Top Quark Production Cross Section at the Tevatron

An overview of the preliminary results of the top quark pair production cross section measurements at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV carried out by the CDF and D0 collaborations is presented. The data samples used for the analyses are collected in the current Tevatron run and correspond to an integrated luminosity from 360 pb-1 up to 760 pb-1.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Proceedings of 41th Rencontres De Moriond: QCD And Hadronic Interactions, 18-25 Mar 2006, La Thuile, Ital

Top Quark Mass Measurements at CDF

The mass of the top quark M_top is interesting both as a fundamental parameter of the standard model and as an important input to precision electroweak tests. The Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) has a robust program of top quark mass analyses, including the most precise single measurement, M_top = 173.4 +/- 2.8 GeV/c^2, using 680 pb^-1 of ppbar collision data. A combination of current results from CDF gives M_top = 172.0 +/- 2.7 GeV/c^2, surpassing the stated goal of 3 GeV/c^2 precision using 2 fb^-1 of data. Finally, a combination with current D0 results gives a world average top quark mass of 172.5 +/- 2.3 GeV/c^2.Comment: 8 pages, Contribution to Proceedings of the 41st Rencontres de Moriond: Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories, La Thuile, Italy, 11-18 March 200

Stacked Weak Lensing Mass Calibration: Estimators, Systematics, and Impact on Cosmological Parameter Constraints

When extracting the weak lensing shear signal, one may employ either locally normalized or globally normalized shear estimators. The former is the standard approach when estimating cluster masses, while the latter is the more common method among peak finding efforts. While both approaches have identical signal-to-noise in the weak lensing limit, it is possible that higher order corrections or systematics considerations make one estimator preferable over the other. In this paper, we consider the efficacy of both estimators within the context of stacked weak lensing mass estimation in the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We find the two estimators have nearly identical statistical precision, even after including higher order corrections, but that these corrections must be incorporated into the analysis to avoid observationally relevant biases in the recovered masses. We also demonstrate that finite bin-width effects may be significant if not properly accounted for, and that the two estimators exhibit different systematics, particularly with respect to contamination of the source catalog by foreground galaxies. Thus, the two estimators may be employed as a systematics cross-check of each other. Stacked weak lensing in the DES should allow for the mean mass of galaxy clusters to be calibrated to about 2% precision (statistical only), which can improve the figure of merit of the DES cluster abundance experiment by a factor of ~3 relative to the self-calibration expectation. A companion paper (Schmidt & Rozo, 2010) investigates how the two types of estimators considered here impact weak lensing peak finding efforts.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures; comments welcom

Improved Limits on Spin-Dependent WIMP-Proton Interactions from a Two Liter CF3_3I Bubble Chamber

Data from the operation of a bubble chamber filled with 3.5 kg of CF$_{3}$I in a shallow underground site are reported. An analysis of ultrasound signals accompanying bubble nucleations confirms that alpha decays generate a significantly louder acoustic emission than single nuclear recoils, leading to an efficient background discrimination. Three dark matter candidate events were observed during an effective exposure of 28.1 kg-day, consistent with a neutron background. This observation provides the strongest direct detection constraint to date on WIMP-proton spin-dependent scattering for WIMP masses $>20$ GeV/c$^{2}$.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures V2 submitted to match journal versio

Constraints on B and Higgs Physics in Minimal Low Energy Supersymmetric Models

We study the implications of minimal flavor violating low energy supersymmetry scenarios for the search of new physics in the B and Higgs sectors at the Tevatron collider and the LHC. We show that the already stringent Tevatron bound on the decay rate B_s -> mu+ mu- sets strong constraints on the possibility of generating large corrections to the mass difference Delta M_s of the B_s eigenstates. We also show that the B_s -> mu+ mu- bound together with the constraint on the branching ratio of the rare decay b -> s gamma has strong implications for the search of light, non-standard Higgs bosons at hadron colliders. In doing this, we demonstrate that the former expressions derived for the analysis of the double penguin contributions in the Kaon sector need to be corrected by additional terms for a realistic analysis of these effects. We also study a specific non-minimal flavor violating scenario, where there are flavor changing gluino-squark-quark interactions, governed by the CKM matrix elements, and show that the B and Higgs physics constraints are similar to the ones in the minimal flavor violating case. Finally we show that, in scenarios like electroweak baryogenesis which have light stops and charginos, there may be enhanced effects on the B and K mixing parameters, without any significant effect on the rate of B_s -> mu+ mu-.Comment: 40 pages, 14 figures; added references and note about recent measurement

