Measurement of charm and beauty jets in deep inelastic scattering at HERA
Measurements of cross sections for events with charm and beauty jets in deep inelastic scattering at HERA are presented. Events with jets of transverse energy $E_{T}^{\mathrm{jet}}>6$ GeV and pseudorapidity −1.0<ηjet<1.5 in the laboratory frame are selected in the kinematic region of photon virtuality Q2>6 GeV2 and inelasticity variable 0.07<y<0.625. Measurements are also made requiring a jet in the Breit frame with $E_{T}^{*{\mathrm{jet}}}>6$ GeV. The data were collected with the H1 detector in the years 2006 and 2007 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 189 pb−1. The numbers of charm and beauty jets are determined using variables reconstructed using the H1 vertex detector with which the impact parameters of the tracks to the primary vertex and the position of secondary vertices are measured. The measurements are compared with QCD predictions and with previous measurements where heavy flavours are identified using muons.

title: Search for new physics in events with same-sign dileptons and b-tagged jets in pp collisions at $ \sqrt {s} = 7 $ TeV
abstract: A bstractA search for new physics is performed using isolated same-sign dileptons with at least two b-quark jets in the final state. Results are based on a 4.98 fb−1 sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV collected by the CMS detector. No excess above the standard model background is observed. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set on the number of events from non-standard-model sources. These limits are used to set constraints on a number of new physics models. Information on acceptance and efficiencies are also provided so that the results can be used to confront additional models in an approximate way.

title: Search for Excited Electrons in ep Collisions at HERA
abstract: A search for excited electrons is performed using the full e±p data sample collected by the H1 experiment at HERA, corresponding to a total luminosity of 475 pb−1. The electroweak decays of excited electrons e*→eγ, e*→eZ and e*→νW with subsequent hadronic or leptonic decays of the W and Z bosons are considered. No evidence for excited electron production is found. Mass dependent exclusion limits on e* production cross sections and on the ratio f/Λ of the coupling to the compositeness scale are derived within gauge mediated models. These limits extend the excluded region compared to previous excited electron searches. The e* production via contact interactions is also addressed for the first time in ep collisions.

title: Measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel cross section in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV
abstract: A bstractA measurement of the single-top-quark t-channel production cross section in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC is presented. Two different and complementary approaches have been followed. The first approach exploits the distributions of the pseudorapidity of the recoil jet and reconstructed top-quark mass using background estimates determined from control samples in data. The second approach is based on multivariate analysis techniques that probe the compatibility of the candidate events with the signal. Data have been collected for the muon and electron final states, corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.17 and 1.56 fb−1, respectively. The single-top-quark production cross section in the t-channel is measured to be 67.2±6.1 pb, in agreement with the approximate next-to-next-to-leading-order standard model prediction. Using the standard model electroweak couplings, the CKM matrix element |Vtb| is measured to be 1.020 ± 0.046 (meas.) ± 0.017 (theor.).

title: Search for dark matter and large extra dimensions in monojet events in pp collisions at $ \sqrt {s} = {7} $ TeV
abstract: A bstractA search has been made for events containing an energetic jet and an imbalance in transverse momentum using a data sample of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. This signature is common to both dark matter and extra dimensions models. The data were collected by the CMS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb−1. The number of observed events is consistent with the standard model expectation. Constraints on the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross sections are determined for both spin-independent and spin-dependent interaction models. For the spin-independent model, these are the most constraining limits for a dark matter particle with mass below 3.5 GeV/c2, a region unexplored by direct detection experiments. For the spin-dependent model, these are the most stringent constraints over the 0.1–200 GeV/c2 mass range. The constraints on the Arkani-Hamed, Dimopoulos, and Dvali model parameter MD determined as a function of the number of extra dimensions are also an improvement over the previous results.

title: Search for third-generation leptoquarks and scalar bottom quarks in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7\;TeV $
abstract: A bstractResults are presented from a search for third-generation leptoquarks and scalar bottom quarks in a sample of proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7\;TeV $ collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb−1. A scenario where the new particles are pair produced and each decays to a b quark plus a tau neutrino or neutralino is considered. The number of observed events is found to be in agreement with the standard model prediction. Upper limits are set at 95% confidence level on the production cross sections. Leptoquarks with masses below ~450 GeV are excluded. Upper limits in the mass plane of the scalar quark and neutralino are set such that scalar bottom quark masses up to 410 GeV are excluded for neutralino masses of 50 GeV.

title: Parallel object-oriented design in Fortran for beam dynamics simulations
abstract: In this paper we describe an object-oriented software design approach, using Fortran 90 (F90) and the Message Passing Interface (MPI), for modeling the transport of intense charged particle beams. The object-oriented approach improves the maintainability, reusability, and extensibility of the software, while the use of explicit message passing provides the freedom necessary to achieve high performance. Furthermore, an approach to object-oriented design based on Fortran will help those physicists familiar with procedure-oriented programming to make the transition to object-oriented design. In this paper we describe the implementation of this approach and our success in developing two-dimensional and three-dimensional parallel beam dynamics codes that achieve high performance with only a small overhead associated with the object-oriented design.

