Physics at the LHC Run-2 and Beyond

These lecture notes discuss methods, recent results and future prospects in proton-proton physics at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: Lecture notes from the 2016 European School of High-Energy Physics, 15-28 June 2016, Skeikampen, Norway (61 pages, 56 figures

Hadronic B Decays to Charmless Final States and to J/psi K*

Preliminary results from the BABAR experiment on charmless B decays to charged pions or kaons, and the measurement of the B -> J/psi K* decay amplitudes are presented. The data sample, collected at the asymmetric-energy B-factory PEP-II at SLAC, comprises a total number of 22.7 million Y(4S) decays, corresponding to an integrated on-resonance luminosity of approximately 21 fb-1. We measure the following CP-averaged branching fractions: BR(B -> pi+pi-) = (4.1 +- 1.0(stat) +- 0.7(sys))xE-6 BR(B -> K+pi-) = (16.7 +- 1.6(stat) +1.2-1.7(sys))xE-6 and an upper limit of BR(B -> K+K-) < 2.5xE-6, at 90% confidence limit. The measurement of the J/psi K* decay amplitudes results in R_\perp = 0.160 +- 0.032(stat) +- 0.036(sys), and reveals a dominant longitudinal component. The phase of the longitudinal amplitude shows evidence for non-vanishing final state interaction.Comment: 13 pages, 8 postscript figures, submitted to Proceedings for BCP

Evaluation of \alpha (M^2_Z) and (g-2)_\mu

This talk summarizes the recent development in the evaluation of the leading order hadronic contributions to the running of the QED fine structure constant \alpha(s), at $s=M_{\rm Z}^2$, and to the anomalous magnetic moments of the muon $(g-2)_\mu$. The accuracy of the theoretical prediction of these observables is limited by the uncertainties on the hadronic contributions. Significant improvement has been achieved in a series of new analyses which is presented historically in three steps: (I), use of $\tau$ spectral functions in addition to e^+e^- cross sections, (II), extended use of perturbative QCD and (III), application of QCD sum rule techniques. The most precise values obtained are: $\Delta\alpha_{had} (M_2^Z) =(276.3\pm1.6)\times10^{-4}$, yielding $\alpha^{-1}(M_{\rm Z}^2)=128.933\pm0.021$, and $a_\mu^{\rm had}=(692.4\pm6.2)\times 10^{-10}$ with which one finds for the complete Standard Model prediction $a_\mu^{\rm SM}=(11 659 159.6\pm6.7)\times10^{-10}$. For the electron $(g-2)_e$, the hadronic contribution is $a_e^{\rm had}=(187.5\pm1.8)\times 10^{-14}$.Comment: 9 pages, Talk given at the ICHEP'98 Conference, Vancouver, Canada, July 23-29, 199

Moriond Electroweak and Unified Theories 2016 - Experimental Summary

Summary of the experimental results presented at the 51st edition of the Moriond Electroweak and Unified Theories conference held in March 2016 at La Thuile, Italy.Comment: Proceedings of Moriond EW & UT 2016 (42 pages, 43 figures

FUNDING THE RESEARCH FOR THE EXPANDING ROLE OF THE FOOD DISTRIBUTION INDUSTRY

The keynoter discusses the funding process for government sponsored food distribution research and points out favorable and unfavorable factors affecting the future of research in this area. Recommendations to strengthen future efforts are also made.Marketing,

Estimating Spectroscopic Redshifts by Using k Nearest Neighbors Regression I. Description of Method and Analysis

Context: In astronomy, new approaches to process and analyze the exponentially increasing amount of data are inevitable. While classical approaches (e.g. template fitting) are fine for objects of well-known classes, alternative techniques have to be developed to determine those that do not fit. Therefore a classification scheme should be based on individual properties instead of fitting to a global model and therefore loose valuable information. An important issue when dealing with large data sets is the outlier detection which at the moment is often treated problem-orientated. Aims: In this paper we present a method to statistically estimate the redshift z based on a similarity approach. This allows us to determine redshifts in spectra in emission as well as in absorption without using any predefined model. Additionally we show how an estimate of the redshift based on single features is possible. As a consequence we are e.g. able to filter objects which show multiple redshift components. We propose to apply this general method to all similar problems in order to identify objects where traditional approaches fail. Methods: The redshift estimation is performed by comparing predefined regions in the spectra and applying a k nearest neighbor regression model for every predefined emission and absorption region, individually. Results: We estimated a redshift for more than 50% of the analyzed 16,000 spectra of our reference and test sample. The redshift estimate yields a precision for every individually tested feature that is comparable with the overall precision of the redshifts of SDSS. In 14 spectra we find a significant shift between emission and absorption or emission and emission lines. The results show already the immense power of this simple machine learning approach for investigating huge databases such as the SDSS.Comment: accepted for publication in A&

Interpreting CP Asymmetries in B->pi+ pi- Decays

We discuss methods used to interpret the measurements of CP-asymmetry in B->pi+pi- within the framework of the Standard Model. Interpretations using various theoretical inputs are given, ranging from the rather general, yet unpredictive, properties based on strong isospin symmetry to highly predictive calculations using QCD Factorization. The calculations are performed using the software package CKMFitter and a frequentist method, Rfit.Comment: Invited talk at the Workshop on the CKM Unitarity Triangle, IPPP Durham, April 2003 (eConf C0304052). 4 pages LaTeX, 4 eps figure