Bulletin of the American Physical Society
78th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the APS
Volume 56, Number 9
Wednesday–Saturday, October 19–22, 2011; Roanoke, Virginia
Session DB: Particle Physics I |
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Chair: Brad Cox, University of Virginia Room: Crystal Ballroom B |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 1:30PM - 1:42PM |
DB.00001: Analyzing Potential Tracking Algorithms for the Upgrade to the Silicon Tracker of the Compact Muon Solenoid John Hardin, Kevin McDermott The research performed revolves around creating tracking algorithms for the proposed ten-year upgrade to the tracker for CMS, one of two main detectors for the LHC at CERN. The proposed upgrade to the tracker for CMS will use fast hardware to trace particle trajectories so that they can be used immediately in a trigger system. The additional information will be combined with other sub-detectors in CMS, enabling mostly the non-background events to be read-out by the detector. The algorithms would be implemented directly into the Level-1 trigger, the first trigger in a 2 trigger system, to be used in real time. Specifically, by analyzing computer generated stable particles over various ranges of transverse momentum and the tracks they produce, we created and tested various simulated trigger algorithms that might be used in hardware. As one algorithm has proved very effective, the next step is to test this algorithm against simulated events with an environment equivalent to SLHC luminosities. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 1:42PM - 1:54PM |
DB.00002: Improving the Trigger Efficiency for the WH-lvbb analysis at the CDF experiment Hao Liu At CDF, we search for the associated production of a Higgs boson and a W boson, where the Higgs boson decays into a b + anti-b quark pair and the W boson decays into a lepton and the corresponding neutrino. Events are selected with a signature of a lepton, large missing transvers energy, and two or three jets. At CDF, events are selected by a variety of triggers, and those triggers are divided into several streams based on the types of requirements of the trigger. Traditionally, in the WH analysis we only use some of triggers, because the trigger efficiency can be calculated easily under those circumstances. In this presentation, we will describe two new triggers to select leptons and will demonstrate a new method to calculate the trigger efficiency. We will use a neural network to calculate the efficiency for the event to be triggered by an entire trigger stream, disregarding each individual trigger. In this way, we can maximize the acceptance of events selected. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 1:54PM - 2:06PM |
DB.00003: Study of the Sensitivity of Plastic Scintillators to Fast Neutrons David Abbott The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab plans to use a two-out-of-three coincident requirement in a plastic scintillator based detector to veto cosmic ray events. This veto system must operate efficiently in a high-radiation environment. In this investigation, three plastic scintillator bars containing wavelength-shifting fibers represent the veto system. These bars were placed together, in series, in front of a deuterium-deuterium neutron generator, which produced fast neutrons of approximately 2.8MeV, in order to study the sensitivity of the plastic scintillators to fast neutrons. Multi-anode photomultiplier tubes read out the light from the fibers. The collected data was analyzed to determine the rate of interaction, approximate amount of energy deposited, and numerous other aspects of the neutrons' interactions. The rate of coincidental and correlated hits in multiple scintillator bars was the primary reason for the investigation, in order to understand the sensitivity of the plastic scintillators to fast neutrons. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:06PM - 2:18PM |
DB.00004: Geometrical Standard Model Enhancements to the Standard Model of Particle Physics Ken Strickland, Michael DuVernois The Standard Model (SM) is the triumph of our age. As experimentation at the LHC tracks particles for the Higgs phenomena, theoreticians and experimentalist struggle to close in on a cohesive theory. Both suffer greatly as expectation waivers those who seek to move beyond the SM and those who cannot do without. When it seems like there are no more good ideas enter Rate Change Graph Technology (RCGT). From the science of the rate change graph, a Geometrical Standard Model (GSM) is available for comprehensive modeling, giving rich new sources of data and pathways to those ultimate answers we punish ourselves to achieve. As a new addition to science, GSM is a tool that provides a structured discovery and analysis environment. By eliminating value and size, RCGT operates with the rules of RCGT mechanics creating solutions derived from geometry. The GSM rate change graph could be the ultimate validation of the Standard Model yet. In its own right, GSM is created from geometrical intersections and comes with RCGT mechanics, yet parallels the SM to offer critical enhancements. The Higgs Objects along with a host of new objects are introduced to the SM and their positions revealed in this proposed modification to the SM. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:18PM - 2:30PM |
