Top-Antitop-Quark Production and Decay Properties at the Tevatron

At the Tevatron, the collider experiments CDF and DO have data sets at their disposal that comprise a few thousand reconstructed top-antitop-quark pairs and allow for precision measurements of the cross section as well as production and decay properties. Besides comparing the measurements to standard model predictions, these data sets open a window to physics beyond the standard model. Dedicated analyses look for new heavy gauge bosons, fourth generation quarks, and flavor-changing neutral currents. In this mini-review the current status of these measurements is summarized.Comment: Mini-review to be submitted to Mod. Phys. Lett. A, was derived from the proceedings of the 21st Rencontres de Blois: Windows on the Universe, Blois, France, 21. - 27. June 2009. 19 pages. 2nd revision: correct a few minor mistakes, update references

Four Statements about the Fourth Generation

This summary of the Workshop "Beyond the 3-generation SM in the LHC era" presents a brief discussion of the following four statements about the fourth generation: 1) It is not excluded by EW precision data; 2) It addresses some of the currently open questions; 3) It can accommodate emerging possible hints of new physics; 4) LHC has the potential to discover or fully exclude it.Comment: Summary of the "Beyond the 3-generation SM in the LHC era" Workshop, CERN, September 4-5, 2008; 7 pages. V2: updated bibliography and minor typos fixed. To appear in PMC Physics

Multiphoton Production at High Energies in the Standard Model I

We examine multiphoton production in the electroweak sector of the Standard Model in the high energy limit using the equivalence theorem in combination with spinor helicity techniques. We obtain recursion relations for currents consisting of a charged scalar, spinor, or vector line that radiates $n$ photons. Closed form solutions to these recursion relations for arbitrary $n$ are presented for the cases of like-helicity and one unlike-helicity photon production. We apply the currents singly and in pairs to obtain amplitudes for processes involving the production of $n$ photons with up to two unlike helicities from a pair of charged particles. The replacement of one or more photons by transversely polarized $$Z$-bosons is also discussed.Comment: 75 pages, CLNS 91/111

Direct Photons at RHIC

The PHENIX experiment has measured direct photons in $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV Au+Au collisions and p+p collisions. The fraction of photons due to direct production in Au+Au collisions is shown as a function of $p_T$ and centrality. This measurement is compared with expectation from pQCD calculations. Other possible sources of direct photons are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, presented at Hot Quarks 2004, Taos, N

t' at the LHC: the physics of discovery

A search for a fourth family at the LHC is presently a low priority, but we argue that an effective search can be conducted early with only a few inverse femtobarns of data. We discuss a method based on invariant masses of single jets for identifying the $W$'s originating from heavy quark decays. This can significantly increase signal to background in the reconstruction of the $t'$ mass. We also study the various types of physics that can impact the background estimate, most notably higher order effects, initial state radiation, and models of the underlying event.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, small improvements, version to appear in JHE

The t-tbar cross-section at 1.8 and 1.96 TeV: a study of the systematics due to parton densities and scale dependence

We update the theoretical predictions for the t-tbar production cross-section at the Tevatron, taking into account the most recent determinations of systematic uncertainties in the extraction of the proton parton densities.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, Late

GRB 110709A, 111117A and 120107A: Faint high-energy gamma-ray photon emission from Fermi/LAT observations and demographic implications

Launched on June 11, 2008, the LAT instrument onboard the $Fermi$ Gamma-ray Space Telescope has provided a rare opportunity to study high energy photon emission from gamma-ray bursts. Although the majority of such events (27) have been iden tified by the Fermi LAT Collaboration, four were uncovered by using more sensiti ve statistical techniques (Akerlof et al 2010, Akerlof et al 2011, Zheng et al 2 012). In this paper, we continue our earlier work by finding three more GRBs ass ociated with high energy photon emission, GRB 110709A, 111117A and 120107A. To s ystematize our matched filter approach, a pipeline has been developed to identif y these objects in near real time. GRB 120107A is the first product of this anal ysis procedure. Despite the reduced threshold for identification, the number of GRB events has not increased significantly. This relative dearth of events with low photon number prompted a study of the apparent photon number distribution. W e find an extremely good fit to a simple power-law with an exponent of -1.8 $\pm$ 0.3 for the differential distribution. As might be expected, there is a substa ntial correlation between the number of lower energy photons detected by the GBM and the number observed by the LAT. Thus, high energy photon emission is associ ated with some but not all of the brighter GBM events. Deeper studies of the pro perties of the small population of high energy emitting bursts may eventually yi eld a better understanding of these entire phenomena.Comment: accepted to Ap

QCD analysis of first b cross section data at 1.96 TeV

The first data on bottom quark production in p-pbar collisions at 1.96 TeV have recently been obtained by the CDF collaboration. These data probe the region of pt~0, providing a new invaluable input on the issue of the compatibility between next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD and data. We reconsider the evaluation of the b cross section, in view of recent theoretical developments, and of the latest inputs on structure function fits. We show that the new CDF measurements are in good agreement with NLO QCD. If CDF preliminary data are confirmed, a long-standing discrepancy between NLO QCD predictions and hadron-collider data can be settled.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures. This revision gives an expanded presentation of the results and corrects a mistake in fig 5. V3 updates some reference

Probing Electroweak Top Quark Couplings at Hadron Colliders

We consider QCD t\bar{t}\gamma and t\bar{t}Z production at hadron colliders as a tool to measure the tt\gamma and ttZ couplings. At the Tevatron it may be possible to perform a first, albeit not very precise, test of the tt\gamma vector and axial vector couplings in t\bar{t}\gamma production, provided that more than 5 fb^{-1} of integrated luminosity are accumulated. The t\bar{t}Z cross section at the Tevatron is too small to be observable. At the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) it will be possible to probe the tt\gamma couplings at the few percent level, which approaches the precision which one hopes to achieve with a next-generation e^+e^- linear collider. The LHC's capability of associated QCD t\bar{t}V (V=\gamma, Z) production has the added advantage that the tt\gamma and ttZ couplings are not entangled. For an integrated luminosity of 300 fb^{-1}, the ttZ vector (axial vector) coupling can be determined with an uncertainty of 45-85% (15-20%), whereas the dimension-five dipole form factors can be measured with a precision of 50-55%. The achievable limits improve typically by a factor of 2-3 for the luminosity-upgraded (3 ab^{-1}) LHC.Comment: Revtex3, 30 pages, 9 Figures, 6 Table