Measurement of the cross section for prompt isolated diphoton production using the full CDF run II data sample.
This Letter reports a measurement of the cross section for producing pairs of central prompt isolated photons in proton-antiproton collisions at a total energy sqrt[s] = 1.96 TeV using data corresponding to 9.5 fb(-1) integrated luminosity collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. The measured differential cross section is compared to three calculations derived from the theory of strong interactions. These include a prediction based on a leading order matrix element calculation merged with a parton shower model, a next-to-leading order calculation, and a next-to-next-to-leading order calculation. The first and last calculations reproduce most aspects of the data, thus showing the importance of higher-order contributions for understanding the theory of strong interaction and improving measurements of the Higgs boson and searches for new phenomena in diphoton final states.

title: ATLAS measurements of the properties of jets for boosted particle searches
abstract: Measurements are presented of the properties of high transverse momentum jets, produced in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 7 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb(-1) and were collected with the ATLAS detector in 2010. Jet mass, width, eccentricity, planar flow and angularity are measured for jets reconstructed using the anti-k(t) algorithm with distance parameters R 0: 6 and 1.0, with transverse momentum p(T) > 300 GeV and pseudorapidity vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2. The measurements are compared to the expectations of Monte Carlo generators that match leading-logarithmic parton showers to leading-order, or next-to-leading-order, matrix elements. The generators describe the general features of the jets, although discrepancies are observed in some distributions.

title: The performance of the CDF luminosity monitor
abstract: We describe the initial performance of the detector used for the luminosity measurement in the CDF experiment in Run II at the Tevatron. The detector consists of low-mass gaseous Cherenkov counters with high light yield (∼100 photoelectrons) and monitors the process of inelastic p p scattering. It allows for several methods of precise luminosity measurements at peak instantaneous luminosities of 2×10 32 cm −2 s −1 , corresponding to an average of six p p interactions per bunch crossing.

title: Combination of the top-quark mass measurements from the Tevatron collider
abstract: We thank the Fermilab staff and technical staffs of the 
participating institutions for their vital contributions and 
acknowledge support from the DOE and NSF (USA), ARC 
(Australia), CNPq, FAPERJ, FAPESP, and FUNDUNESP 
(Brazil), NSERC (Canada), NSC, CAS, and CNSF 
(China), Colciencias (Colombia), MSMT and GACR 
(Czech Republic), the Academy of Finland, CEA, and 
CNRS/IN2P3 (France), BMBF and DFG (Germany), 
DAE and DST (India), SFI (Ireland), INFN (Italy), 
MEXT (Japan), the Korean World Class University 
Program and NRF (Korea), CONACyT (Mexico), FOM 
(Netherlands), MON, NRC KI, and RFBR (Russia), the 
Slovak R&D Agency, the Ministerio de Ciencia e 
Innovacio´n, and Programa Consolider-Ingenio 2010 
(Spain), The Swedish Research Council (Sweden), SNSF 
(Switzerland), STFC and the Royal Society (United 
Kingdom), and the A. P. Sloan Foundation (USA).

title: Measurement of branching ratio and $B_s^0$ lifetime in the decay $B_s^0 \rightarrow J/\psi f_0(980)$ at CDF
abstract: We present a study of Bs0 decays to the CP-odd final state J/ψ f0(980) with J/ψ → µ+µ- and f0(980) → π+π-. Using pp collision data with an integrated luminosity of 3.8 fb-1 collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron we measure a Bs0 lifetime of τ(B0s → J/ψ f0(980)) = 1.70-0.11+0.12(stat) ± 0.03(syst) ps. This is the first measurement of the Bs0} lifetime in a decay to a CP eigenstate and corresponds in the standard model to the lifetime of the heavy Bs0 eigenstate. We also measure the product of branching fractions of B0s → J/ψ f0(980) and f0(980) → π+π- relative to the product of branching fractions of B0s → J/ψφ and φ→K+K- to be Rf0/ψ = 0.257 ± 0.020(stat) ± 0.014(syst), which is the most precise determination of this quantity to date.

title: Updated search for the standard model Higgs boson in events with jets and missing transverse energy using the full CDF data set
abstract: We present an updated search for the Higgs boson produced in association with a vector boson in the final state with missing transverse energy and two jets. We use the full CDF data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.45 fb−1 at a proton-antiproton center-of-mass energy of s√=1.96 TeV. New to this analysis is the inclusion of a b-jet identification algorithm specifically optimized for H→bb¯ searches. Across the Higgs boson mass range 90≤mH≤150 GeV/c2, the expected 95% credibility level upper limits on the VH production cross section times the H→bb¯ branching fraction are improved by an average of 14% relative to the previous analysis. At a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV/c2, the observed (expected) limit is 3.06 (3.33) times the standard model prediction, corresponding to one of the most sensitive searches to date in this final state.

