Ground and excited state charmonium production in p plus p collisions at root s=200 GeV

We report on charmonium measurements [J/psi (1S), psi' (2S), and chi(c) (1P)] in p + p collisions at root s = 200 GeV. We find that the fraction of J/psi coming from the feed-down decay of psi' and chi(c) in the midrapidity region (vertical bar y vertical bar < 0: 35) is 9.6 +/- 2.4% and 32 +/- 9%, respectively. We also present the p(T) and rapidity dependencies of the J/psi yield measured via dielectron decay at midrapidity (vertical bar y vertical bar < 0.35) and via dimuon decay at forward rapidity (1.2 < vertical bar y vertical bar < 2.2). The statistical precision greatly exceeds that reported in our previous publication [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 232002 (2007)]. The new results are compared with other experiments and discussed in the context of current charmonium production models.

Search for the associated production of the standard-model Higgs boson in the all-hadronic channel

"We report on a search for the standard-model Higgs boson in pp collisions at s=1.96 TeV using an integrated luminosity of 2.0 fb(-1). We look for production of the Higgs boson decaying to a pair of bottom quarks in association with a vector boson V (W or Z) decaying to quarks, resulting in a four-jet final state. Two of the jets are required to have secondary vertices consistent with B-hadron decays. We set the first 95% confidence level upper limit on the VH production cross section with V(-> qq/qq('))H(-> bb) decay for Higgs boson masses of 100-150 GeV/c(2) using data from run II at the Fermilab Tevatron. For m(H)=120 GeV/c(2), we exclude cross sections larger than 38 times the standard-model prediction."

Search for the associated production of the standard-model Higgs boson in the all-hadronic channel

"We report on a search for the standard-model Higgs boson in pp collisions at s=1.96 TeV using an integrated luminosity of 2.0 fb(-1). We look for production of the Higgs boson decaying to a pair of bottom quarks in association with a vector boson V (W or Z) decaying to quarks, resulting in a four-jet final state. Two of the jets are required to have secondary vertices consistent with B-hadron decays. We set the first 95% confidence level upper limit on the VH production cross section with V(-> qq/qq('))H(-> bb) decay for Higgs boson masses of 100-150 GeV/c(2) using data from run II at the Fermilab Tevatron. For m(H)=120 GeV/c(2), we exclude cross sections larger than 38 times the standard-model prediction."

eta-production on the proton via electromagnetic and hadronic probes

The reactions pi(-)p -> eta n and gamma p -> eta p are investigated within a dynamical coupled-channels model of meson production reactions in the nucleon resonance region The meson-baryon channels included are pi N, pi Delta, sigma N, and rho N The direct eta-photoproduction process is studied within a formalism based on a chiral constituent quark model approach, complemented with a one-gluon-exchange mechanism, to take into account the breakdown of the SU(6)circle times O(3) symmetry In the models search, the following known nucleon resonances are embodied S-11(1535), S-11(1650), P-11(1440), P-11(1710), P-13(1720), D-13(1520), D-13(1700), D-15(1675), and F-15(1680). Data for the pi(-)p -> eta n reaction from threshold up to a total center-of-mass energy of W approximate to 2 GeV are satisfactorily reproduced For the photoproduction channel: two additional higher mass known resonances, P-13(1900) and F-15(2000), are also considered However, reproducing the data for gamma p -> eta p requires, within our approach, two new nucleon resonances, for which we extract, mass and width

Hadronic form factors and the J/psi secondary production cross section: An update

Improving previous calculations, we compute the D + (D) over bar J/psi + pi cross section using the most complete effective Lagrangians available. The new crucial ingredients are the form factors on the charm meson vertices, which are determined from QCD sum rules calculations. Some of them became available only very recently, and the last one, needed for our present purpose, is calculated in this work.

Measurement of the p(p)over-bar -> t(t)over-bar + X production cross section at root s=1.96 TeV in the fully hadronic decay channel

A measurement of the top quark pair production cross section in proton antiproton collisions at an interaction energy of root s=1.96 TeV is presented. This analysis uses 405 +/- 25 pb(-1) of data collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. Fully hadronic t (t) over bar decays with final states of six or more jets are separated from the multijet background using secondary vertex tagging and a neural network. The t (t) over bar cross section is measured as sigma(t (t) over bar)=4.5(-1.9)(+2.0)(stat)(-1.1)(+1.4)(syst)+/- 0.3(lumi) pb for a top quark mass of m(t)=175 GeV/c(2).

