The LCFIVertex package: vertexing, flavour tagging and vertex charge reconstruction with an ILC vertex detector
The precision measurements envisaged at the International Linear Collider (ILC) depend on excellent instrumentation and reconstruction software. The correct identification of heavy flavour jets, placing unprecedented requirements on the quality of the vertex detector, will be central for the ILC programme. This paper describes the LCFIVertex software, which provides tools for vertex finding and for identification of the flavour and charge of the leading hadron in heavy flavour jets. These tools are essential for the ongoing optimisation of the vertex detector design for linear colliders such as the ILC. The paper describes the algorithms implemented in the LCFIVertex package as well as the scope of the code and its performance for a typical vertex detector design.

title: Search for Neutral Charmless B-Decays at Lep
abstract: A search for rare charmless decays of B d 0 and B s 0 mesons has been performed in the exclusive channels B d(s) 0 → ηη , B d(s) 0 → ηπ 0 and B d(s) 0 → π 0 π 0 . The data sample consisted of three million hadronic Z decays collected by the L3 experiment at LEP from 1991 through 1994. No candidate event has been observed and the following upper limits at 90% confidence level on the branching ratios have been set: Br ( B () d → ηη ) x 10 −4 , Br ( B () s → ηη ) x 10 −3 , Br ( B () d → ηφ () ) x 10 −4 , Br ( B () s → ηphi ; () ) x 10 −3 , Br ( B () d → phi ; () phi ; () ) x 10 −5 , Br ( B () s → phi ; () phi ; () ) x 10 −4 . These are the first experimental limits on B d 0 →ηη and on the B s 0 neutral charmless modes.

title: Precision measurement of the top quark mass from dilepton events at CDF II
abstract: We report a measurement of the top quark mass, M{sub t}, in the dilepton decay channel of t{bar t} {yields} b{ell}{prime}{sup +} {nu}{sub {ell}}, {bar b}{ell}{sup -}{bar {nu}}{sub {ell}} using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb{sup -1} of p{bar p} collisions collected with the CDF II detector. We apply a method that convolutes a leading-order matrix element with detector resolution functions to form event-by-event likelihoods; we have enhanced the leading-order description to describe the effects of initial-state radiation. The joint likelihood is the product of the likelihoods from 78 candidate events in this sample, which yields a measurement of M{sub t} = 164.5 {+-} 3.9(stat.)  3.9(syst.) GeV/c{sup 2}, the most precise measurement of M{sub t} in the dilepton channel.

title: The effect of dead-timeless silicon strip readout at CDF II
abstract: The Run IIa CDF Silicon Upgrade has recently finished installation. The detector uses revision D of the SVX3 readout IC. This final revision incorporated new features in order to improve the potential of dead-timeless operation. This paper describes measurements of dead-timeless effects on silicon strip readout on the test bench. This paper also describes tests of the dynamic pedestal subtraction circuitry, which is shown to improve greatly the dead-timeless performance of the silicon systems.

title: Alignment of the CMS Silicon Tracker during Commissioning with Cosmic Rays
abstract: This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version of the Paper can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 IOP

title: First results of the ISIS1 beam test
abstract: The in situ storage image sensor (ISIS) is a monolithic active pixel sensor with memory cells in each pixel. The memory cells are implemented as a CCD register. This and other features of the sensor make the ISIS an excellent device for detectors that will be used at the International linear collider (ILC), an electron-positron accelerator with a proposed centre-of-mass energy of around 500 GeV. The sensor can be made very thin while retaining a high signal-to-noise ratio. The memory cells can be read out between bunch trains at a relatively low clock speed, hence limiting power consumption. The actual signal charge is stored in potential wells and not on capacitors, minimizing the sensitivity to electromagnetic interference. This paper presents the results of the first beam test of the first ISIS prototype. The measurements made include the signal-to-noise ratio, position resolution and efficiency.

title: High-resolution CMB power spectrum from the complete ACBAR data set
abstract: In this paper, we present results from the complete set of cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation temperature anisotropy observations made with the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR) operating at 150 GHz. We include new data from the final 2005 observing season, expanding the number of detector hours by 210% and the sky coverage by 490% over that used for the previous ACBAR release. As a result, the band-power uncertainties have been reduced by more than a factor of two on angular scales encompassing the third to fifth acoustic peaks as well as the damping tail of the CMB power spectrum. The calibration uncertainty has been reduced from 6% to 2.1% in temperature through a direct comparison of the CMB anisotropy measured by ACBAR with that of the dipole-calibrated WMAP5 experiment. The measured power spectrum is consistent with a spatially flat, ΛCDM cosmological model. We include the effects of weak lensing in the power spectrum model computations and find that this significantly improves the fits of the models to the combined ACBAR+WMAP5 power spectrum. The preferred strength of the lensing is consistent with theoretical expectations. On fine angular scales, there is weak evidence (1.1σ) for excess power above the level expected from primary anisotropies. We expect any excess power to be dominated by the combination of emission from dusty protogalaxies and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect (SZE). However, the excess observed by ACBAR is significantly smaller than the excess power at l > 2000 reported by the CBI experiment operating at 30 GHz. Therefore, while it is unlikely that the CBI excess has a primordial origin; the combined ACBAR and CBI results are consistent with the source of the CBI excess being either the SZE or radio source contamination.

