Integrating JERS-1 imaging radar and elevation models for mapping tropical rainforest communities in far North Queensland, Australia

The Wet Tropics World Heritage Area in Far North Queens- land, Australia consists predominantly of tropical rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest in areas of variable relief. Previous maps of vegetation communities in the area were produced by a labor-intensive combination of field survey and air-photo interpretation. Thus,. the aim of this work was to develop a new vegetation mapping method based on imaging radar that incorporates topographical corrections, which could be repeated frequently, and which would reduce the need for detailed field assessments and associated costs. The method employed G topographic correction and mapping procedure that was developed to enable vegetation structural classes to be mapped from satellite imaging radar. Eight JERS-1 scenes covering the Wet Tropics area for 1996 were acquired from NASDA under the auspices of the Global Rainforest Mapping Project. JERS scenes were geometrically corrected for topographic distortion using an 80 m DEM and a combination of polynomial warping and radar viewing geometry modeling. An image mosaic was created to cover the Wet Tropics region, and a new technique for image smoothing was applied to the JERS texture bonds and DEM before a Maximum Likelihood classification was applied to identify major land-cover and vegetation communities. Despite these efforts, dominant vegetation community classes could only be classified to low levels of accuracy (57.5 percent) which were partly explained by the significantly larger pixel size of the DEM in comparison to the JERS image (12.5 m). In addition, the spatial and floristic detail contained in the classes of the original validation maps were much finer than the JERS classification product was able to distinguish. In comparison to field and aerial photo-based approaches for mapping the vegetation of the Wet Tropics, appropriately corrected SAR data provides a more regional scale, all-weather mapping technique for broader vegetation classes. Further work is required to establish an appropriate combination of imaging radar with elevation data and other environmental surrogates to accurately map vegetation communities across the entire Wet Tropics

Search for pair-produced heavy scalars in Z0 decays

A search for charged Higgs bosons decaying into quarks is described, based on statistics of around 1.7 million hadronic Zo decays detected in DELPHI. Despite the very high background from standard hadronic decays of the Zo, masses in the range up to 43.5 GeV/c2 are excluded at the 95% confidence level. After combination with a search for leptonic decays, this mass limit is extended to cover all branching ratios. A similar analysis sets new limits on the possible production of any pair-produced heavy scalar decaying into a pair of jets, such as neutral Higgs bosons in a two doublet scheme and diquarks. © 1994 Springer-Verlag

Lifetime of charged and neutral B hadrons using event topology

The lifetimes of charged and neutral B hadrons have been measured using data collected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP between 1991 and 1993. B hadrons are tagged as jets with a secondary vertex and the charge of the B candidate is taken to be the sum of the charges of the particles in the secondary vertex. Approximately 1,434,000 multihadronic Z0 decays yielded 1817 B hadron candidates. The B purity was estimated to be around 99.1±0.3%, and 83% (70%) of the events measured as neutral (charged) came from neutral (charged) B's. The mean lifetimes of charged and neutral B hadrons were found to be 1.72±0.08 (stat.) ±0.06 (syst.) ps and 1.58±0.11 (stat.)±0.09 (syst.) ps respectively. The ratio of their lifertimes, τcharged/τneutral, was 1.09-0.10+0.11 (stat.)±0.08 (syst.). By making assumptions about the Bs0 and Λb0 states, the B+ and B0 meson lifetimes were determined to be τB+ = 1.72 ± 0.08 (stat.) ±0.06 (syst.) ps and τB+ = 1.63 ± 0.14 (stat.)±0.13 (syst.) ps and the ratio of their lifetimes was: τB+/τB0 = 1.06-0.11+0.13 ±0.10. The mean B lifetime was also deduced to be < τ > = 1.64 ±0.06 (stat.)±0.04 (syst.) ps. © 1995 Springer-Verlag

A study of radiative muon-pair events at Z0 energies and limits on an additional Z′ gauge beson

An analysis is reported on the channel e+e-→μ+μ- (nγ), n=1,2..., using data taken with the DELPHI detector at LEP from 1990 to 1992. Differential cross sections of the radiative photons as a function of photon energy and of the angle between the photon and the muon are presented. No significant deviations from expectations are observed. The data are also used to extract the muon-pair cross section and asymmetry below the Z0 peak by using those events with relatively hard initial state radiative photon(s). The measured cross section and asymmetry show no significant deviation from the Standard Model expectations. These results together with the DELPHI cross section and asymmetry measurements at the LEP energies from the 1990 to 1992 running periods are used to determine limits on the Z0-Z′ gauge boson mixing angle θZ′ and on the Z′ mass. There is no indication of the existence of a Z′; the limits obtained on the mixing angle substantially improve upon existing limits. The 95% confidence level allowed ranges of θZ′ in various models are: {Mathematical expression} © 1995 Springer-Verlag

Measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry of e+e-→Z→ {Mathematical expression} using prompt leptons and a lifetime tag

The forward-backward asymmetry of the process e+e-→Z→b {Mathematical expression} has been measured using events collected by the DELPHI experiment during the 1991 and 1992 LEP runs. This data sample corresponded to 884 000 hadronic Z decays at a centre-of-mass energy {Mathematical expression}. The tagging of b-quark events was performed using two approaches; the first was based on the semileptonic decay channels b→X+μ and b→X+e, the second used a lifetime tag with jet-charge reconstruction. The results of these two methods were combined to give {Mathematical expression} With the semileptonic sample, the forward-backward asymmetry of the process e+e-→Z→ {Mathematical expression} was also measured to be {Mathematical expression} The effective value of the Weinberg mixing angle derived from these measurements was {Mathematical expression} © 1995 Springer-Verlag

Measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry of charm and bottom quarks at the Z pole using D*± mesons

The forward-backward asymmetries for the processes {Mathematical expression} and {Mathematical expression} at the Z resonance are measured using identified D*± mesons. In 905,000 selected hadronic events, taken in 1991 and 1992 with the DEL-PHI detector at LEP, 4757 D*+→D0π+ decays are reconstructed. The c and b quark forward-backward asymmetries are determined to be: {Mathematical expression} Constraining the b asymmetry to the value measured by DELPHI using independent analyses, the charm asymmetry is determined to be: {Mathematical expression}. This result corresponds to an effective electroweak mixing angle measured using charm quark events of: {Mathematical expression} © 1995 Springer-Verlag

Production of strange B-baryons decaying into Ξ∓-ℓ∓ pairs at LEP

An excess of events containing, in a jet, a samesign Ξ∓-ℓ∓ pair as compared to those with an oppositesign Ξ∓-ℓ± pair has been observed in an analysis of 1.7 million hadronic Z0 decays collected by the DELPHI detector at LEP between 1991 and 1993 inclusive. The probability for this signal to come from non B-baryon decays is less than 5×10-4. The measured production fraction corresponds to:[Figure not available: see fulltext.] per lepton species, averaged for electrons and muons and assuming that the two channels have an equal contribution. Semileptonic decays of Λb baryons can account for less than 10% of these events and the major part of the signal has to originate from Ξb semileptonic decays. Using the subsample of these events where the Ξ∓ trajectory has been measured in the Vertex Detector, the lifetime of B-baryons producing a Ξ∓ in their semileptonic decay final state is found to be: {Mathematical expression} © 1995 Springer-Verlag