31,423 research outputs found
Isolated leptons from heavy flavor decays: Theory and data
Events with isolated leptons play a prominent role in signatures of new
physics phenomena at high energy collider physics facilities. In earlier
publications, we examine the standard model contribution to isolated lepton
production from bottom and charm mesons and baryons through their semileptonic
decays (b, c -> l + X), showing that this source can overwhelm the effects of
other standard model processes in some kinematic domains. In this paper, we
show that we obtain good agreement with recent Tevatron collider data, both
validating our simulations and showing that we underestimate the magnitude of
the heavy-flavor contribution to the isolated lepton yields. We also show that
the isolation requirement acts as a narrow bandpass filter on the momentum of
the isolated lepton, and we illustrate the effect of this filter on the
background to Higgs boson observation in the dilepton mode. We introduce and
justify a new rule of thumb: isolated electrons and muons from heavy flavor
decay are produced with roughly the same distributions as b and c quarks, but
with 1/200 times the rates of b and c production, respectively.Comment: 12 pg, revtex, 5 fig, corrected typo
Self-contained breathing apparatus
A self-contained breathing apparatus with automatic redundant fluid pressure controls and a facemask mounted low pressure whistle alarm is described. The first stage of the system includes pair of pressure regulators connected in parallel with different outlet pressures, both of which reduce the pressure of the stored supply gas to pressures compatible with the second stage breathing demand regulator. A primary regulator in the first stage delivers a low output pressure to the demand regulator. In the event of a failure closed condition of the primary regulator an automatic transfer valve switches on the backup regulator. A warning that the supply pressure has been depleted is also provided by a supply pressure actuated transfer valve which transfers the output of the first stage pressure regulators from the primary to the backup regulator. The alarm is activated in either the failure closed condition or if the supply pressure is reduced to a dangerously low level
Missing heavy flavor backgrounds to Higgs boson production
We investigate characteristics of the signal and backgrounds for Higgs boson
decay into WW at the Fermilab Tevatron and CERN Large Hadron Collider. In the
the lepton-pair-plus-missing-energy final state, we show that the background
receives an important contribution from semileptonic decays of heavy flavors.
Lepton isolation cuts provide too little suppression of these heavy flavor
contributions, and an additional 4 to 8 orders-of-magnitude suppression must
come from physics cuts. We demonstrate that an increase of the minimum
transverse momentum of nonleading leptons in multilepton events is one
effective way to achieve the needed suppression, without appreciable loss of
the Higgs boson signal. Such a cut would impact the efficiency of searches for
supersymmetry as well. We emphasize the importance of direct measurement of the
lepton background from heavy flavor production.Comment: 23 pgs., 10 figs, revtex4, 1 Ref. added, minor typos corrected, to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Individual Control of Risk: Seat Belt Use, Subjective Norms and the Theory of Reasoned Action
When faced with a risk for which an inexpensive solution is available, individuals often choose the risk rather than the solution. Protection from certain kinds of risks, e.g., using seat belts or condoms or insulating against radon, is largely under personal control, but individuals often choose not to comply with behaviors which would reduce the risk. The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) has been used to predict when individuals will comply. The authors attempted to validate aspects of the TRA by the use of scenarios. Factor analysis of their data supports the theory that intention is a major determinate of behavior but fails to establish the influence of scenarios on subjects\u27 intention to wear seat belts
Supernova cosmology: legacy and future
The discovery of dark energy by the first generation of high-redshift
supernova surveys has generated enormous interest beyond cosmology and has
dramatic implications for fundamental physics. Distance measurements using
supernova explosions are the most direct probes of the expansion history of the
Universe, making them extremely useful tools to study the cosmic fabric and the
properties of gravity at the largest scales. The past decade has seen the
confirmation of the original results. Type Ia supernovae are among the leading
techniques to obtain high-precision measurements of the dark energy equation of
state parameter, and in the near future, its time dependence. The success of
these efforts depends on our ability to understand a large number of effects,
mostly of astrophysical nature, influencing the observed flux at Earth. The
frontier now lies in understanding if the observed phenomenon is due to vacuum
energy, albeit its unnatural density, or some exotic new physics. Future
surveys will address the systematic effects with improved calibration
procedures and provide thousands of supernovae for detailed studies.Comment: Invited review, Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science
(submitted version
The Phoenix Deep Survey: spectroscopic catalog
The Phoenix Deep Survey is a multi-wavelength survey based on deep 1.4 GHz
radio imaging, reaching well into the sub-100 microJy level. One of the aims of
this survey is to characterize the sub-mJy radio population, exploring its
nature and evolution. In this paper we present the catalog and results of the
spectroscopic observations aimed at characterizing the optically ``bright''
(R<~ 21.5 mag) counterparts of faint radio sources. Out of 371 sources with
redshift determination, 21% have absorption lines only, 11% show AGN
signatures, 32% are star-forming galaxies, 34% show narrow emission lines that
do not allow detailed spectral classification (due to poor signal-to-noise
ratio and/or lack of diagnostic emission lines) and the remaining 2% are
identified with stars. For the star-forming galaxies with a Balmer decrement
measurement we find a median extinction of A(Ha)=1.9 mag, higher than that of
optically selected samples. This is a result of the radio selection, which is
not biased against dusty systems. Using the available spectroscopic
information, we estimate the radio luminosity function of star-forming galaxies
in two independent redshift bins at z~0.1 and 0.3 respectively. We find direct
evidence for strong luminosity evolution of these systems consistent with L(1.4
GHz) ~ (1+z)^(2.7).Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures. References added, and minor changes to reflect
published versio
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