R&D for a Dedicated Fast Timing Layer in the CMS Endcap Upgrade

The PhaseII Upgrades of CMS are being planned for the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) era when the mean number of interactions per beam crossing ("in-time pileup") is expected to reach ~140-200. The potential backgrounds arising from mis-associated jets and photon showers, for example, during event reconstruction could be reduced if physics objects are tagged with an "event time". This tag is fully complementary to the "event vertex" which is already commonly used to reduce mis-reconstruction. Since the tracking vertex resolution is typically ~10^{-3} (50 micron/4.8cm) of the rms vertex distribution, whereas only ~10^{-1} (i.e. 20 vs.170 picoseconds (psec)) is demonstrated for timing, it is often assumed that only photon (i.e. EM calorimeter or shower-max) timing is of interest. We show that the optimal solution will likely be a single timing layer which measures both charged particle and photon time (a pre-shower layer).Comment: Proceedings of the 2014 Workshop on Picosecond Photon Sensors for Physics and Medical Applications, Clermont Ferrand. 9 pages, 4 figure

A Kiss of Jameson

Prose by Sierra White. First Place in the 2019 Manuscripts Prose Contest

Diffraction Dissociation - 50 Years Later

The field of Diffraction Dissociation, which is the subject of this workshop, began 50 years ago with the analysis of deuteron stripping in low energy collisions with nuclei. We return to the subject in a modern context- deuteron dissociation in $\sqrt{s_{NN}}= 200$ GeV d-Au collisions recorded during the 2003 RHIC run in the PHENIX experiment. At RHIC energy, d$\to$n+p proceeds predominantly (90%) through Electromagnetic Dissociation and the remaining fraction via the hadronic shadowing described by Glauber. Since the dissociation cross section has a small theoretical error we adopt this process to normalize other cross sections measured in RHIC.Comment: Submitted to: Proceedings of DIS05 conference, Diffraction and Vector Meson Working Group. 5 pages,2 figure

Anticipating the Stock Market Crash of 1929: The View from the Floor of the Stock Exchange

In the months prior to the stock market crash of 1929, the price of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange was abnormally low. Rising stock prices and volume should have driven up seat prices during the boom of 1929; instead there were negative cumulative abnormal returns to seats of approximately 20 percent in the months just before the crash. At the same time, trading nearly ceased in the thin markets for seats on the regional exchanges. Brokers appear thus to have anticipated the October 1929 crash, although investors in the market apparently did not recognize this information.

Were banks special intermediaries in late nineteenth century America?

Banks and banking - History

California Banking in the Nineteenth Century: The Art and Method of the Bank of A. Levy

An 1890s loan book of the Bank A. Levy permits a detailed examination of the lending operations of a private bank in California during the National Banking Era (1864-1914). This period has been intensively analyzed at the macroeconomic level, but there are few microeconomic studies of banks. This unregulated bank was well integrated into national money markets and lent to a broad cross section of the community. Although the bank appeared to adhere to the real bills doctrine, it provided medium term uncollateralized financing to business. The bank priced risk carefully, offering rates equal to the lowest in the country to its best customers while charging extraordinarily high rates to borrowers deemed risky. In the absence of modern accounting, close scrutiny of borrowers' businesses and personal lives overcame the asymmetry of information between borrower and lender, enabling the bank to fulfill a special intermediary role.