Pentaquark Searches at CDF

Recently there has been revival of interest in exotic baryon spectroscopy triggered by experimental evidence for pentaquarks containing u,d,s and c-quarks. We report results of the searches for pentaquark states in decays to p K0S, Xi- pi+,- and D*- p performed at CDF detector using 220 pb-1 sample of pp= interactions at sqrt(s) of 1.96 TeV. No evidence for narrow resonances were found in either mode.Comment: Presented at 6th International Conference on Hyperons, Charm and Beauty Hadrons (BEACH 2004), Chicago, Illinois, 27 Jun - 3 Jul 200

Light pseudoscalar eta and H->eta eta decay in the simplest little Higgs mode

The SU(3) simplest little Higgs model in its original framework without the so-called mu term inevitably involves a massless pseudoscalar boson eta, which is problematic for b-physics and cosmological axion limit. With the mu term introduced by hand, the eta boson acquires mass m_eta ~ mu, which can be lighter than half the Higgs boson mass in a large portion of the parameter space. In addition, the introduced mu term generates sizable coupling of H-eta-eta. The Higgs boson can dominantly decay into a pair of eta's especially when mH below the WW threshold. Another new decay channel of H->Z+eta can be dominant or compatible with H -> WW for mH above the Z+eta threshold. We show that the LEP bound on the Higgs boson mass is loosened to some extent due to this new H->eta eta decay channel as well as the reduced coupling of H-Z-Z. The Higgs boson mass bound falls to about 110 GeV for f=3-4 TeV. Since the eta boson decays mainly into a bb pair, H-> eta eta -> 4b and H-> Z eta -> Z bb open up other interesting search channels in the pursuit of the Higgs boson in the future experiments. We discuss on these issues.Comment: major modification considering the simplest little Higgs model with the mu ter

Quantization effects in Viterbi decoding rate 1/n convolutional codes

A Viterbi decoder's performance loss due to quantizing data from the additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel is studied. An optimal quantization scheme and branch metric calculation method are presented. The uniformly quantized channel capacity C(sub u)(q) is used to determine the smallest number of quantization bits q that does not cause a significant loss. The quantizer stepsize which maximizes C(sub u)(q) almost minimizes the decoder bit error rate (BER). However, a slightly larger stepsize is better, like the value that minimizes the Bhattacharyya bound. The range and renormalization of state metrics is analyzed, in particular for K = 15 decoders such as the Big Viterbi Decoder (BVD) for the Galileo mission. These results are required to design reduced hardware complexity Viterbi decoders with a negligible quantization loss

A simplified model of the source channel of the Leksell Gamma Knife(R)^(R): testing multisource configurations with PENELOPE

A simplification of the source channel geometry of the Leksell Gamma Knife$^{\circledR}$, recently proposed by the authors and checked for a single source configuration (Al-Dweri et al 2004), has been used to calculate the dose distributions along the $x$, $y$ and $z$ axes in a water phantom with a diameter of 160~mm, for different configurations of the Gamma Knife including 201, 150 and 102 unplugged sources. The code PENELOPE (v. 2001) has been used to perform the Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, the output factors for the 14, 8 and 4~mm helmets have been calculated. The results found for the dose profiles show a qualitatively good agreement with previous ones obtained with EGS4 and PENELOPE (v. 2000) codes and with the predictions of GammaPlan$^{\circledR}$. The output factors obtained with our model agree within the statistical uncertainties with those calculated with the same Monte Carlo codes and with those measured with different techniques. Owing to the accuracy of the results obtained and to the reduction in the computational time with respect to full geometry simulations (larger than a factor 15), this simplified model opens the possibility to use Monte Carlo tools for planning purposes in the Gamma Knife$^{\circledR}$.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 5 table

Optimal combined word-length allocation and architectural synthesis of digital signal processing circuits

Published versio

Elevated plasma homocysteine is associated with ischaemic heart disease in Hong Kong Chinese

published_or_final_versio

Identifying the Higgs Boson in Electron--Photon Collisions

We analyze the production and detection of the Higgs boson in the next generation of linear $e^+e^-$ colliders operating in the $e\gamma$ mode. In particular, we study the production mechanism $e + \gamma \rightarrow e \gamma \gamma \rightarrow e + H$, where one photon is generated via the laser backscattering mechanism, while the other is radiated via the usual bremsstrahlung process. We show that this is the most important mechanism for Higgs boson production in a $500$ GeV $e\gamma$ collider for M_H\raisebox{-.4ex}{\rlap{\sim}} \raisebox{.4ex}{>}140 GeV. We also study the signals and backgrounds for detection of the Higgs in the different decay channels, $b \bar b$, $W^+W^-$, and $ZZ$, and suggest kinematical cuts to improve the signature of an intermediate mass Higgs boson.Comment: (REVTEX 2.0, 12 pages and 9 figures available upon request, Preprint MAD/PH/753

The Top Window for dark matter

We investigate a scenario that the top quark is the only window to the dark matter particle. We use the effective Lagrangian approach to write down the interaction between the top quark and the dark matter particle. Requiring the dark matter satisfying the relic density we obtain the size of the effective interaction. We show that the scenario can be made consistent with the direct and indirect detection experiments by adjusting the size of the effective coupling. Finally, we calculate the production cross section for $t\bar t + \chi \bar \chi$ at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will give rise to an interesting signature of a top-pair plus large missing energy.Comment: 17 pages including 8 figures; added references and a footnot