Soft-gluon effects in WW production at hadron colliders

We consider QCD radiative corrections to WW pair production in hadron collisions. We perform a calculation that consistently combines next-to-leading order predictions with soft-gluon resummation valid at small transverse momenta ptWW of the WW pair. We present results for the ptWW distribution at the LHC up to (almost) next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, and study the effect of resummation on the charged-lepton distributions. Soft-gluon effects are typically mild, but they can be strongly enhanced when hard cuts are applied. The relevant distributions are generally well described by the MC@NLO event generator.Comment: 15 pages, 12 postscript figures. Error corrected in NLO plot for WW transverse-mass distribution. Results unchange

Open Heavy Flavor Production in Heavy Ion Collisions

The interaction of heavy partons, charm and beauty, with the matter created in heavy ion collisions has been of great interest in recent years. Heavy partons were predicted to interact less strongly with the matter than light partons. In apparent contrast to these predictions, unexpectedly strong suppression of non-photonic electrons from heavy flavor decays has been seen. However, significant experimental uncertainties remain, both in the measurements themselves and in the separation of the contribution from charm and beauty, which have complicated the interpretation of these results. The current experimental situation is critically reviewed and prospects for making these measurements more easily interpretable discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennessee v2: typos correcte

On the intrinsic charm and the recombination mechanisms in charm hadron production

We study $\Lambda_c^\pm$ production in $pN$ and $\pi^-N$ interactions. Recent experimental data from the SELEX and E791 Collaborations at FNAL provide important information on the production mechanism of charm hadrons. In particular, the production of the $\Lambda_c$ baryon provides a good test of the intrinsic charm and the recombination mechanisms, which have been proposed to explain the so called leading particle effects.Comment: 11 pages, two figures (postscript), late

On the Resummation of the αln⁡2zTermsforQEDCorrectionstoDeep−Inelastic\alpha \ln^2 z Terms for QED Corrections to Deep-Inelastic epScatteringand Scattering and e^+e^-$ Annihilation

The resummation of the $\alpha \ln^2(z)$ non-singlet contributions is performed for initial state QED corrections. As examples, the effect of the resummation on neutral-current deep-inelastic scattering and the $e^+ e^- \rightarrow \mu^+ \mu^-$ scattering cross section near the $Z^0$-peak is investigated.Comment: 11 pages Latex, including 3 eps-figure

Strong Electron-Phonon Coupling in Superconducting MgB2_2: A Specific Heat Study

We report on measurements of the specific heat of the recently discovered superconductor MgB$_2$ in the temperature range between 3 and 220 K. Based on a modified Debye-Einstein model, we have achieved a rather accurate account of the lattice contribution to the specific heat, which allows us to separate the electronic contribution from the total measured specific heat. From our result for the electronic specific heat, we estimate the electron-phonon coupling constant $\lambda$ to be of the order of 2, significantly enhanced compared to common weak-coupling values $\leq 0.4$. Our data also indicate that the electronic specific heat in the superconducting state of MgB$_2$ can be accounted for by a conventional, s-wave type BCS-model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Joint Resummation for Higgs Production

We study the application of the joint resummation formalism to Higgs production via gluon-gluon fusion at the LHC, defining inverse transforms by analytic continuation. We work at next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We find that at low Q_T the resummed Higgs Q_T distributions are comparable in the joint and pure-Q_T formalisms, with relatively small influence from threshold enhancement in this range. We find a modest (about ten percent) decrease in the inclusive cross section, relative to pure threshold resummation.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures as eps file

Heavy Quark Photoproduction in Ultra-peripheral Heavy Ion Collisions

Heavy quarks are copiously produced in ultra-peripheral heavy ion collisions. In the strong electromagnetic fields, c c-bar and b b-bar are produced by photonuclear and two-photon interactions; hadroproduction can occur in grazing interactions. We present the total cross sections, quark transverse momentum and rapidity distributions, as well as the Q Q-bar invariant mass spectra from the three production channels. We consider AA and pA collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and Large Hadron Collider. We discuss techniques for separating the three processes and describe how the AA to pA production ratios might be measured accurately enough to study nuclear shadowing.Comment: Minor changes to satisfy referees and typo fixes; 52 pages including 17 figure

B Production Asymmetries in Perturbative QCD

This paper explores a new mechanism for B production in which a b quark combines with a light parton from the hard-scattering process before hadronizing into the B hadron. This recombination mechanism can be calculated within perturbative QCD up to a few nonperturbative constants. Though suppressed at large transverse momentum by a factor Lambda_QCD m_b/p_t^2 relative to b quark fragmentation production, it can be important at large rapidities. A signature for this heavy-quark recombination mechanism in proton-antiproton colliders is the presence of rapidity asymmetries in B cross sections. Given reasonable assumptions about the size of nonperturbative parameters entering the calculation, we find that the asymmetries are only significant for rapidities larger than those currently probed by collider experiments.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, 4 ps figures, tightenlines, sections added, final version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Charm quark and D^* cross sections in deeply inelastic scattering at DESY HERA

A next-to-leading order Monte Carlo program for the calculation of heavy quark cross sections in deeply inelastic scattering is described. Concentrating on charm quark and D^*(2010) production at HERA, several distributions are presented and their variation with respect to charm quark mass, parton distribution set, and renormalization-factorization scale is studied.Comment: 15 pages including 8 figures. Uses Latex, Revtex, and psfig. References added - others updated. Several sentences/words added for clarity. Results/conclusions unchanged. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Deuteron photodisintegration cross-sections 50-155 MeV

The study of the photodisintegration of the deuteron should be a rewarding area over the next few years both as a result of the increased sophistication of recent theoretical treatments and also because of the potential, which has only just begun to be realised, of much more accurate and reliable photoreaction data