Cross Section Measurements of Hard Diffraction at the SPS-Collider

The UA8 experiment previously reported the observation of jets in diffractive events containing leading protons (``hard diffraction''), which was interpreted as evidence for the partonic structure of an exchanged Reggeon, believed to be the Pomeron . In the present Letter, we report the final UA8 hard-diffractive (jet) cross section results and their interpretation. After corrections, the fraction of single diffractive events with mass from 118 to 189 GeV that have two scattered partons, each with Et_jet > 8 GeV, is in the range 0.002 to 0.003 (depending on x_p). We determine the product, fK, of the fraction by which the Pomeron's momentum sum rule is violated and the normalization constant of the Pomeron-Flux-Factor of the proton. For a pure gluonic- or a pure qqbar-Pomeron , respectively: fK = 0.30 +- 0.05 +- 0.09) and (0.56 +- 0.09 +- 0.17) GeV^-2.Comment: 20 pages, 5 Encapsulated Postscript figures, LaTex, Final Version, Physics Letters B (in Pess 1998

A Study of Inclusive Double-Pomeron-Exchange in p pbar -> p X pbar at root s = 630 GeV

We report measurements of the inclusive reaction, p pbar -> p X pbar, in events where either or both the beam-like final-state baryons were detected in Roman-pot spectrometers and the central system was detected in the UA2 calorimeter. A Double-Pomeron-Exchange (DPE) analysis of these data and single diffractive data from the same experiment demonstrates that, for central masses of a few GeV, the extracted Pomeron-Pomeron total cross section exhibits an enhancement which exceeds factorization expectations by an order-of-magnitude. This may be a signature for glueball production. The enhancement is shown to be independent of uncertainties connected with possible non-universality of the Pomeron flux factor. Based on our analysis, we present DPE cross section predictions, for unit (1 mb) Pomeron-Pomeron total cross section, at the Tevatron, LHC and the 920 GeV fixed-target experiment, HERA-B.Comment: 52 pages, 27 Encapsulated Postscript figures, 3 Tables, LaTex, Revised version as it will appear in European Physics Journal

Methods for Reducing False Alarms in Searches for Compact Binary Coalescences in LIGO Data

The LIGO detectors are sensitive to a variety of noise transients of non-astrophysical origin. Instrumental glitches and environmental disturbances increase the false alarm rate in the searches for gravitational waves. Using times already identified when the interferometers produced data of questionable quality, or when the channels that monitor the interferometer indicated non-stationarity, we have developed techniques to safely and effectively veto false triggers from the compact binary coalescences (CBCs) search pipeline

First search for gravitational waves from the youngest known neutron star

We present a search for periodic gravitational waves from the neutron star in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. The search coherently analyzes data in a 12 day interval taken from the fifth science run of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. It searches gravitational-wave frequencies from 100 to 300 Hz and covers a wide range of first and second frequency derivatives appropriate for the age of the remnant and for different spin-down mechanisms. No gravitational-wave signal was detected. Within the range of search frequencies, we set 95% confidence upper limits of (0.7–1.2) × 10^(−24) on the intrinsic gravitational-wave strain, (0.4–4) × 10^(−4) on the equatorial ellipticity of the neutron star, and 0.005–0.14 on the amplitude of r-mode oscillations of the neutron star. These direct upper limits beat indirect limits derived from energy conservation and enter the range of theoretical predictions involving crystalline exotic matter or runaway r-modes. This paper is also the first gravitational-wave search to present upper limits on the r-mode amplitude

Search for Gravitational-wave Inspiral Signals Associated with Short Gamma-ray Bursts During LIGO's Fifth and Virgo's First Science Run

Progenitor scenarios for short gamma-ray bursts (short GRBs) include coalescenses of two neutron stars or a neutron star and black hole, which would necessarily be accompanied by the emission of strong gravitational waves. We present a search for these known gravitational-wave signatures in temporal and directional coincidence with 22 GRBs that had sufficient gravitational-wave data available in multiple instruments during LIGO's fifth science run, S5, and Virgo's first science run, VSR1. We find no statistically significant gravitational-wave candidates within a [ – 5, + 1) s window around the trigger time of any GRB. Using the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U-test, we find no evidence for an excess of weak gravitational-wave signals in our sample of GRBs. We exclude neutron star-black hole progenitors to a median 90% confidence exclusion distance of 6.7 Mpc