Highlights of the SLD Physics Program at the SLAC Linear Collider

Starting in 1989, and continuing through the 1990s, high-energy physics witnessed a flowering of precision measurements in general and tests of the standard model in particular, led by e+e- collider experiments operating at the Z0 resonance. Key contributions to this work came from the SLD collaboration at the SLAC Linear Collider. By exploiting the unique capabilities of this pioneering accelerator and the SLD detector, including a polarized electron beam, exceptionally small beam dimensions, and a CCD pixel vertex detector, SLD produced a broad array of electroweak, heavy-flavor, and QCD measurements. Many of these results are one of a kind or represent the world's standard in precision. This article reviews the highlights of the SLD physics program, with an eye toward associated advances in experimental technique, and the contribution of these measurements to our dramatically improved present understanding of the standard model and its possible extensions.Comment: To appear in 2001 Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science; 78 pages, 31 figures; A version with higher resolution figures can be seen at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/8000/slac-pub-8985.html; Second version incorporates minor changes to the tex

B Physics at the Z0 Resonance

B physics results from e+ e- annihilation at the Z0 resonance are reviewed. A vast program is summarised, including the study of B+, B0d, B0s and b baryon lifetimes, the time dependence of B0d and B0s oscillations, the width difference in the B0s system, and the measurements of the magnitudes of the CKM matrix elements Vcb and Vub.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, presented at the UK Phenomenology Workshop on Heavy Flavour and CP Violation, 17-22 September 200

Charged rho meson production in neutrino-induced reactions at E_nu = 10 GeV

The neutrinoproduction of charged $\rho$ mesons on nuclei and nucleons is investigated for the first time at moderate energies ($\approx$ 10 GeV), using the date obtained with SKAT bubble chamber. No strong nuclear effects are observed in $\rho^+$ and $\rho^-$ production. The fractions of charged and neutral pions originating from $\rho$ decays are obtained and compared with higher energy data. From analysis of the obtained and available data on $\rho^+$ and $K^{*+}$(892) neutrinoproduction, the strangeness suppression factor in the quark string fragmentation is extracted: $\lambda_s = 0.18\pm0.03$. Estimations are obtained for cross sections of quasiexclusive single $\rho^+$ and coherent $\rho^+$ neutrinoproduction on nuclei. The estimated coherent cross section $\sigma_{\rho^+}^{coh}$ = (0.29$\pm0.16)\cdot 10^{-38}$ cm$^2$ is compatible with theoretical predictions.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

The Discovery Potential of a Super B Factory

The Proceedings of the 2003 SLAC Workshops on flavor physics with a high luminosity asymmetric e+e- collider. The sensitivity of flavor physics to physics beyond the Standard Model is addressed in detail, in the context of the improvement of experimental measurements and theoretical calculations.Comment: 476 pages. Printed copies may be obtained by request to [email protected] . arXiv admin note: v2 appears to be identical to v

B→η(η′)K(π)B \to \eta(\eta') K(\pi) in the Standard Model with Flavor Symmetry

The observed branching ratios for $B\to K \eta'$ decays are much larger than factorization predictions in the Standard Model (SM). Many proposals have been made to reconcile the data and theoretical predictions. In this paper we study these decays within the SM using flavor U(3) symmetry. If small annihilation amplitudes are neglected, one needs 11 hadronic parameters to describe $B\to PP$ decays where $P$ can be one of the $\pi$, $K$, $\eta$ and $\eta'$ nonet mesons. We find that existing data are consistent with SM with flavor U(3) symmetry. We also predict several measurable branching ratios and CP asymmetries for $B \to K (\pi) \eta(\eta')$, $\eta(\eta')\eta(\eta')$ decays. Near future experiments can provide important tests for the Standard Model with flavor U(3) symmetry.Comment: 13 pages, 4 table

Implementation of chamber misalignments and deformations in the ATLAS muon spectrometer simulation

"The implementation of run-time dependent corrections for alignment and distortions in the detector description of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer is discussed, along with the strategies for studying such effects in dedicated simulations."http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/64214/1/jpconf8_119_032010.pd

The Apollo ATCA Platform

We have developed a novel and generic open-source platform - Apollo - which simplifies the design of custom Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) blades by factoring the design into generic infrastructure and application-specific parts. The Apollo "Service Module" provides the required ATCA Intelligent Platform Management Controller, power entry and conditioning, a powerful system-on-module (SoM) computer, and flexible clock and communications infrastructure. The Apollo "Command Module" is customized for each application and typically includes two large field-programmable gate arrays, several hundred optical fiber interfaces operating at speeds up to 28 Gbps, memories, and other supporting infrastructure. The command and service module boards can be operated together or independently on the bench without need for an ATCA shelf.Comment: Submitted to the Proceedings for TWEPP 201

The total yields of K^+(892), Sigma^+(1385) and Sigma^0 in neutrino-induced reactions at <E_nu> = 10 GeV

Using the data obtained with SKAT bubble chamber, the total yields of $K^+(892)$, $\Sigma^+(1385)$ and $\Sigma^0$ are estimated for the first time in neutrino-induced reactions at moderate energies ($$ = 10.4 GeV). It is shown, that the recently observed \cite{ref1,ref2} enhancement of the $K^0$ and $\Lambda$ yields in $\nu A$ interactions (as compared to $\nu N$ interactions) is contributed only slightly by the $K^+(892)$ and $\Sigma^+(1385)$ production, respectively. The decay contribution to the $K^0$ and $\Lambda$ yields is found to be in qualitative agreement with higher energy ($\geq$ 40 GeV) data. It is shown, that the energy dependence of the $K^+(892)$ mean multiplicity in $\nu N$ interactions is approximately linear in the range of $\approx$ 10-60 GeV, while that for $\Sigma^0$ in $\nu A$ interactions (for $A$ = 20-21) is approximately logarithmic in the range of $\approx$ 10-150 GeV.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Measurement of the branching ratios of the Z0 into heavy quarks

We measure the hadronic branching ratios of the Z0 boson into heavy quarks: Rb=Gamma(Z0->bb)/Gamma(Z0->hadrons) and Rc=Gamma(Z0->cc/Gamma(Z0->hadrons) using a multi-tag technique. The measurement was performed using about 400,000 hadronic Z0 events recorded in the SLD experiment at SLAC between 1996 and 1998. The small and stable SLC beam spot and the CCD-based vertex detector were used to reconstruct bottom and charm hadron decay vertices with high efficiency and purity, which enables us to measure most efficiencies from data. We obtain, Rb=0.21604 +- 0.00098(stat.) +- 0.00073(syst.) -+ 0.00012(Rc) and, Rc= 0.1744 +- 0.0031(stat.) +- 0.0020(syst.) -+ 0.0006(Rb)Comment: 37 pages, 8 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev. D version 2: changed title to ratios, used common D production fractions for Rb and Rc and corrected Zgamma interference. Identical to PRD submissio

A Search for Jet Handedness in Hadronic Z0Z^0 Decays

We have searched for signatures of polarization in hadronic jets from $Z^0 \to q \bar{q}$ decays using the ``jet handedness'' method. The polar angle asymmetry induced by the high SLC electron-beam polarization was used to separate quark jets from antiquark jets, expected to be left- and right-polarized, respectively. We find no evidence for jet handedness in our global sample or in a sample of light quark jets and we set upper limits at the 95% C.L. of 0.063 and 0.099 respectively on the magnitude of the analyzing power of the method proposed by Efremov {\it et al.}Comment: Revtex, 8 pages, 2 figure