Primordial non-Gaussianity and Dark Energy constraints from Cluster Surveys

Galaxy cluster surveys will be a powerful probe of dark energy. At the same time, cluster abundance is sensitive to any non-Gaussianity of the primordial density field. It is therefore possible that non-Gaussian initial conditions might be misinterpreted as a sign of dark energy or at least degrade the expected constraints on dark energy parameters. To address this issue, we perform a likelihood analysis of an ideal cluster survey similar in size and depth to the upcoming South Pole Telescope/Dark Energy Survey (SPT-DES). We analyze a model in which the strength of the non-Gaussianity is parameterized by the constant fNL; this model has been used extensively to derive Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy constraints on non-Gaussianity, allowing us to make contact with those works. We find that the constraining power of the cluster survey on dark energy observables is not significantly diminished by non-Gaussianity provided that cluster redshift information is included in the analysis. We also find that even an ideal cluster survey is unlikely to improve significantly current and future CMB constraints on non-Gaussianity. However, when all systematics are under control, it could constitute a valuable cross check to CMB observations.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Corrected a minor discrepancy between our earlier definition of fNL and CMB constraints. References adde

Non-Gaussianity from Broken Symmetries

Recently we studied inflation models in which the inflaton potential is characterized by an underlying approximate global symmetry. In the first work we pointed out that in such a model curvature perturbations are generated after the end of the slow-roll phase of inflation. In this work we develop further the observational implications of the model and compute the degree of non-Gaussianity predicted in the scenario. We find that the corresponding nonlinearity parameter, $f_{NL}$, can be as large as 10^2.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

A Method for the Precision Mass Measurement of the Stop Quark at the International Linear Collider

Many supersymmetric models predict new particles within the reach of the next generation of colliders. For an understanding of the model structure and the mechanism(s) of symmetry breaking, it is important to know the masses of the new particles precisely. In this article the measurement of the mass of the scalar partner of the top quark (stop) at an e+e- collider is studied. A relatively light stop is motivated by attempts to explain electroweak baryogenesis and can play an important role in dark matter relic density. A method is presented which makes use of cross-section measurements near the pair-production threshold as well as at higher center-of-mass energies. It is shown that this method not only increases the statistical precision, but also greatly reduces the systematic uncertainties, which can be important. Numerical results are presented, based on a realistic event simulation, for two signal selection strategies: using conventional selection cuts, and using an Iterative Discriminant Analysis (IDA). Our studies indicate that a precision of \Delta\mstop = 0.42 GeV can be achieved, representing a major improvement over previous studies. While the analysis of stops is particularly challenging due to the possibility of stop hadronization, the general procedure could be applied to the mass measurement of other particles as well. We also comment on the potential of the IDA to discover a stop quark in this scenario, and we revisit the accuracy of the theoretical predictions for the neutralino relic densityComment: 41 pages, 14 figures, in JHEP forma

Can Cosmic Structure form without Dark Matter?

One of the prime pieces of evidence for dark matter is the observation of large overdense regions in the universe. Since we know from the cosmic microwave background that the regions that contained the most baryons when the universe was ~400,000 years old were overdense by only one part in ten thousand, perturbations had to have grown since then by a factor greater than $(1+z_*)\simeq 1180$ where $z_*$ is the epoch of recombination. This enhanced growth does not happen in general relativity, so dark matter is needed in the standard theory. We show here that enhanced growth can occur in alternatives to general relativity, in particular in Bekenstein's relativistic version of MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). The vector field introduced in that theory for a completely different reason plays a key role in generating the instability that produces large cosmic structures today.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

What Can Gamma Ray Bursts Teach Us About Dark Energy?

It has been suggested that Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) may enable the expansion rate of our Universe to be measured out to very high redshifts (z \gsim 5) just as type Ia supernovae have done at $z \sim$1--1.5. We explore this possibility here, and find that GRB have the potential to detect dark energy at high statistical significance, but they are unlikely to be competitive with future supernovae missions, such as SNAP, in measuring the properties of the dark energy. The exception to this conclusion is if there is appreciable dark energy at early times, in which case the information from GRB's will provide an excellent complement to the $z\sim 1$ information from supernovae.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure