The new Magnetic Measurement System at the Advanced Photon Source

A new system for precise measurements of the field integrals and multipole components of the APS magnetic insertion devices is described. A stretched coil is used to measure magnetic field characteristics. The hardware includes a number of servomotors to move (translate or rotate) the coil and a fast data acquisition board to measure the coil signal. A PC under Linux is used as a control workstation. The user interface is written as a Tcl/tk script. The hardware is accessed from the script through a shared C-library. A description of the hardware system and the control program is given.Comment: 3 pages, 5 figures, paper 3271 submitted to ICALEPCS 2001 Conferenc

Hadron Production via e+e- Collisions with Initial State Radiation

A novel method of studying e+e- annihilation into hadrons using initial state radiation at e+e- colliders is described. After brief history of the method, its theoretical foundations are considered. Numerous experiments in which exclusive cross sections of e+e- annihilation into hadrons below the center-of-mass energy of 5 GeV have been measured are presented. Some applications of the results obtained to fundamental tests of the Standard Model are listed.Comment: 50 pages, 88 figures, accepted for publication in Rev. Mod. Phy

A constraint on antigravity of antimatter from precision spectroscopy of simple atoms

Consideration of antigravity for antiparticles is an attractive target for various experimental projects. There are a number of theoretical arguments against it but it is not quite clear what kind of experimental data and theoretical suggestions are involved. In this paper we present straightforward arguments against a possibility of antigravity based on a few simple theoretical suggestions and some experimental data. The data are: astrophysical data on rotation of the Solar System in respect to the center of our galaxy and precision spectroscopy data on hydrogen and positronium. The theoretical suggestions for the case of absence of the gravitational field are: equality of electron and positron mass and equality of proton and positron charge. We also assume that QED is correct at the level of accuracy where it is clearly confirmed experimentally

Rho-Omega Mixing and the Pion Form Factor in the Time-like Region

We determine the magnitude, phase, and $s$-dependence of $\rho$-$\omega$ ``mixing'' in the pion form factor in the time-like region through fits to e^+e^- \ra \pi^+ \pi^- data. The associated systematic errors in these quantities, arising from the functional form used to fit the $\rho$ resonance, are small. The systematic errors in the $\rho$ mass and width, however, are larger than previously estimated.Comment: 20 pages, REVTeX, epsfig, 2 ps figures, minor change

Formalism for dilepton production via virtual photon bremsstrahlung in hadronic reactions

We derive a set of new formulas for various distributions in dilepton production via virtual photon bremsstrahlung from pseudoscalar mesons and unpolarized spin-one-half fermions. These formulas correspond to the leading and sub-leading terms in the Low-Burnett-Kroll expansion for real photon bremsstrahlung. The relation of our leading-term formulas to previous works is also shown. Existing formulas are examined in the light of Lorentz covariance and gauge invariance. Numerical comparison is made in a simple example, where an "exact" formula and real photon data exist. The results reveal large discrepancies among different bremsstrahlung formulas. Of all the leading-term bremsstrahlung formulas, the one derived in this work agrees best with the exact formula. The issues of M_T-scaling and event generators are also addressed.Comment: 37 pages, RevTeX, epsf.sty, 10 embedded figure

Pion and Kaon Vector Form Factors

We develop a unitarity approach to consider the final state interaction corrections to the tree level graphs calculated from Chiral Perturbation Theory ($\chi PT$) allowing the inclusion of explicit resonance fields. The method is discussed considering the coupled channel pion and kaon vector form factors. These form factors are then matched with the one loop $\chi PT$ results. A very good description of experimental data is accomplished for the vector form factors and for the $\pi\pi$ P-wave phase shifts up to $\sqrt{s}\lesssim 1.2$ GeV, beyond which multiparticle states play a non negligible role. In particular the low and resonance energy regions are discussed in detail and for the former a comparison with one and two loop $\chi PT$ is made showing a remarkable coincidence with the two loop $\chi PT$ results.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figs, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Study of the process e+e−→π+π−e^+e^- \to \pi^+\pi^- in the energy region 400<\sqrt[]{s}<1000 MeV

The cross section of the process e^+e^-\to \pi^+\pi^- was measured in the SND experiment at the VEPP-2M collider in the energy region 400<\sqrt[]{s}<1000 MeV. This measurement was based on about 12.4 \times 10^6 selected collinear events, which include 7.4\times 10^6 e^+e^-\to e^+e^-, 4.5\times 10^6 e^+e^-\to\pi^+\pi^- and 0.5\times 10^6 e^+e^-\to\mu^+\mu^- selected events. The systematic uncertainty of the cross section determination is 1.3 %. The \rho-meson parameters were determined: m_\rho=774.9\pm 0.4\pm 0.5 MeV, \Gamma_\rho=146.5\pm 0.8\pm 1.5 MeV, \sigma(\rho\to\pi^+\pi^-)=1220\pm 7\pm 16 nb as well as the parameters of the G-parity suppressed decay \omega\to\pi^+\pi^-: \sigma(\omega\to\pi^+\pi^-)=29.9\pm 1.4\pm 1.0 nb and \phi_{\rho\omega} = 113.5\pm 1.3\pm 1.7 degree.Comment: 30 pages REVTEX and 31 figure

The Physics of Hadronic Tau Decays

Hadronic tau decays represent a clean laboratory for the precise study of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Observables (sum rules) based on the spectral functions of hadronic tau decays can be related to QCD quark-level calculations to determine fundamental quantities like the strong coupling constant, parameters of the chiral Lagrangian, |V_us|, the mass of the strange quark, and to simultaneously test the concept of quark-hadron duality. Using the best available measurements and a revisited analysis of the theoretical framework, the value alpha_s(m_tau) = 0.345 +- 0.004[exp] +- 0.009[theo] is obtained. Taken together with the determination of alpha_s(m_Z) from the global electroweak fit, this result leads to the most accurate test of asymptotic freedom: the value of the logarithmic slope of 1/alpha_s(s) is found to agree with QCD at a precision of 4%. In another approach, the tau spectral functions can be used to determine hadronic quantities that, due to the nonperturbative nature of long-distance QCD, cannot be computed from first principles. An example for this is the contribution from hadronic vacuum polarization to loop-dominated processes like the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. This article reviews the measurements of nonstrange and strange tau spectral functions and their phenomenological applications.Comment: 89 pages, 32 figures; final version accepted for publication by Reviews of Modern Physic