A Note on W Production at HERA

We discuss W boson production at HERA including NLO QCD corrections.Comment: 2 pages, latex, 2 figures, Contribution to the 3rd UK Phenomenology Workshop on HERA Physics, Durham, 20-25 Sep. 199

THE VOLUME OPERATOR IN DISCRETIZED QUANTUM GRAVITY

We investigate the spectral properties of the volume operator in quantum gravity in the framework of a previously introduced lattice discretization. The presence of a well-defined scalar product in this approach permits us to make definite statements about the hermiticity of quantum operators. We find that the spectrum of the volume operator is discrete, but that the nature of its eigenstates differs from that found in an earlier continuum treatment.Comment: 15 pages, TeX, 3 figures (postscript, compressed and uu-encoded), May 9

Exploration of Emerging HPCN Technologies for Web-Based Distributed Computing

The surge in the popularity of the World Wide Web (WWW) has corresponded to a decreasing market for specialised high performance computers. This paper discusses how, by making use of technology developed from the broader end of the computing pyramid, much of the past decade\u27s work in distributed computing can be realised in the context of the larger WWW market. Not only do these new technologies offer fresh possibilities, but their pace of development is unlikely to be matched by the traditional high performance research community. A motivating application, discussions of the pertinent emerging technologies, and NPAC\u27s investigations of them, will be presented

On the value of αs\alpha_s from the analysis of the SLAC/BCDMS deep inelastic scattering data

We performed NLO QCD analysis of the nonsinglet part of the combined SLAC/BCDMS data on $F_2$ with the extraction of $\alpha_s$ and high twist contribution. It was shown that the value of $\alpha_s$ obtained in the analysis is sensitive to the statistical inference procedures dealing with systematic errors on the data. The fit with the complete account of point-to-point correlations of the data gave the value of $\alpha_s(M_Z)=0.1180\pm0.0017 (68$, to be compared with the previously reported value of $\alpha_s(M_Z)=0.113\pm0.003 (99$. This new value of $\alpha_s$ is compatible with the LEP measurements and the world average. The high twist contribution being strongly anti-correlated with the value of $\alpha_s$ became lower than it was previously reported.Comment: 9 pages, LATEX, 2 figures (PS), report-no added, English improved, misprints corrected, minor changes of the tex

NNLO Logarithmic Expansions and Precise Determinations of the Neutral Currents near the Z Resonance at the LHC: The Drell-Yan case

We present a comparative study of the invariant mass and rapidity distributions in Drell-Yan lepton pair production, with particular emphasis on the role played by the QCD evolution. We focus our study around the Z resonance ($50 <Q < 200$ GeV) and perform a general analysis of the factorization/renormalization scale dependence of the cross sections, with the two scales included both in the evolution and in the hard scatterings. We also present the variations of the cross sections due to the errors on the parton distributions (pdf's) and an analysis of the corresponding $K$-factors. Predictions from several sets of pdf's, evolved by MRST and Alekhin are compared with those generated using \textsc{Candia}, a NNLO evolution program that implements the theory of the logarithmic expansions, developed in a previous work. These expansions allow to select truncated solutions of varying accuracy using the method of the $x$-space iterates. The evolved parton distributions are in good agreement with other approaches. The study can be generalized for high precision searches of extra neutral gauge interactions at the LHC.Comment: 75 pages,30 figures, 30 table

Canonical Quantisation in n.A=0 gauges

We give a unified derivation of the propagator in the gauges $n.A=0$ for $n^2$ timelike, spacelike or lightlike. We discuss the physical states and other physical questions.Comment: 7 pages, DAMTP 93-33, ITP-SB-93-3

Pion and Kaon Production in e+e−e^+e^- and epep Collisions at Next-to-Leading Order

We present new sets of fragmentation functions for charged pions and kaons, both at leading and next-to-leading order. They are fitted to data on inclusive charged-hadron production in $e^+e^-$ annihilation taken by TPC at PEP ($\sqrt s=29$~GeV) and to similar data by ALEPH at LEP, who discriminated between events with charm, bottom, and light- flavour fragmentation in their charged-hadron sample. We treat all partons independently and to properly incorporate the charm and bottom thresholds. Due to the sizeable energy gap between PEP and LEP, we are sensitive to the scaling violation in the fragmentation process, which allows us to extract a value for the asymptotic scale parameter of QCD, $\Lambda$. Recent data on inclusive charged-hadron production in tagged three-jet events by OPAL and similar data for longitudinal electron polarization by ALEPH allow us to pin down the gluon fragmentation functions. Our new fragmentation functions lead to an excellent description of a multitude of other $e^+e^-$ data on inclusive charged-hadron production, ranging from $\sqrt s=5.2$~GeV to LEP energy. In addition, they agree nicely with the transverse-momentum spectra of single charged hadrons measured by H1 and ZEUS in photoproduction at the $ep$ collider HERA, which represents a nontrivial check of the factorization theorem of the QCD-improved parton model.Comment: 22 pages, latex, 13 compressed ps figures in separate fil

Analytic Estimates of the QCD Corrections to Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering

We study the QCD corrections to neutrino deep-inelastic scattering on a nucleus, and analytically estimate their size. For an isoscalar target, we show that the dominant QCD corrections to the ratio of the neutral- to charged-current events are suppressed by sin^4 theta_W, where theta_W is the weak mixing angle. We then discuss the implications for the NuTeV determination of sin^2 theta_W.Comment: 16 pages, Late

Soft-Gluon Resummation for Bottom Fragmentation in Top Quark Decay

We study soft-gluon radiation in top quark decay within the framework of perturbative fragmentation functions. We present results for the b-quark energy distribution, accounting for soft-gluon resummation in both the MSbar coefficient function and in the initial condition of the perturbative fragmentation function. The results show remarkable improvement and the b-quark energy spectrum in top quark decay exhibits very little dependence on factorization and renormalization scales. We present some hadron-level results in both x_B and moment space by including non-perturbative information determined from e+e- data.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, JHEP style. Few changes after referee report, one reference added, numerical results unchange

O(\alpha^2 \ln(m_\mu/m_e)) Corrections to Electron Energy Spectrum in Muon Decay

O(\alpha^2 \ln(m_\mu/m_e)) corrections to electron energy spectrum in muon decay are computed using perturbative fragmentation function approach. The magnitude of these corrections is comparable to anticipated precision of the TWIST experiment at TRIUMF where Michel parameters will be extracted from the measurement of the electron energy spectrum in muon decay.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, revtex4.cls, 1 PostScript figur