Determination of the leptonic branching ratios of the Z
The ratios of the numbers of Z bosons decaying to e+e−, μ+μ− and τ+τ− pairs to the number decaying to hadrons have been measured. The branching ratios and partial widths for each channel were determined and found to be equal, consistent with lepton universality. The mean leptonic branching ratio was found to be 0.0321 ± 0.0013 and the leptonic partial width to be 85.4 ± 5.3 MeV. The partial widths for hadronic decays and for invisible decays were deduced to be 1833 ± 116 MeV and 569 ± 92 MeV, respectively. The number of light neutrino types, assuming only the standard model value for the ratio , was found to be 3.35 ± 0.41.

title: Operation of the Cherenkov detector DIRC of BABAR at high luminosity
abstract: The DIRC (acronym for Detection of Internally Reflected Cherenkov (light)) is the ring imaging Cherenkov detector of the BABAR detector at the PEP-II ring of SLAC. It provides the identification of pions, kaons and protons for momenta up to 4 GeV/c with high efficiency. This is needed to reconstruct CP-violating B-decay final states and to provide B-meson flavour tagging for time dependent asymmetry measurements. The DIRC radiators consists of long rectangular bars made of synthetic fused silica and the photon detector is a water tank equipped with an array of 10.752 conventional photomultipliers. At the end of the year 2000 BABAR has recorded about 22 million B~B pairs reaching the design luminosity of L=3/spl middot/10/sup 33//cm/sup 2/s. The ability to keep the beam background level low at highest collision rates and the long term reliability of the DIRC components during continuous data taking are requirements of BABAR to accomplish its physics program.

title: Measurements of branching fractions and CP-violating asymmetries in B-meson decays to the charmless two-body states K0 pi+, anti-K0 K+, and K0 anti-K0

title: Branching fraction for $B^{+} \to \pi^0 \ell^{+} \nu$, measured in $\upsilon_{4S} \to B \bar{B}$ events tagged by $B^{-} \to D^0 \ell^{-}$ anti-v ($X$) decays

title: Improved Measurement of CP Violation in Neutral B Decays to c cs

title: Measurement of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$ with $B \to \rho e \nu$ decays

title: Loewner Chains
abstract: These lecture notes on 2D growth processes are divided in two parts. The first part is a non-technical introduction to stochastic Loewner evolutions (SLEs). Their relationship with 2D critical interfaces is illustrated using numerical simulations. Schramm's argument mapping conformally invariant interfaces to SLEs is explained. The second part is a more detailed introduction to the mathematically challenging problems of 2D growth processes such as Laplacian growth, diffusion limited aggregation (DLA), etc. Their description in terms of dynamical conformal maps, with discrete or continuous time evolution, is recalled. We end with a conjecture based on possible dendritic anomalies which, if true, would imply that the Hele-Shaw problem and DLA are in different universality classes.

title: On symmetries of some massless 2D field theories
abstract: We describe a few aspects of the quantum symmetries of some massless two-dimensional field theories. We discuss their relations with recent proposals for the factorized scattering theories of the massless PCM 1 and O(3) ϑ = π sigma models. We use these symmetries to propose massless factorized S -matrices for the su(2) sigma models with topological terms at any level, alias the PCM k models, and for the su(2)-coset massless flows.

title: The Large N Random phase sine-Gordon model
abstract: At large distances and in the low-temperature phase, the quenched correlation functions in the 2d random phase sine-Gordon model have been argued to be of the form: , with = (T − Tc). However, renormalization group computations predict B ≠ 0, while variational approaches (which are supposed to be exact for models with a large number of components) give B = 0. We introduce a large-N version of the random phase sine-Gordon model. Using non-Abelian bosonization and renormalization group techniques, we show that the correlation functions of our models have the above form but with a coefficient B suppressed by a factor 1/N3 compared to A.

title: Scrutinizing the Cosmological Constant Problem and a possible resolution
abstract: We suggest a new perspective on the Cosmological Constant Problem by scrutinizing its standard formulation. In classical and quantum mechanics without gravity, there is no definition of the zero point of energy. Furthermore, the Casimir effect only measures how the vacuum energy {\it changes} as one varies a geometric modulus. This leads us to propose that the physical vacuum energy in a Friedman-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker expanding universe only depends on the time variation of the scale factor $a(t)$. Equivalently, requiring that empty Minkowski space is gravitationally stable is a principle that fixes the ambiguity in the zero point energy. On the other hand, if there is a meaningful bare cosmological constant, this prescription should be viewed as a fine-tuning. 
We describe two different choices of vacuum, one of which is consistent with the current universe consisting only of matter and vacuum energy. The resulting vacuum energy density $\rhovac$ is constant in time and approximately $k_c^2 H_0^2$, where $k_c$ is a momentum cut-off and $H_0$ is the current Hubble constant; for a cut-off close to the Planck scale, values of $\rhovac$ in agreement with astrophysical measurements are obtained. Another choice of vacuum is more relevant to the early universe consisting of only radiation and vacuum energy, and we suggest it as a possible model of inflation.

title: Vertex Operator Solutions of¶2d Dimensionally Reduced Gravity
abstract: We apply algebraic and vertex operator techniques to solve two dimensional reduced vacuum Einstein's equations. This leads to explicit expressions for the coefficients of metrics solutions of the vacuum equations as ratios of determinants. No quadratures are left. These formulas rely on the identification of dual pairs of vertex operators corresponding to dual metrics related by the Kramer–Neugebauer symmetry.