtained for leptoquark pair production. The search for the production of a single leptoquark probed the mass region above this limit and its results exclude first and second generation leptoquarks D0 with masses below 65 GeV/c2 and 73 GeV/c2 respectively, at 95% confidence level, assuming that the D0lq Yukawa coupling alpha(lambda) is equal to the electromagnetic one. An upper limit is also given on the coupling alpha(lambda) as a function of the leptoquark mass m(D0)

The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) on the SMILE Mission

The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) is part of the scientific payload of the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission. SMILE is a joint science mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is due for launch in 2025. SXI is a compact X-ray telescope with a wide field-of-view (FOV) capable of encompassing large portions of Earth’s magnetosphere from the vantage point of the SMILE orbit. SXI is sensitive to the soft X-rays produced by the Solar Wind Charge eXchange (SWCX) process produced when heavy ions of solar wind origin interact with neutral particles in Earth’s exosphere. SWCX provides a mechanism for boundary detection within the magnetosphere, such as the position of Earth’s magnetopause, because the solar wind heavy ions have a very low density in regions of closed magnetic field lines. The sensitivity of the SXI is such that it can potentially track movements of the magnetopause on timescales of a few minutes and the orbit of SMILE will enable such movements to be tracked for segments lasting many hours. SXI is led by the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom (UK) with collaborating organisations on hardware, software and science support within the UK, Europe, China and the United States

The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) on the SMILE Mission

The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) is part of the scientific payload of the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) mission. SMILE is a joint science mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is due for launch in 2025. SXI is a compact X-ray telescope with a wide field-of-view (FOV) capable of encompassing large portions of Earth’s magnetosphere from the vantage point of the SMILE orbit. SXI is sensitive to the soft X-rays produced by the Solar Wind Charge eXchange (SWCX) process produced when heavy ions of solar wind origin interact with neutral particles in Earth’s exosphere. SWCX provides a mechanism for boundary detection within the magnetosphere, such as the position of Earth’s magnetopause, because the solar wind heavy ions have a very low density in regions of closed magnetic field lines. The sensitivity of the SXI is such that it can potentially track movements of the magnetopause on timescales of a few minutes and the orbit of SMILE will enable such movements to be tracked for segments lasting many hours. SXI is led by the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom (UK) with collaborating organisations on hardware, software and science support within the UK, Europe, China and the United States

Energy-loss correction in charge sharing events for improved performance of pixellated compound semiconductors

The sharing of charge between multiple pixels can significantly degrade the energy resolution of small pixelated compound semiconductor detectors. This paper describes an energy calibration and reconstruction technique to correct for absorbed energy that is split over two neighbouring pixels, defined as bipixel events. Results were obtained with a 1 mm thick CdTe detector with 250 µm pixel pitch and an inter-pixel spacing of 50 µm, using the STFC HEXITEC ASIC.The proportion of charge sharing events was found to be 54% for photons at 59.5 keV when applying a noise threshold of 3 keV. Across the energy range investigated, bipixels were the predominant shared event type and the absolute fraction of shared events was found to be dependent on the noise threshold used.The reconstruction technique described reduces the degradation of energy resolution due to charge sharing in bipixel events compared to simple charge sharing summing techniques. This improved counting efficiency compared to using only isolated events and improved energy resolution compared to pixel addition techniques. When only isolated pixels were included, a FWHM energy resolution of 1.42 keV at 140.5 keV was achievable; inclusion of bipixel events using pixel addition results in an energy resolution of 3.33 keV whereas the reconstruction technique described here results in an energy resolution of 2.14 keV. When bipixel events are combined with single pixel events, the number of counts within the 140.5 keV photopeak of 99mTc increased by over 100%.</p

Measurement of the Mass of the Z-Boson and the Energy Calibration of Lep

Contains fulltext : 26847___.PDF (publisher's version ) (Open Access

A Precision measurement of the average lifetime of B hadrons

The average lifetime ofB hadrons was measured using data collected with the DELPHI detector at the LEP collider during 1991 and 1992. The measurement was performed using two different anayses. The first method was an improvement on a previous technique, which used charged particle impact parameter distributions. This analysis measured an average lifetime forB hadrons of (1) τB=1.542±0.021(stat.)±0.045(syst.)ps. The second method was based on a new technique, which used inclusively reconstructed secondary vertices to measure (2) τB=1.599±0.014(stat.)±0.035(syst.)ps. Taking into account both the statistical and systematic corelations, the results of these two methods were combined to give an average lifetime forB hadrons of (3) τB=1.582±0.012(stat.)±0.032(syst.)ps