title: Improved Measurements of the CMB Power Spectrum with ACBAR
abstract: We report improved measurements of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation made with the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR). In this paper, we use a new analysis technique and include 30% more data from the 2001 and 2002 observing seasons than the first release to derive a new set of band-power measurements with significantly smaller uncertainties. The planet-based calibration used previously has been replaced by comparing the flux of RCW 38 as measured by ACBAR and BOOMERANG to transfer the WMAP-based BOOMERANG calibration to ACBAR. The resulting power spectrum is consistent with the theoretical predictions for a spatially flat, dark energy-dominated ΛCDM cosmology, including the effects of gravitational lensing. Despite the exponential damping on small angular scales, the primary CMB fluctuations are detected with a signal-to-noise ratio of greater than 4, up to multipoles of l = 2000. This increase in the precision of the fine-scale CMB power spectrum leads to only a modest decrease in the uncertainties on the parameters of the standard cosmological model. At high angular resolution, secondary anisotropies are predicted to be a significant contribution to the measured anisotropy. A joint analysis of the ACBAR results at 150 GHz and the CBI results at 30 GHz in the multipole range 2000 < l < 3000 shows that the power, reported by CBI in excess of the predicted primary anisotropy, has a frequency spectrum consistent with the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and inconsistent with primary CMB. The results reported here are derived from a subset of the total ACBAR data set; the final ACBAR power spectrum at 150 GHz will include 3.7 times more effective integration time and 6.5 times more sky coverage than is used here.

title: Sunyaev-Zeldovich Observations of Massive Clusters of Galaxies
abstract: We present detections of the Sunyaev‐Zeldovich Effect (SZE) at 150GHz and 275GHz for the X‐ray luminous z=0.299 cluster 1E0657‐67. These observations were obtained as part of an X‐ray, weak lensing, and SZE survey of nearby X‐ray bright clusters. The SZE maps were made with the ACBAR (150, 210, 275 GHz) bolometer array installed at the Viper telescope located at the South Pole. We also present preliminary results from a blind SZE cluster survey.

title: The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey III: H I source catalog of the northern Virgo cluster region
abstract: We present the first installment of H I sources extracted from the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) extragalactic survey, initiated in 2005. Sources have been extracted from three-dimensional spectral data cubes exploiting a matched filtering technique and then examined interactively to yield global H I parameters. A total of 730 H I detections are cataloged within the solid angle 11h44m 6.5, (2) high-velocity clouds in the Milky Way or its periphery, and (3) signals of lower S/N (to ~4.5) which coincide spatially with an optical object of known similar redshift. Although this region of the sky has been heavily surveyed by previous targeted observations based on optical flux- or size-limited samples, 69% of the extracted sources are newly reported H I detections. The resulting positional accuracy of H I sources is dependent on S/N: it averages 24'' (20'' median) for all sources with S/N > 6.5 and is of order ~17'' (14'' median) for signals with S/N > 12. The median redshift of the sample is ~7000 km s-1, and its distribution reflects the known local large-scale structure including the Virgo Cluster and the void behind it, the A1367-Coma supercluster at cz ~ 7000 km s-1, and a third, more distant overdensity at cz ~ 13,000 km s-1. Distance uncertainties in and around the Virgo Cluster perturb the derived H I mass distribution. Specifically, an apparent deficiency of the lowest H I mass objects can be attributed, at least in part, to the incorrect assignment of some foreground objects to the cluster distance. Several extended H I features are found in the vicinity of the Virgo Cluster. A small percentage (6%) of H I detections have no identifiable optical counterpart, more than half of which are high-velocity clouds in the Milky Way vicinity; the remaining 17 objects do not appear connected to or associated with any known galaxy. Based on these initial results, ALFALFA is expected to fulfill, and even exceed, its predicted performance objectives in terms of the number and quality of H I detections.

title: Imaging the Sunyaev Zel'dovich Effect using ACBAR on Viper
abstract: During 2001 and 2002, observations of several X-ray bright clusters of galaxies were conducted using the ACBAR Bolometer Array on the South Pole Viper telescope. A multi-frequency analysis of these clusters is currently underway. This multi-frequency analysis includes 150, 220 and 275 GHz data from ACBAR, X-ray imaging and spectroscopy from Chandra and XMM-Newton, and weak lensing data from the CTIO 4m Blanco telescope. We describe here how ACBAR can be used to create fully sampled cluster images and present such images for four of the clusters in our sample; Abell 3266, Abell 3827, Abell S1063 and 1E0657-56. In these images, the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect is clearly detected.