title: Track reconstruction using a 3-D map of the target magnetic field
abstract: Magnetic fields are often applied to the target zone of a particle beam to maintain the polarization of gaseous targets, as with the HERMES experiment. The same field bends the trajectories of charged particles, however, introducing errors in vertex reconstruction. This paper describes a method for accurately describing relativistic charged particle transport within a 3-dimensional (3-D), non-uniform magnetic field. The algorithm is tested on HERMES experimental data, and is shown to substantially improve the K s 0 resonance in the π + π - invariant mass spectrum. Indeed, corrected data taken with target magnet switched on are as good as data taken with magnet switched off. The method can easily be applied to other experiments given a 3-D magnetic field map of the target region. The relevant code is provided in an Appendix.

title: Distance Priors from Planck and Dark Energy Constraints from Current Data
abstract: We derive distance priors from Planck first data release, and examine their impact on dark energy constraints from current observational data. We give the mean values and covariance matrix of {R, l_a, \Omega_b h^2, n_s}, which give an efficient summary of Planck data. The CMB shift parameters are R=\sqrt{\Omega_m H_0^2}\,r(z_*), and l_a=\pi r(z_*)/r_s(z_*), where z_* is the redshift at the last scattering surface, and r(z_*) and r_s(z_*) denote our comoving distance to z_* and sound horizon at z_* respectively. 
We find that Planck distance priors are significantly tighter than those from WMAP9. However, adding Planck distance priors does not lead to significantly improved dark energy constraints using current data, compared to adding WMAP9 distance priors. This is because Planck data appear to favor a higher matter density and lower Hubble constant, in tension with most of the other current cosmological data sets. Adding Planck distance priors to current data leads to a marginal inconsistency with a cosmological constant in a flat universe.

title: Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Quantum Field Theory: From Linear Response to Dynamical Renormalization Group
abstract: This thesis is devoted to studying aspects of real-time nonequilibrium dynamics in quantum field theory by implementing an initial value formulation of quantum field theory. The main focus is on the linear relaxation of mean fields and quantum kinetics in nonequilibrium multiparticle quantum systems with potential applications to ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, cosmological phase transitions and condensed matter systems. We first study the damping of fermion mean fields in a fermion-scalar plasma with a view towards understanding baryon transport phenomena during electroweak baryogenesis. Secondly, we apply and extend the renormalization group method to study nonequilibrium dynamics with the goals of constructing a quantum kinetic description that goes beyond usual Boltzmann kinetics and understanding anomalous relaxation associated with infrared phenomena. The final part of this thesis presents a real-time kinetic analysis of direct photon production from a quark-gluon plasma created in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. We show that the direct photon yield is significantly enhanced by the lowest order energy-nonconserving processes originated in the transient lifetime of the quark-gluon plasma.

title: Probing cosmic acceleration by using the SNLS3 SNIa dataset
abstract: We probe the cosmic acceleration by using the recently released SNLS3 sample of 472 type Ia supernovae. Combining this type Ia supernovae dataset with the cosmic microwave background anisotropy data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 7-yr observations, the baryon acoustic oscillation results from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data release 7, and the Hubble constant measurement from the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope, we measure the dark energy equation of state w and the deceleration parameter q as functions of redshift by using the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder parametrization. Our result is consistent with a cosmological constant at 1σ confidence level, without evidence for the recent slowing down of the cosmic acceleration. Furthermore, we consider three binned parametrizations (w is piecewise constant in redshift z) based on different binning methods. The similar results are obtained, i.e., the ΛCDM model is still nicely compatible with current observations.

title: Holographic dark energy in a universe with spatial curvature and massive neutrinos: a full Markov Chain Monte Carlo exploration
abstract: In this paper, we report the results of constraining the holographic dark energy model with spatial curvature and massive neutrinos, based on a Markov Chain Monte Carlo global fit technique. The cosmic observational data include the full WMAP 7-yr temperature and polarization data, the type Ia supernova data from Union2.1 sample, the baryon acoustic oscillation data from SDSS DR7 and WiggleZ Dark Energy Survey, and the latest measurements of H-0 from HST. To deal with the pertubations of dark energy, we adopt the parameterized post-Friedmann method. We find that, for the simplest holographic dark energy model without spatial curvature and massive neutrinos, the phenomenological parameter c < 1 at more than 4 sigma confidence level. The inclusion of spatial curvature enlarges the errors bars and leads to c < 1 only in about 2.5 sigma range; in contrast, the inclusion of massive neutrinos does not have significant influence on c. We also find that, for the holographic dark energy model with spatial curvature but without massive neutrinos, the 3 sigma errors bars of the current fractional curvature density Omega k(0) are still in order 10(-2); for the model with massive neutrinos but without spatial curvature, the 2 sigma upper bound of the total mass of neutrinos is Sigma m(v) < 0.48eV. Moreover, there exists clear degeneracy between spatial curvature and massive neutrinos in the holographic dark energy model, which enlarges the upper bound of Sigma m(v) by more than 2 times. In addition, we demonstrate that, making use of the full WMAP data can give better constraints on the holographic dark energy model, compared with the case using the WMAP "distance priors".