Weak Decays of Heavy-Light Mesons on the Lattice: Semi-Leptonic Formfactors

We report results (on an intermediate statistics sample) of a study of weak semi-leptonic formfactors of $B$ and $D$ decays, addressing the uncertainties from mass extrapolations to chiral and to heavy quarks. Moreover, we present a nonperturbative test to the LMK current renormalization scheme for vector current {\it transition} matrix elements and find remarkable agreement.Comment: 13 pages, uuencoded, updated table

Variance estimation for Brier Score decomposition

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The Brier Score is a widely-used criterion to assess the quality of probabilistic predictions of binary events. The expectation value of the Brier Score can be decomposed into the sum of three components called reliability, resolution, and uncertainty which characterize different forecast attributes. Given a dataset of forecast probabilities and corresponding binary verifications, these three components can be estimated empirically. Here, propagation of uncertainty is used to derive expressions that approximate the sampling variances of the estimated components. Variance estimates are provided for both the traditional estimators, as well as for refined estimators that include a bias correction. Applications of the derived variance estimates to artificial data illustrate their validity, and application to a meteorological prediction problem illustrates a possible use case. The observed increase of variance of the bias-corrected estimators is discussed

Event generation with SHERPA 1.1

In this paper the current release of the Monte Carlo event generator Sherpa, version 1.1, is presented. Sherpa is a general-purpose tool for the simulation of particle collisions at high-energy colliders. It contains a very flexible tree-level matrix-element generator for the calculation of hard scattering processes within the Standard Model and various new physics models. The emission of additional QCD partons off the initial and final states is described through a parton-shower model. To consistently combine multi-parton matrix elements with the QCD parton cascades the approach of Catani, Krauss, Kuhn and Webber is employed. A simple model of multiple interactions is used to account for underlying events in hadron--hadron collisions. The fragmentation of partons into primary hadrons is described using a phenomenological cluster-hadronisation model. A comprehensive library for simulating tau-lepton and hadron decays is provided. Where available form-factor models and matrix elements are used, allowing for the inclusion of spin correlations; effects of virtual and real QED corrections are included using the approach of Yennie, Frautschi and Suura.Comment: 47 pages, 21 figure

Semileptonic Decays of D and B Mesons

We report results of our ongoing investigation concerning semileptonic decays of heavy pseudoscalar mesons into pseudoscalar and vector mesons. Particular attention is paid to uncertainties in the $q^2$ and the heavy quark mass dependence of formfactors. Moreover we present a non-perturbative test to the LMK current renormalization scheme for vector current transition matrix elements and find remarkable agreement.Comment: 3 pages, uuencoded, contribution to Lat 9

Beautiful Baryons from Lattice QCD

We perform a lattice study of heavy baryons, containing one ($\Lambda_b$) or two $b$-quarks ($\Xi_b$). Using the quenched approximation we obtain for the mass of $\Lambda_b$ $$M_{\Lambda_b}= 5.728 \pm 0.144 \pm 0.018 {\rm GeV}.$$ The mass splitting between the $\Lambda_b$ and the B-meson is found to increase by about 20\% if the light quark mass is varied from the chiral limit to the strange quark mass.Comment: 11 pages, Figures obtained upon request from [email protected]

Semileptonic Decays of Heavy Mesons: A Status Report

We present intermediate results on our ongoing investigation concerning semileptonic decays of heavy pseudoscalar mesons into pseudoscalar and vector mesons. The corresponding formfactors are evaluated at several momenta and appropriate combinations of four light and four heavy quarks, which are chosen to allow for an extrapolation into the B Meson region. In order to obtain clear groundstate signals we apply gauge invariant ``Wuppertal'' smearing to the quarks. The analysis is based on 32 quenched gauge configurations of size $24^3 \times 64$ at $\beta=6.3$, with Wilson fermions.Comment: 3 pages, uuencoded, contribution to Lat 9

Comment on "Indispensable Finite Time Correlations for Fokker-Planck Equations from Time Series Data"

Comment on "Indispensable Finite Time Correlations for Fokker-Planck Equations from Time Series Data"Comment: 2 pages, 1 figur

Parameter uncertainty in forecast recalibration

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Ensemble forecasts of weather and climate are subject to systematic biases in the ensemble mean and variance, leading to inaccurate estimates of the forecast mean and variance. To address these biases, ensemble forecasts are post-processed using statistical recalibration frameworks. These frameworks often specify parametric probability distributions for the verifying observations. A common choice is the Normal distribution with mean and variance specified by linear functions of the ensemble mean and variance. The parameters of the recalibration framework are estimated from historical archives of forecasts and verifying observations. Often there are relatively few forecasts and observations available for parameter estimation, and so the fitted parameters are also subject to uncertainty. This artefact is usually ignored. This study reviews analytic results that account for parameter uncertainty in the widely used Model Output Statistics recalibration framework. The predictive bootstrap is used to approximate the parameter uncertainty by resampling in more general frameworks such as Non-homogeneous Gaussian Regression. Forecasts on daily, seasonal and annual time scales are used to demonstrate that accounting for parameter uncertainty in the recalibrated predictive distributions leads to probability forecasts that are more skilful and reliable than those in which parameter uncertainty is ignored. The improvements are attributed to more reliable tail probabilities of the recalibrated forecast distributions.Stefan Siegert was supported by the European Union Programme FP7/2007–2013 under grant agreement 3038378 (SPECS). Philip Sansom was supported by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) NA12OAR4310086

A mechanical, thermal and electrical packaging design for a prototype power management and control system for the 30 cm mercury ion thruster

A prototype electric power management and thruster control system for a 30 cm ion thruster is described. The system meets all of the requirements necessary to operate a thruster in a fully automatic mode. Power input to the system can vary over a full two to one dynamic range (200 to 400 V) for the solar array or other power source. The power management and control system is designed to protect the thruster, the flight system and itself from arcs and is fully compatible with standard spacecraft electronics. The system is easily integrated into flight systems which can operate over a thermal environment ranging from 0.3 to 5 AU. The complete power management and control system measures 45.7 cm (18 in.) x 15.2 cm (6 in.) x 114.8 cm (45.2 in.) and weighs 36.2 kg (79.7 lb). At full power the overall efficiency of the system is estimated to be 87.4 percent. Three systems are currently being built and a full schedule of environmental and electrical testing is planned

Light Spectrum and Decay Constants in Full QCD with Wilson Fermions

We present results from an analysis of the light spectrum and the decay constants f_{\pi} and f_V^{-1} in Full QCD with n_f=2 Wilson fermions at a coupling of beta=5.6 on a 16^3x32 lattice.Comment: 3 pages, LaTeX with 4 eps figures, Talk presented at LATTICE96(spectrum