Report of the QCD Tools Working Group

We report on the activities of the ``QCD Tools for heavy flavors and new physics searches'' working group of the Run II Workshop on QCD and Weak Bosons. The contributions cover the topics of improved parton showering and comparisons of Monte Carlo programs and resummation calculations, recent developments in Pythia, the methodology of measuring backgrounds to new physics searches, variable flavor number schemes for heavy quark electro-production, the underlying event in hard scattering processes, and the Monte Carlo MCFM for NLO processes.Comment: LaTeX, 47 pages, 41 figures, 10 tables, uses run2col.sty, to appear in the Proceedings of the Workshop on "QCD and Weak Boson Physics in Run II", Fermilab, March - November 199

First operational experience with the CMS Run Control System

The Run Control System of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's new Large Hadron Collider (LHC) controls the sub-detector and central data acquisition systems and the high-level trigger farm of the experiment. It manages around 10,000 applications that control custom hardware or handle the event building and the high-level trigger processing. The CMS Run Control System is a distributed Java system running on a set of Apache Tomcat servlet containers. Users interact with the system through a web browser. The paper presents the architecture of the CMS Run Control System and deals with operational aspects during the first phase of operation with colliding beams. In particular it focuses on performance, stability, integration with the CMS Detector Control System, integration with LHC status information and tools to guide the shifter.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)European Community. Marie-Curie Research Network

Diversity of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in the Rhizosphere of Solaris and Regent Grapevine Plants Treated with Bioproducts

The aim of this study was to identify the spores of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in the rhizosphere of Solaris and Regent grapevine plants grafted onto SO4 rootstock and treated with bioproducts. The bioproducts Ausuma, Bioilsa, manure and BF Ekomix were tested and applied on their own, or combined with standard mineral fertilisation (NPK). The applied bioproducts contributed to an increase in the number of species of mycorrhizal fungi in the rhizosphere soil of the grapevines. The most frequently occurring AMF species was Claroideoglomus claroideum. Biopreparation BF Ekomix was a promisingagent for increasing the number of AMF spores in the rhizosphere of Regent grapevines. In the rhizosphere of Solaris, a positive influence on the number of spores occurred after the application of Bioilsa

Commissioning of the CMS High Level Trigger

The CMS experiment will collect data from the proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at a centre-of-mass energy up to 14 TeV. The CMS trigger system is designed to cope with unprecedented luminosities and LHC bunch-crossing rates up to 40 MHz. The unique CMS trigger architecture only employs two trigger levels. The Level-1 trigger is implemented using custom electronics, while the High Level Trigger (HLT) is based on software algorithms running on a large cluster of commercial processors, the Event Filter Farm. We present the major functionalities of the CMS High Level Trigger system as of the starting of LHC beams operations in September 2008. The validation of the HLT system in the online environment with Monte Carlo simulated data and its commissioning during cosmic rays data taking campaigns are discussed in detail. We conclude with the description of the HLT operations with the first circulating LHC beams before the incident occurred the 19th September 2008

B Physics at the Tevatron: Run II and Beyond

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the prospects for B physics at the Tevatron. The work was carried out during a series of workshops starting in September 1999. There were four working groups: 1) CP Violation, 2) Rare and Semileptonic Decays, 3) Mixing and Lifetimes, 4) Production, Fragmentation and Spectroscopy. The report also includes introductory chapters on theoretical and experimental tools emphasizing aspects of B physics specific to hadron colliders, as well as overviews of the CDF, D0, and BTeV detectors, and a Summary.Comment: 583 pages. Further information on the workshops, including transparencies, can be found at the workshop's homepage: http://www-theory.lbl.gov/Brun2/. The report is also available in 2-up http://www-theory.lbl.gov/Brun2/report/report2.ps.gz or chapter-by-chapter http://www-theory.lbl.gov/Brun2/report

Measurement of the ttbar Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present a measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using 318 pb^{-1} of data collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We select ttbar decays into the final states e nu + jets and mu nu + jets, in which at least one b quark from the t-quark decays is identified using a secondary vertex-finding algorithm. Assuming a top quark mass of 178 GeV/c^2, we measure a cross section of 8.7 +-0.9 (stat) +1.1-0.9 (syst) pb. We also report the first observation of ttbar with significance greater than 5 sigma in the subsample in which both b quarks are identified, corresponding to a cross section of 10.1 +1.6-1.4(stat)+2.0-1.3 (syst) pb.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics Review Letters, 7 page

Evidence for the exclusive decay Bc+- to J/psi pi+- and measurement of the mass of the Bc meson

We report first evidence for a fully reconstructed decay mode of the B_c^{\pm} meson in the channel B_c^{\pm} \to J/psi \pi^{\pm}, with J/psi \to mu^+mu^-. The analysis is based on an integrated luminosity of 360 pb$^{-1} in p\bar{p} collisions at 1.96 TeV center of mass energy collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We observe 14.6 \pm 4.6 signal events with a background of 7.1 \pm 0.9 events, and a fit to the J/psi pi^{\pm} mass spectrum yields a B_c^{\pm} mass of 6285.7 \pm 5.3(stat) \pm 1.2(syst) MeV/c^2. The probability of a peak of this magnitude occurring by random fluctuation in the search region is estimated as 0.012%.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Version 3, accepted by PR

Top quark mass measurement using the template method at CDF

We present a measurement of the top quark mass in the lepton+jets and dilepton channels of $t\bar{t}$ decays using the template method. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.6 fb$^{-1}$ of $p\bar{p}$ collisions at Tevatron with $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV, collected with the CDF II detector. The measurement is performed by constructing templates of three kinematic variables in the lepton+jets and two kinematic variables in the dilepton channel. The variables are two reconstructed top quark masses from different jets-to-quarks combinations and the invariant mass of two jets from the $W$ decay in the lepton+jets channel, and a reconstructed top quark mass and $m_{T2}$, a variable related to the transverse mass in events with two missing particles, in the dilepton channel. The simultaneous fit of the templates from signal and background events in the lepton+jets and dilepton channels to the data yields a measured top quark mass of $M_{top} = 172.1 \pm 1.1(stat) \pm 0.9(syst).$Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.

Inclusive Search for Anomalous Production of High-pT Like-Sign Lepton Pairs in Proton-Antiproton Collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV

We report on a search for anomalous production of events with at least two charged, isolated, like-sign leptons with pT > 11 GeV/c using a 107 pb^-1 sample of 1.8 TeV ppbar collisions collected by the CDF detector. We define a signal region containing low background from Standard Model processes. To avoid bias, we fix the final cuts before examining the event yield in the signal region using control regions to test the Monte Carlo predictions. We observe no events in the signal region, consistent with an expectation of 0.63^(+0.84)_(-0.07) events. We present 95% confidence level limits on new physics processes in both a signature-based context as well as within a representative minimal supergravity (tanbeta = 3) model.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures. Minor textual changes, cosmetic improvements to figures and updated and expanded reference

Measurement of WγW\gamma and ZγZ\gamma Production in ppˉp\bar{p} Collisions at s\sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV

The Standard Model predictions for $W\gamma$ and $Z\gamma$ production are tested using an integrated luminosity of 200 pb$^{-1}$ of \ppbar collision data collected at the Collider Detector at Fermilab. The cross sections are measured selecting leptonic decays of the $W$ and $Z$ bosons, and photons with transverse energy $E_T>7$ GeV that are well separated from leptons. The production cross sections and kinematic distributions for the $W\gamma$ and $Z\gamma$ are compared to SM predictions.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR