Effects of Final-State Interaction and Screening on Strange- and Heavy-Quark Production

Final-state interaction and screening have a great influence on $q \bar q$ production cross sections, which are important quantities in many problems in quark-gluon plasma physics. They lead to an enhancement of the cross section for a $q \bar q$ color-singlet state and a suppression for a color-octet state. The effects are large near the production threshold. The presence of screening gives rise to resonances for $q\bar q$ production just above the threshold at specific plasma temperatures. These resonances, especially $c\bar c$ and $b \bar b$ resonances, may be utilized to search for the quark-gluon plasma by studying the temperature dependence of heavy-quark pair production just above the threshold.Comment: 12 pages (Latex), 6 figures. Invited talk presented at Strangeness'96 Meeting, Budapest, May 1996. To be published in "Heavy-Ion Physics

Muon Catalysed Fusion-The Present Status

This article reviews the present status of the challenging field of muon catalysed fusion, by which fusion of light nuclei can be catalysed at low temperatures by muon binding. The study of this intriguing phenomenon encompasses different disciplines of physics, including particle, nuclear, atomic, molecular, accelerator and reactor physics. Starting with the intrinsic characteristics of the muon, the review highlights the physics of the negative muon in matter that culminates in the fusion act. The post-fusion scenario and the dynamics of the reactions and associated physics are considered. In part II, the applicational and utilisation prospects and experimental status are discussed

Effects of Screening on Quark-Antiquark Cross Sections in Quark-Gluon Plasma

Lowest-order cross sections for $q\bar q$ production and annihilation can be approximately corrected for higher-order QCD effects by using a corrective $K$-factor. For energies where quark masses cannot be ignored, the $K$-factor is dominated by the wave function distortion arising from the initial- or final-state interaction between the quark and the antiquark. We evaluate this $K$-factor for $q \bar q$ production and annihilation in a quark-gluon plasma by taking into account the effects of Debye screening through a color-Yukawa potential. We present the corrective $K$-factor as a function of dimensionless parameters which may find applications in other systems involving attractive or repulsive Yukawa interactions. Prominent peaks of the $K$-factor occur for an attractive $q$-$\bar q$ color-Yukawa interaction with Debye screening lengths of 0.835 and 3.23 times the Bohr radius, corresponding to two lowest $s$-wave $q\bar q$ bound states moving into the continuum to become $q\bar q$ resonances as the Debye screening length decreases. These resonances, especially the $c\bar c$ and the $b \bar b$ resonances, may be utilized to search for the quark-gluon plasma by studying the systematics of the temperature dependence of heavy-quark pair production just above the threshold.Comment: 29 pages (REVTeX), includes 10 postscript figure

Analytic approach to q

Analytic solutions for qq¯ systems obtained from a cut-off type approximation to the funnel potential are applied to bb¯ and cc¯ systems. Perturbative corrections to oscillator energy levels due to inclusion of short range a/r effect are also obtained

SUSY QCD impact on top-pair production associated with a Z0Z^0-boson at a photon-photon collider

The top-pair production in association with a $Z^0$-boson at a photon-photon collider is an important process in probing the coupling between top-quarks and vector boson and discovering the signature of possible new physics. We describe the impact of the complete supersymmetric QCD(SQCD) next-to-leading order(NLO) radiative corrections on this process at a polarized or unpolarized photon collider, and make a comparison between the effects of the SQCD and the standard model(SM) QCD. We investigate the dependence of the lowest-order(LO) and QCD NLO corrected cross sections in both the SM and minimal supersymmetric standard model(MSSM) on colliding energy $\sqrt{s}$ in different polarized photon collision modes. The LO, SM NLO and SQCD NLO corrected distributions of the invariant mass of $t\bar t$-pair and the transverse momenta of final $Z^0$-boson are presented. Our numerical results show that the pure SQCD effects in \ggttz process can be more significant in the $+ +$ polarized photon collision mode than in other collision modes, and the relative SQCD radiative correction in unpolarized photon collision mode varies from 32.09% to $-1.89$ when $\sqrt{s}$ goes up from $500 GeV$ to $1.5 TeV$.Comment: 22 pages and 13 figure

Correction Factors for Reactions involving Quark-Antiquark Annihilation or Production

In reactions with $q \bar q$ production or $q\bar q$ annihilation, initial- and final-state interactions give rise to large corrections to the lowest-order cross sections. We evaluate the correction factor first for low relative kinetic energies by studying the distortion of the relative wave function. We then follow the procedure of Schwinger to interpolate this result with the well-known perturbative QCD vertex correction factors at high energies, to obtain an explicit semi-empirical correction factor applicable to the whole range of energies. The correction factor predicts an enhancement for $q\bar q$ in color-singlet states and a suppression for color-octet states, the effect increasing as the relative velocity decreases. Consequences on dilepton production in the quark-gluon plasma, the Drell-Yan process, and heavy quark production processes are discussed.Comment: 25 pages (REVTeX), includes 2 uuencoded compressed postscript figure

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Search for new phenomena in final states with two opposite-charge, same-flavor leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV

Search results are presented for physics beyond the standard model in final states with two opposite-charge, same-flavor leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at s√=13 TeV collected with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016. The analysis uses the invariant mass of the lepton pair, searching for a kinematic edge or a resonant-like excess compatible with the Z boson mass. The search for a kinematic edge targets production of particles sensitive to the strong force, while the resonance search targets both strongly and electroweakly produced new physics. The observed yields are consistent with the expectations from the standard model, and the results are interpreted in the context of simplified models of supersymmetry. In a gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (GMSB) model of gluino pair production with decay chains including Z bosons, gluino masses up to 1500–1770 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level depending on the lightest neutralino mass. In a model of electroweak chargino-neutralino production, chargino masses as high as 610 GeV are excluded when the lightest neutralino is massless. In GMSB models of electroweak neutralino-neutralino production, neutralino masses up to 500-650 GeV are excluded depending on the decay mode assumed. Finally, in a model with bottom squark pair production and decay chains resulting in a kinematic edge in the dilepton invariant mass distribution, bottom squark masses up to 980–1200 GeV are excluded depending on the mass of the next-to-lightest neutralino