The CMS Tracker operation and performance at the Magnet Test and Cosmic Challenge
During summer 2006 a fraction of the CMS silicon strip tracker was operated in a comprehensive slice test called the Magnet Test and Cosmic Challenge (MTCC). At the MTCC, cosmic rays detected in the muon chambers were used to trigger the readout of all CMS sub-detectors in the general data acquisition system and in the presence of the 4 T magnetic field produced by the CMS superconducting solenoid. This document describes the operation of the Tracker hardware and software prior, during and after data taking. The performance of the detector as resulting from the MTCC data analysis is also presented.

title: Angles from $B$ Decays with Charm

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

title: Search for baryon number violation in top-quark decays
abstract: A search for baryon number violation (BNV) in top-quark decays is performed using pp collisions produced by the LHC at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The top-quark decay considered in this search results in one light lepton (muon or electron), two jets, but no neutrino in the final state. Data used for the analysis were collected by the CMS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns. The event selection is optimized for top quarks produced in pairs, with one undergoing the BNV decay and the other the standard model hadronic decay to three jets. No significant excess of events over the expected yield from standard model processes is observed. The upper limits at 95% confidence level on the branching fraction of the BNV top-quark decay are calculated to be 0.0016 and 0.0017 for the muon and the electron channels, respectively. Assuming lepton universality, an upper limit of 0.0015 results from the combination of the two channels. These limits are the first that have been obtained on a BNV process involving the top quark.

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: Single Muon Physics with the MACRO Detector

title: Search for a possible space-time correlation between high energy neutrinos and gamma-ray bursts
abstract: We look for space-time correlations between 2233 gamma-bursts in the Batse Catalogs and 894 upward-going muons produced by neutrino interactions in the rock below or inside MACRO. Considering a search cone of 10 around GRB directions and a time window of 200 s we nd 0 events to be compared to 0.035 expected background events due to atmospheric neutrinos. The corresponding upper limit (90% c.l.) is 0:87 10 9 cm 2

title: Detection of high energy cosmic rays with the resonant gravitational wave detectors NAUTILUS and EXPLORER and comparison with the direct measurements with an aluminum superconductive bar
abstract: The cryogenic resonant gravitational wave detectors NAUTILUS and EXPLORER, made of an aluminum alloy bar, can detect cosmic ray showers. At temperatures above 1 K, when the material is in the normal conducting state, the measured signals are in good agreement with the values expected based on the cosmic rays data and on the thermo-acoustic model. When NAUTILUS was operated at the temperature of 0.14 K, in superconductive state, large signals produced by cosmic ray interactions, more energetic than expected, were recorded. The NAUTILUS data in this case are in agreement with the measurements done by a dedicated experiment on a particle beam. The largest event detected up to now has an energy in the first longitudinal mode of ∼ 670 K corresponding to ∼ 360 TeV in the bar.

title: Neutrino astrophysics with the MACRO detector in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory
abstract: We present the results of a search for neutrino emission from celestial objects and of a search for coincidences with gamma ray bursts. We have computed flux limits for WIMPS coming from the center of the Earth and of the Sun. For this search we used 605 upward-going muons produced by neutrino interactions in the rock below the MACRO detector in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory.

title: Measurements of atmospheric muon neutrino oscillations, global analysis of the data collected with MACRO detector
abstract: The final analysis of atmospheric neutrino events collected with the MACRO detector is presented. Three different classes of events, generated by neutrinos in different energy ranges, are studied l ...