Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2005 7th Annual Meeting of the Northwest Section
Friday–Saturday, May 13–14, 2005; Victoria, BC, Canada
Session G2: Particles II |
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Chair: Paul Poffenberger, University of Victoria Room: MacLaurin D101 |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 2:00PM - 2:36PM |
G2.00001: Search for Lepton-Flavor Violation in Tau Decays at BaBar Invited Speaker: With a data sample of nearly 250 million tau-pair events recorded, BaBar also operates as a tau factory. Recent results on searches for lepton flavor violation and lepton number violation in the decays $\tau^-\to\mu^- \gamma$, $\tau^-\to\ell^-\ell^+\ell^-$ and $\tau^-\to\ell^\mp h^\pm h^-$ will be presented. Results on rare hadronic tau decays such as tau decays to five or seven charged hadrons will be reviewed, and related results from the Belle collaboration will also be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 2:36PM - 2:48PM |
G2.00002: Study of the performance of the BaBar Detector using the $e^+e^-\to \varphi \gamma$ control sample Nasim Boustani BaBar uses control samples to study the detector behaviors, since their properties are well defined. A study of the energy deposited in the calorimeter will be presented using the control sample $e^+e^-\to \varphi \gamma ,\varphi \to K^+K^-$. This study includes a comparison between data and Monte Carlo to see how well the behavior is simulated. A study of the kaon identification efficiency will also be shown. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 2:48PM - 3:00PM |
G2.00003: Superconducting Strings in an Unusual Environment Max Metlitski It is well known that fermion zero modes concentrated in the core of a topological defect can endow the defect with highly nontrivial physical properties. A particular example of this phenomenon due to Witten, is the so-called string superconductivity, when an application of an electric field along the string leads to an appearance of a persistent current in the string direction. In this talk, I will show that a current along the string can also be induced by placing the string in an environment with a non-zero fermion chemical potential and temperature. The resulting current is exactly calculable and topological in nature. I will also discuss how the interest in this problem was motivated by the study of topological defects in dense quark matter, which might be realized in the interiors of neutron stars. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 3:00PM - 3:25PM |
G2.00004: COFFEE BREAK
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Saturday, May 14, 2005 3:25PM - 3:37PM |
G2.00005: Confronting CPT Symmetry with Atomic Antihydrogen Makoto Fujiwara A long-term goal of antihydrogen research is precision tests of CPT and other symmetries between matter and antimatter, via precise comparisons of their properties. Any violations of these fundamental symmetries imply new physics at a very high energy scale, e.g., the Plank scale. The ATHENA experiment, located at CERN's Antiproton Decelerator, produced the first cold antihydrogen in 2002, establishing an important milestone towards the ultimate goal. The ATHENA data taking has been completed, and we are developing a second generation experiment, ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) with the aim of stably trapping cold antihydrogen atoms. After briefly reviewing ATHENA's achievements, I will present an overview of the ALPHA experiment, with an emphasis on its detection system using Si vertex detector. I will also discuss the prospects of Canadian participation in this exciting new project. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 3:37PM - 3:49PM |
G2.00006: Search for Rare Decays in the TWIST Muon Decay Spectrum Ryan Bayes The main objective of TWIST is to measure the muon decay parameters, with a greater precision than previous measurements, using the shape of the muon decay spectrum. However, it is possible to extract additional physics from the experimental data, for example, the search for rare or forbidden muon decay channels. This presentation will focus on a search for isotropic structures within the muon decay spectrum which may reveal the presence of the lepton number violating decay $\mu^{+} \rightarrow e^{+} X^{0}$ employing greater statistics than any previous experiment. The method described uses the Feldman-Cousins approach to define an acceptance region for a mass dependent branching ratio. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 3:49PM - 4:01PM |
G2.00007: Higgs-free symmetry breaking mechanism from the complex dynamics of Levy flows Ervin Goldfain Using the statistical model of Levy flows, we derive the following Higgs-free formula for gauge boson masses: \[ m_{W(Z)} =\frac{G_F^{-\raise0.7ex\hbox{$1$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {1 4}}\right.\kern-\nulldelimiterspace}\!\lower0.7ex\hbox{$4$}} }{2\sqrt {2\pi } }\sqrt {\frac{\gamma \Gamma _{W,(Z)} }{\alpha _{self,W(Z)} }} \] where $\gamma$ denotes the damping parameter associated with the dynamics of the flow, $G_F $ is the Fermi constant and $\Gamma _{W(Z)} $ represents the decay width of the $W(Z)$ boson, respectively. The self-interaction strength $\alpha _{self,W(Z)} $ takes on two possible values, $\alpha _{self} =\alpha _2 $ for $Z^0$and $\alpha _{self} =\alpha _2 +\alpha _{EM} $ for $W^+,W^-$. Here, $\alpha _2 $ is the weak isospin strength and $\alpha _{EM} $ is the fine structure constant. From this formula, we predict \[ m_{W^\pm } =78.4GeV, \quad m_{Z^0} =91.7GeV \] These values are in good agreement with experimental data ($m_W^{\exp } =80.46GeV$,$m_Z^{\exp } =91.19GeV)$. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, May 14, 2005 4:01PM - 4:13PM |
G2.00008: Generalizing the Dirac Equation with Clifford Algebra Carl Brannen Our objective is to look for a unified field theory by generalizing the linear Dirac equation to a nonlinear, multi-particle wave equation using Clifford Algebra. Since the $\gamma^\mu$ matrices are familiar to all physicists, we will use this notation. We begin by generalizing the Dirac equation from one where matrix operators operate on vectors to one where the same matrix operators instead operate on matrices, thereby providing a multi-particle linear wave equation. Finding the nilpotent $\{ \eta_n \}$ structure (spectral decomposition) of an algebra allows a nonlinear wave equation to be broken up into interacting linear waves. The resulting quantum numbers will suggest that the Weyl spinors, or massless chiral fermions (as used in weak interaction theory) are composite particles each made up of triplets of $\eta_n$. In order to break symmetry, we will modify $\gamma^\mu$ to $c_\alpha^{-1} \gamma^\mu c_\alpha$ where $\alpha$ is a parameterization of the values that preserve the Klein-Gordon equations. We will speculate that the binding potential is given by $|\beta_n\eta_n|^2$, where $\beta_n$ is a phase, and show that with $c_\alpha = 1$, there are no bound states. Finally, we will examine the spectrum of bound states of $\eta_n$ and indicate future efforts. [Preview Abstract] |
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