title: A Combined Three-Phase Signal Extraction of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Data Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Technique
abstract: Neutrino physics has entered an era of precision, after proving that the Standard Solar Model is a viable theory and going beyond the current Standard Model of particle physics by proving that neutrinos possess nonzero masses. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) experiment, along with other experiments, has restricted neutrino mixing angle (θ12) and the mass square difference (∆m21) to lie within the large mixing solution area. SNO, located 2 km underground in Sudbury, Canada, was an ultraclean heavy-water (D2O) imaging detector for observing neutrinos produced by fusion reactions in the Sun. Neutrino interactions with heavy water resulted in flashes of light called C̆erenkov radiation which was detected by an array of photomultiplier tubes. SNO took data from November 1999 to November 2006, totalling 1082 days of data taking. This work describes an improved measurement of the mixing parameters from a combined fit of all the data. For the signal extraction fit on the data consisting of 4 observable of an event – radial position, recoil electron energy, direction relative to the Sun and event isotropy – Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method based on Metropolis algorithm was employed. The nuisance parameters (systematics), weighted by external constraints, were allowed to vary in the fit. The goal of the thesis was to extract the survival probabilities of electron neutrinos and determine the total flux of active-flavour neutrinos from B decay in the Sun measured through the neutral current interactions of neutrinos on deuterium. The B flux from the fit is (5.24 ± 0.02) × 10 cm−2 s−1; uncertainty from statistics and systematics is 3.56%. Along with B flux, the fit extracted energy spectra of charged current interactions of neutrinos on deuterium and elastic scattering interactions of neutrinos on electrons. The fit described the energy-dependent day survival probability of solar neutrinos as a quadratic equation and asymmetry on the day survival probability as a linear equation. Four polynomial coefficients of the survival probability were extracted from the fit: constant coefficient as 0.3206± 0.0197, linear coefficient as 0.005± 0.008 and quadratic coefficient as −0.0014± 0.0033. There are two coefficients on the day-night asymmetry: constant coefficient as 0.0496 ± 0.0347 and the linear coefficient as −0.018 ± 0.028. The day-night asymmetry (0.0496) observed is 1.4σ away from zero. Using these findings, the oscillation space in terms of ∆m21 and θ12 will be further constrained. Compared to the previous published SNO results, the uncertainty on B went down from 3.83% to 3.56% and average B νe survival probability (p0) went down from 6.57% to 6.14%. If the data were analysed with the same assumptions, the decrease in uncertainties would have been approximately twice as big; however, more conservative systematic uncertainties were assigned in some cases.

title: THE COYOTE UNIVERSE. II. COSMOLOGICAL MODELS AND PRECISION EMULATION OF THE NONLINEAR MATTER POWER SPECTRUM
abstract: The power spectrum of density fluctuations is a foundational source of cosmological information. Precision cosmological probes targeted primarily at investigations of dark energy require accurate theoretical determinations of the power spectrum in the nonlinear regime. To exploit the observational power of future cosmological surveys, accuracy demands on the theory are at the 1% level or better. Numerical simulations are currently the only way to produce sufficiently error-controlled predictions for the power spectrum. The very high computational cost of (precision) N-body simulations is a major obstacle to obtaining predictions in the nonlinear regime, while scanning over cosmological parameters. Near-future observations, however, are likely to provide a meaningful constraint only on constant dark energy equation of state, "wCDM", cosmologies. In this paper, we demonstrate that a limited set of only 37 cosmological models—the "Coyote Universe" suite—can be used to predict the nonlinear matter power spectrum to 1% over a prior parameter range set by current cosmic microwave background observations. This paper is the second in a series of three, with the final aim to provide a high-accuracy prediction scheme for the nonlinear matter power spectrum for wCDM cosmologies.

title: Energy-momentum tensor of particles created in an expanding universe
abstract: We present a general formulation of the time-dependent initial value problem for a quantum scalar field of arbitrary mass and curvature coupling in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological model. We introduce an adiabatic number basis which has the virtue that the divergent parts of the quantum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor $〈{T}_{\mathrm{ab}}〉$ are isolated in the vacuum piece of $〈{T}_{\mathrm{ab}}〉,$ and may be removed using adiabatic subtraction. The resulting renormalized $〈{T}_{\mathrm{ab}}〉$ is conserved, independent of the cutoff, and has a physically transparent, quasiclassical form in terms of the average number of created adiabatic ``particles.'' By analyzing the evolution of the adiabatic particle number in de Sitter spacetime we exhibit the time structure of the particle creation process, which can be understood in terms of the time at which different momentum scales enter the horizon. A numerical scheme to compute $〈{T}_{\mathrm{ab}}〉$ as a function of time with arbitrary adiabatic initial states (not necessarily de Sitter invariant) is described. For minimally coupled, massless fields, at late times the renormalized $〈{T}_{\mathrm{ab}}〉$ goes asymptotically to the de Sitter invariant state previously found by Allen and Folacci, and not to the zero mass limit of the Bunch-Davies vacuum. If the mass m and the curvature coupling $\ensuremath{\xi}$ differ from zero, but satisfy ${m}^{2}+\ensuremath{\xi}R=0,$ the energy density and pressure of the scalar field grow linearly in cosmic time demonstrating that, at least in this case, back reaction effects become significant and cannot be neglected in de Sitter spacetime.

title: Independent measurement of the total active 8B solar neutrino flux using an array of 3He proportional counters at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.
abstract: The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) used an array of 3He proportional counters to measure the rate of neutral-current interactions in heavy water and precisely determined the total active (nu_x) 8B solar neutrino flux. This technique is independent of previous methods employed by SNO. The total flux is found to be 5.54_-0.31;+0.33(stat)-0.34+0.36(syst)x10(6) cm(-2) s(-1), in agreement with previous measurements and standard solar models. A global analysis of solar and reactor neutrino results yields Deltam2=7.59_-0.21;+0.19x10(-5) eV2 and theta=34.4_-1.2;+1.3 degrees. The uncertainty on the mixing angle has been reduced from SNO's previous results.