Electroweak corrections to γZ\gamma Z production at hadron colliders

In this paper we present the results from a calculation of the full electroweak one-loop corrections for $\gamma Z$ vector-boson pair production at hadron colliders. The cases of proton--antiproton as well as proton--proton collisions, at the Tevatron and the LHC, respectively, are considered. Results are presented for the distribution of the $\gamma Z$ invariant mass and for the transverse momentum of the final-state photon. The higher-order electroweak effects are numerically significant, in particular for probing possible anomalous gauge-boson couplings

The Road Towards the ILC: Higgs, Top/QCD, Loops

The International Linear e+e- Collider (ILC) could go into operation in the second half of the upcoming decade. Experimental analyses and theory calculations for the physics at the ILC are currently performed. We review recent progress, as presented at the LCWS06 in Bangalore, India, in the fields of Higgs boson physics and top/QCD. Also the area of loop calculations, necessary to achieve the required theory precision, is included.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Plenary talk given at the LCWS06 March 2006, Bangalore, India. Top part slightly enlarged, references adde

Emotions in context: examining pervasive affective sensing systems, applications, and analyses

Pervasive sensing has opened up new opportunities for measuring our feelings and understanding our behavior by monitoring our affective states while mobile. This review paper surveys pervasive affect sensing by examining and considering three major elements of affective pervasive systems, namely; “sensing”, “analysis”, and “application”. Sensing investigates the different sensing modalities that are used in existing real-time affective applications, Analysis explores different approaches to emotion recognition and visualization based on different types of collected data, and Application investigates different leading areas of affective applications. For each of the three aspects, the paper includes an extensive survey of the literature and finally outlines some of challenges and future research opportunities of affective sensing in the context of pervasive computing

Hard exclusive photoproduction of Φ\Phi mesons

We calculate the differential cross section and single-polarization observables for the reaction $\gamma p \to \Phi p$ within perturbative QCD, treating the proton as a quark-diquark system. The phenomenological couplings of gauge bosons to (spatially extended) diquarks and the quark-diquark distribution amplitude of the proton are adopted from previous investigations of baryon form factors and two-photon processes. Going beyond leading order, we take into account hadron-mass effects by means of a systematic expansion in the small parameter (hadron mass/ photon energy). With the $\Phi$-meson distribution amplitude taken from the literature our predictions for the differential cross section at | t | \agt 4 \text{GeV}^2 seem to provide a reasonable extrapolation of the low-t data and are also comparable in magnitude with the results of a two-gluon exchange model in which the gluons are considered as a remnant of the pomeron. For momentum transfers of a few GeV hadron-mass effects appear still to be sizeable.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures, uses RevTeX styl

MSSM Higgs bosons associated with high-pT jets at hadron colliders

The cross section for the production of the lightest neutral Higgs boson in association with a high-pT hadronic jet, calculated in the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM), is presented. The expectations for the hadronic cross section at the Large Hadron Collider are discussed using reasonable kinematical cuts. In particular the contributions from superpartner loops to the cross section and their dependence on the parameters of the MSSM are investigated and found to be significant. Comparisons show that the production rate for h0 + jet in the MSSM can differ widely from the corresponding standard-model prediction.Comment: 20 page

Electroweak corrections to Higgs-strahlung off W/Z bosons at the Tevatron and the LHC with HAWK

The associate production of Higgs bosons with W or Z bosons, known as Higgs-strahlung, is an important search channel for Higgs bosons at the hadron colliders Tevatron and LHC for low Higgs-boson masses. We refine a previous calculation of next-to-leading-order electroweak corrections (and recalculate the QCD corrections) upon including the leptonic decay of the W/Z bosons, thereby keeping the fully differential information of the 2-lepton + Higgs final state. The gauge invariance of the W/Z-resonance treatment is ensured by the use of the complex-mass scheme. The electroweak corrections, which are at the level of -(5-10)% for total cross sections, further increase in size with increasing transverse momenta p_T in differential cross sections. For instance, for p_T,H >~ 200GeV, which is the interesting range at the LHC, the electroweak corrections to WH production reach about -14% for M_H = 120GeV. The described corrections are implemented in the HAWK Monte Carlo program, which was initially designed for the vector-boson-fusion channel, and are discussed for various distributions in the production channels pp / p \bar p -> H + l nu_l / l^-l^+ / nu_l \bar nu_l + X.Comment: 22 p

W^+- H^-+ Associated Production at the Large Hadron Collider

We study the production of a charged Higgs boson in association with a W boson at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in the context of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. This production mechanism is particularly promising if the charged Higgs boson is too heavy to be generated by top-quark decay. We compare the contributions due to b b-bar annihilation at the tree level and gg fusion, which proceeds at one loop. Apart from the total cross section, we also consider distributions in transverse momentum and rapidity. We also assess the viability of W^+- H^-+ associated production at the Fermilab Tevatron after the installation of the Main Injector and the Recycler.Comment: 16 pages (Latex), 8 figures (Postscript

A simple way to generate high order vacuum graphs

We describe an efficient practical procedure for enumerating and regrouping vacuum Feynman graphs of a given order in perturbation theory. The method is based on a combination of Schwinger-Dyson equations and the two-particle-irreducible ("skeleton") expansion. The regrouping leads to skeletons containing only free propagators, together with "ring diagrams" containing all the self-energy insertions. As a consequence, relatively few diagrams need to be drawn and integrations carried out at any single stage of the computation and, in low dimensions, overlapping ultraviolet/infrared subdivergences can be cleanly isolated. As an illustration we enumerate the graphs contributing to the 4-loop free energy in QCD, explicitly in a continuum and more compactly in a lattice regularization.Comment: 19 pages. Reference added. To appear in Phys.Rev.

Complete one--loop corrections to e+e- -> sf_i sf_j

We have calculated the complete one-loop corrections to the sfermion pair production process e+e- -> sf_i sf_j (f = t, b, tau, tau-neutrino) in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Our results also include the previously calculated SUSY-QCD corrections. We present the details of the renormalization scheme used. It is found that the weak corrections are of the same magnitude as the SUSY-QCD corrections at higher energies (sqrt(s) ~ 1TeV). At these energies the main part of the weak corrections stems from the box contribution. This is best seen in sneutrino production.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, shortened version for publicatio

Gauge-Independent W-Boson Partial Decay Widths

We calculate the partial decay widths of the W boson at one loop in the standard model using the on-shell renormalization scheme endowed with a gauge-independent definition of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) mixing matrix. We work in $R_\xi$ gauge and explicitly verify that the final expressions are independent of the gauge parameters. Furthermore, we establish the relationship between the on-shell and $\bar{\mathrm{MS}}$ definitions of the CKM matrix, both in its generic form and in the Wolfenstein parameterization. As a by-product of our analysis, we recover the beta function of the CKM matrix.Comment: 15 pages; reference added; input parameters updated according to 2000 PDG report; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.