Search for anomalous t(t)over-bar production in the highly-boosted all-hadronic final state

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Production of a new generation of leptons in hadronic collisions

The contribution is studied of vector boson fusion processes to the production of a heavy charged lepton accompanied by its neutral partner at multi-TeV hadronic colliders. It is shown that vector boson fusion dominates over the usual quark-antiquark fusion mechanism for a very heavy lepton and high energies. © 1986.

Measurement of the hadronic activity in events with a Z and two jets and extraction of the cross section for the electroweak production of a Z with two jets in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O (alpha 4 s) loop-by-loop contributions to heavy quark pair production in hadronic collisions

The present state of the theoretical predictions for the hadronic heavy hadron production is not quite satisfactory. The full next-to-leading order (NLO) ${cal O} (alpha_s^3)$ corrections to the hadroproduction of heavy quarks have raised the leading order (LO) ${cal O} (alpha_s^2)$ estimates but the NLO predictions are still slightly below the experimental numbers. Moreover, the theoretical NLO predictions suffer from the usual large uncertainty resulting from the freedom in the choice of renormalization and factorization scales of perturbative QCD.In this light there are hopes that a next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) ${cal O} (alpha_s^4)$ calculation will bring theoretical predictions even closer to the experimental data. Also, the dependence on the factorization and renormalization scales of the physical process is expected to be greatly reduced at NNLO. This would reduce the theoretical uncertainty and therefore make the comparison between theory and experiment much more significant. In this thesis I have concentrated on that part of NNLO corrections for hadronic heavy quark production where one-loop integrals contribute in the form of a loop-by-loop product. In the first part of the thesis I use dimensional regularization to calculate the ${cal O}(ep^2)$ expansion of scalar one-loop one-, two-, three- and four-point integrals. The Laurent series of the scalar integrals is needed as an input for the calculation of the one-loop matrix elements for the loop-by-loop contributions. Since each factor of the loop-by-loop product has negative powers of the dimensional regularization parameter $ep$ up to ${cal O}(ep^{-2})$, the Laurent series of the scalar integrals has to be calculated up to ${cal O}(ep^2)$. The negative powers of $ep$ are a consequence of ultraviolet and infrared/collinear (or mass ) divergences. Among the scalar integrals the four-point integrals are the most complicated. The ${cal O}(ep^2)$ expansion of the three- and four-point integrals contains in general classical polylogarithms up to ${rm Li}_4$ and $L$-functions related to multiple polylogarithms of maximal weight and depth four. All results for the scalar integrals are also available in electronic form. In the second part of the thesis I discuss the properties of the classical polylogarithms. I present the algorithms which allow one to reduce the number of the polylogarithms in an expression. I derive identities for the $L$-functions which have been intensively used in order to reduce the length of the final results for the scalar integrals. I also discuss the properties of multiple polylogarithms. I derive identities to express the $L$-functions in terms of multiple polylogarithms. In the third part I investigate the numerical efficiency of the results for the scalar integrals. The dependence of the evaluation time on the relative error is discussed. In the forth part of the thesis I present the larger part of the ${cal O}(ep^2)$ results on one-loop matrix elements in heavy flavor hadroproduction containing the full spin information. The ${cal O}(ep^2)$ terms arise as a combination of the ${cal O}(ep^2)$ results for the scalar integrals, the spin algebra and the Passarino-Veltman decomposition. The one-loop matrix elements will be needed as input in the determination of the loop-by-loop part of NNLO for the hadronic heavy flavor production.

