Improved measurements of anti-B0 ---> D+(sJ) K- decays

title: Performance and operation of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter
abstract: The operation and general performance of the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter using cosmic-ray muons are described. These muons were recorded after the closure of the CMS detector in late 2008. The calorimeter is made of lead tungstate crystals and the overall status of the 75 848 channels corresponding to the barrel and endcap detectors is reported. The stability of crucial operational parameters, such as high voltage, temperature and electronic noise, is summarised and the performance of the light monitoring system is presented.

title: Performance Study of the CMS Barrel Resistive Plate Chambers with Cosmic Rays
abstract: In October and November 2008, the CMS collaboration conducted a programme of cosmic ray data taking, which has recorded about 270 million events. The Resistive Plate Chamber system, which is part of the CMS muon detection system, was successfully operated in the full barrel. More than 98% of the channels were operational during the exercise with typical detection efficiency of 90%. In this paper, the performance of the detector during these dedicated runs is reported.

title: PAT: The CMS Physics Analysis Toolkit
abstract: The CMS Physics Analysis Toolkit (PAT) is presented. The PAT is a high-level analysis layer enabling the development of common analysis efforts across and within Physics Analysis Groups. It aims at fulfilling the needs of most CMS analyses, providing both ease-of-use for the beginner and flexibility for the advanced user. The main PAT concepts are described in detail and some examples from physics analyses are given.

title: Search for supersymmetry in events with b-quark jets and missing transverse energy in pp collisions at 7 TeV
abstract: Results are presented from a search for physics beyond the standard model based on events with large missing transverse energy, at least three jets, and at least one, two, or three b-quark jets. The study is performed using a sample of proton-proton collision data collected at sqrt(s)=7 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2011, with the missing transverse energy distribution as the principal search variable. The integrated luminosity of the sample is 4.98 inverse femtobarns. The observed number of events is found to be consistent with the standard model expectation, which is evaluated using control samples in the data. The results are used to constrain cross sections for the production of supersymmetric particles decaying to b-quark-enriched final states in the context of simplified model spectra.

title: Measurement of the differential q**2 spectrum and forward-backward asymmetry for B ---> K* l+ l-

title: Lifetime of Particles Containing B Quarks
abstract: From a sample of hadronic events, produced in e/sup +/e/sup -/ collisions, semileptonic decays of heavy particles have been isolated and used to obtain a measurement for the bottom-quark lifetime of (1.8 +- 0.6(stat.) +- 0.4(syst.)) x 10/sup -12/ sec.

title: First results from the MACRO detector at the Gran Sasso Laboratory

title: Measurements of the muon decoherence function with the MACRO experiment at Gran Sasso

title: Comparison of muon and neutrino times from decays of mesons in the atmosphere
abstract: We propose a test to compare the speed of muons and muon neutrinos produced in the same bundles in the atmosphere. By comparing the arrival times of primary muons and muons induced by neutrinos, experiments such as Super-Kamiokande, IceCube and ANTARES could verify recent hints on the possibility that neutrinos have a velocity larger than the speed of light. For smaller detectors such as MINOS and OPERA, where it may be challenging to recognize downgoing muons induced by neutrinos inside the active volume, another measurement may be possible thanks to the ns-time resolution. The arrival times of muons in a bundle produced by one cosmic ray interaction in the atmosphere should return a value compatible with the time resolution, while if neutrinos have larger velocity than muons some of the muons may arrive slightly earlier in a bundle of particles than others.

title: Arrival time distributions of very high energy cosmic ray muons in MACRO
abstract: We present a study of the correlations in the arrival times of about 1016 single and multiple muons detected by the first two MACRO supermodules. The time correlations, from milliseconds to several hundrends of seconds, have been analyzed in terms of the random distribution, with which they are consistent. An analysis of the arrival times (up to 180 ns) of the muons from the same multimuon event is also given.