The BaBar Drift Chamber
The central drift chamber for the BaBar detector at the PEP-II B-factory at SLAC is a cylindrical chamber with a length of 280 cm and outer radius of 81 cm. It consists of 40 layers of small hexagonal cells arranged in 10 axial and stereo super layers. 
 
In order to minimize multiple scattering, light materials are used for the mechanical structure, and the gas mixture is helium based. The pulse height and timing electronics are mounted directly on the chamber rear end plate. 
 
A full-length prototype of the BaBar drift chamber has been built. The analysis of cosmic-ray events measures the spatial resolution averaged in the cell to be 130 μm and the dE/dx resolution to be 6.8%, meeting the performance goals for the BaBar central tracker. 
 
The mechanical assembly and stringing of the chamber was completed in December 1997 and the detector will be integrated into BaBar during summer 1998.

title: Observation of Extended VHE Emission from the Supernova Remnant IC 443 with VERITAS
abstract: We present evidence that the very-high-energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission coincident with the supernova remnant IC 443 is extended. IC 443 contains one of the best-studied sites of supernova remnant/molecular cloud interaction and the pulsar wind nebula CXOU J061705.3+222127, both of which are important targets for VHE observations. VERITAS observed IC 443 for 37.9 hours during 2007 and detected emission above 300 GeV with an excess of 247 events, resulting in a significance of 8.3 standard deviations (sigma) before trials and 7.5 sigma after trials in a point-source search. The emission is centered at 06 16 51 +22 30 11 (J2000) +- 0.03_stat +- 0.08_sys degrees, with an intrinsic extension of 0.16 +- 0.03_stat +- 0.04_sys degrees. The VHE spectrum is well fit by a power law (dN/dE = N_0 * (E/TeV)^-Gamma) with a photon index of 2.99 +- 0.38_stat +- 0.3_sys and an integral flux above 300 GeV of (4.63 +- 0.90_stat +- 0.93_sys) * 10^-12 cm^-2 s^-1. These results are discussed in the context of existing models for gamma-ray production in IC 443.

title: Supernova Acceleration Probe: Studying Dark Energy with Type Ia Supernovae
abstract: The Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP) will use Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as distance indicators to measure the effect of dark energy on the expansion history of the Universe. (SNAP's weak-lensing program is described in a companion White Paper.) The experiment exploits supernova distance measurements up to their fundamental systematic limit; strict requirements on the monitoring of each supernova's properties lead to the need for a space-based mission. Results from pre-SNAP experiments, which characterize fundamental SN Ia properties, will be used to optimize the SNAP observing strategy to yield data, which minimize both systematic and statistical uncertainties. SNAP has achieved technological readiness and the collaboration is poised to begin construction.

title: Veritas: Status summary 2009
abstract: VERITAS is a ground-based gamma-ray observatory that uses the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique and operates in the very-high energy (VHE) region of the gamma-ray spectrum from 100 GeV to 50 TeV. The observatory consists of an array of four 12 m-diameter imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes located in southern Arizona, USA. The four-telescope array has been fully operational since September 2007, and over the last two years, VERITAS has been operating with high reliability and sensitivity. It is currently one of the most sensitive VHE observatories. This paper summarizes the status of VERITAS as of October 2009, and describes the detection of several new VHE gamma-ray sources.

title: Branching fractions in $B \to \phi$ h and search for direct CP violation in $B^\pm \to \phi K^\pm$

title: Discovery of Variability in the Very High Energy γ-Ray Emission of 1ES 1218+304 with VERITAS
abstract: We present results from an intensive VERITAS monitoring campaign of the high-frequency peaked BL Lac object 1ES 1218+304 in 2008/2009. Although 1ES 1218+304 was detected previously by MAGIC and VERITAS at a persistent level of ~6% of the Crab Nebula flux, the new VERITAS data reveal a prominent flare reaching ~20% of the Crab. While very high energy (VHE) flares are quite common in many nearby blazars, the case of 1ES 1218+304 (redshift z = 0.182) is particularly interesting since it belongs to a group of blazars that exhibit unusually hard VHE spectra considering their redshifts. When correcting the measured spectra for absorption by the extragalactic background light, 1ES 1218+304 and a number of other blazars are found to have differential photon indices Γ≤ 1.5. The difficulty in modeling these hard spectral energy distributions in blazar jets has led to a range of theoretical γ-ray emission scenarios, one of which is strongly constrained by these new VERITAS observations. We consider the implications of the observed light curve of 1ES 1218+304, which shows day scale flux variations, for shock acceleration scenarios in relativistic jets, and in particular for the viability of kiloparsec-scale jet emission scenarios.

title: Geometry of the transport equation in multicomponent WKB approximations
abstract: Although the WKB approximation for multicomponent systems has been intensively studied in the literature, its geometric and global aspects are much less well understood than in the scalar case. In this paper we give a completely geometric derivation of the transport equation, without using local sections and without assuming complete diagonalizability of the matrix valued principal symbol, or triviality of its eigenbundles. The term (unnamed in the previous literature) appearing in the transport equation in addition to the covariant derivative with respect to a natural projected connection is a tensor, independent of the choice of any sections. We give a goemetric interpretation of this tensor, involving the contraction of the curvature of the eigenbundle and an analog of the second fundamental form with the Poisson tensor in phase space. In the non-degenerate case this term may be rewritten in an even simpler geometric form. Finally, we discuss obstructions to the existence of WKB states and give a geometric description of the quantization condition for WKB states for a non-degenerate eigenvalue-function.

title: Resonance structure of tau- ---> K- pi+ pi- nu(tau) decays
abstract: Using a sample of 4.7/fb integrated luminosity accumulated with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR), we investigate the mass spectrum and resonant structure in tau->Kpipi decays. We measure the relative fractions of K1(1270) and K1(1400) resonances in these decays, as well as the K1 masses and widths. Our fitted K1 resonances are somewhat broader than previous hadroproduction measurements, and in agreement with recent LEP results from tau decay. The larger central value of our measured width supports models which attribute the small tau->Kpipi branching fraction to larger K1 widths than are presently tabulated. We also determine the Ka-Kb mixing angle theta_K.

title: Lessons learned with the Mark II drift chamber and some early work on supercollider tracking
abstract: I describe aspects of the design, performance, and achievements of the Mark II drift chamber, and some design considerations for 
tracking at the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC). The emphasis is mainly on contributions made by Abe Seiden and his group at the 
Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

title: First search for the flavor changing neutral current decay D0-->gammagamma.
abstract: Using 13.8 fb(-1) of data collected at or just below the Upsilon(4S) with the CLEO detector, we report the result of a search for the flavor changing neutral current process D0-->gammagamma. We observe no significant signal for this decay mode and determine 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions B(D0-->gammagamma)/B(D0-->pi(0)pi(0))<0.033 and B(D0-->gammagamma)<2.9 x 10(-5).

title: Tau and charm physics prospects at CESR / DORIS and B factories