Measurement of tt ̄production cross section at 13 TeV in the fully-hadronic channel with CMS

Lo scopo di questa tesi è la misura di sezione d’urto di produzione di coppie top-antitop nel canale adronico. Per la misura sono stati utilizzati i dati raccolti dall’esperimento CMS in collisioni protone-protone ad LHC, con un’energia nel centro di massa pari a 13 TeV. Il campione di dati utilizzato corrisponde ad una luminosità integrata di 2.474 f b^ −1 . L’analisi dati inizia selezionando gli eventi che soddisfano determinate condizioni (e.g. trigger, tagli cinematici, sei o più jet, almeno 2 jet provenienti dall’adronizzazione di due quark bottom) con lo scopo di incrementare la purezza del segnale scartando il più possibile gli eventi di fondo. A seguire, viene ricostruita la massa del quark top usando un fit cinematico. Sulle distribuzioni di tale massa si basa la stima degli eventi di fondo e di segnale. Infine, attraverso un fit di verosimiglianza, si ottiene il valore della sezione d’urto: σ t t ̄ = 893 ± 57 (stat) ± 104 (syst) pb. Questo risultato è in buon accordo con il valore teorico di 832 pb e con altre misure di CMS effettuate in canali differenti.

Search for direct pair production of the top squark in all-hadronic final states in proton-proton collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for direct pair production of the scalar partner to the top quark using an integrated luminosity of 20.1fb−1 of proton-proton collision data at s√=8 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. The top squark is assumed to decay via t~→tχ~01 or t~→bχ~±1→bW(∗)χ~01, where χ~01 (χ~±1) denotes the lightest neutralino (chargino) in supersymmetric models. The search targets a fully-hadronic final state in events with four or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No significant excess over the Standard Model background prediction is observed, and exclusion limits are reported in terms of the top squark and neutralino masses and as a function of the branching fraction of t~→tχ~01. For a branching fraction of 100%, top squark masses in the range 270-645 GeV are excluded for χ~01 masses below 30 GeV. For a branching fraction of 50% to either t~→tχ~01 or t~→bχ~±1, and assuming the χ~±1 mass to be twice the χ~01 mass, top squark masses in the range 250-550 GeV are excluded for χ~01 masses below 60 GeV.

Measurement of the top quark mass and pp̅ →tt̅ cross section in the all-hadronic mode with the CDF II detector

We present a measurement of the top quark mass and of the top-antitop pair production cross section using p-pbar data collected with the CDFII detector at the Tevatron Collider at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.9 fb-1. We select events with six or more jets satisfying a number of kinematical requirements imposed by means of a neural network algorithm. At least one of these jets must originate from a b quark, as identified by the reconstruction of a secondary vertex inside the jet. The mass measurement is based on a likelihood fit incorporating reconstructed mass distributions representative of signal and background, where the absolute jet energy scale (JES) is measured simultaneously with the top quark mass. The measurement yields a value of 174.8 +- 2.4(stat+JES) ^{+1.2}_{-1.0}(syst) GeV/c^2, where the uncertainty from the absolute jet energy scale is evaluated together with the statistical uncertainty. The procedure measures also the amount of signal from which we derive a cross section, sigma_{ttbar} = 7.2 +- 0.5(stat) +- 1.0 (syst) +- 0.4 (lum) pb, for the measured values of top quark mass and JES.

Search for single top quark production in pp̅ collisions at √s=1.96 TeV in the missing transverse energy plus jets topology

We report a search for single top quark production with the CDF II detector using 2.1 fb-1 of integrated luminosity of pbar p collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. The data selected consist of events characterized by large energy imbalance in the transverse plane and hadronic jets, and no identified electrons and muons, so the sample is enriched in W -> tau nu decays. In order to suppress backgrounds, additional kinematic and topological requirements are imposed through a neural network, and at least one of the jets must be identified as a b-quark jet. We measure an excess of signal-like events in agreement with the standard model prediction, but inconsistent with a model without single top quark production by 2.1 standard deviations (sigma), with a median expected sensitivity of 1.4 sigma. Assuming a top quark mass of 175 GeV/c2 and ascribing the excess to single top quark production, the cross section is measured to be 4.9+2.5-2.2(stat+syst)pb, consistent with measurements performed in independent datasets and with the standard model prediction.

First Observation of Vector Boson Pairs in a Hadronic Final State at the Tevatron Collider

We present the first observation in hadronic collisions of the electroweak production of vector boson pairs (VV, V=W, Z) where one boson decays to a dijet final state. The data correspond to 3.5  fb-1 of integrated luminosity of pp̅ collisions at √s=1.96  TeV collected by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. We observe 1516±239(stat)±144(syst) diboson candidate events and measure a cross section σ(pp̅ →VV+X) of 18.0±2.8(stat)±2.4(syst)±1.1(lumi)  pb, in agreement with the expectations of the standard model.