DB.00005: Holographic Real-Time Finite-Temperature 3-Point Correlators and Their Applications on Second Order Hydrodynamics Chaolun Wu, Diana Vaman, Peter Arnold, Edwin Barnes, Wei Xiao We built up a complete real-time prescription for calculating n- point correlators of finite-temperature conformal field theory operators using holography. We found it amounts to integrating only the right quadrant of the black hole, and then adapting the finite temperature analog of Veltman's circling rules to gravity tree-level diagrams to calculate correlators. We constructed a complete mapping between the real-time finite- temperature field theory and its real-time dual supergravity description. We subjected our prescription to several checks. We gave, for the first time, concrete formulas for all real- time 3-point correlators. We applied the above to study second order hydrodynamics in 4-d conformal field theories. We derived Kubo relations for second order transport coefficients in terms of 3-point stress tensor retarded correlators. For N=4 super Yang-Mills theory at strong coupling and finite temperature we computed these stress tensor 3-point correlators using AdS/CFT. The small momentum expansion of the 3-point correlators in terms of transport coefficients is matched with AdS result and the coefficients are retrieved consitently. Our method allows for a unified treatment of hydrodynamic coefficients and can be systematically generalized to higher order hydrodynamics. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:30PM - 2:42PM |
DB.00006: Constructing a two scintillator paddle telescope for cosmic ray flux measurements David Camp, Xiaohang Zhang, Carola Butler, Mathes Dayananda, Xiaochun He The evolution of the Earth's climate is of growing concern. There is evidence of a causal relationship between cosmic ray muon flux and cloud cover and it is expected that long term variations in cosmic ray flux may influence Earth's temperature changes [1]. It has been observed that a muon telescope with a variable angular acceptance at Earth's surface can be used to study correlations between flux distribution and barometric pressure. The muon flux from the cosmic ray particles positively correlates with seasonal temperature variations and anti-correlates with pressure variations [2]. In this talk, the construction of a new two scintillator paddle telescope prototype will be presented along with preliminary results from this detector.\\[4pt] [1] Henrik Svensmark, Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth's Climate, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 22 (1998). \\ [0pt][2] Serap Tilav, Paolo Desiati, Takao Kumwabara, Dominick Rocco, Florian Rothmaier, Matt Simmons, and Henrik Wissing, ``Atmospheric Variations as Observed by IceCude,'' Proceedings of the 31st ICRC, 2009. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:42PM - 2:54PM |
DB.00007: Correlation study of atmospheric weather and cosmic ray flux variation Mathes Dayananda, Xiaochun He There is at present a great debate about the causes of the changing climate of the Earth. In recent years, there has been a growing interest of understanding the effects of cosmic ray radiation on the increase in average global temperature. The studies by Svensmark, show that there is a strong link between cosmic rays and low cloud coverage [1]. Very recently, Lu reported that there is a correlation between cosmic rays and ozone depletion over Antarctica [2]. At Georgia State University (GSU) we are working on a long-term measurement of secondary cosmic ray flux distribution and are focusing on studying the correlations among variations of cosmic ray flux and atmospheric/space weather. In this presentation, we will describe the cosmic ray flux detectors currently taking data at GSU and show the preliminary results from our measurements over the past two years. \\[4pt] [1] Nigel D. March and Henrik Svensmark, Low Cloud Properties Influenced by Cosmic Rays, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 23 (2000). \\[0pt] [2] Q.-B. Lu, Correlation between Cosmic Rays and Ozone Depletion, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 118501 (2009). [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 20, 2011 2:54PM - 3:06PM |
DB.00008: The Double Chooz Experiment Brandon White Double Chooz is a reactor antineutrino experiment probing the non-vanishing value of the neutrino mixing angle $\Theta _{13}$. The experiment is searching for antineutrino disappearance from nuclear reactors located in northeastern France. The Double Chooz concept is to deploy two identical detectors. One detector near to the reactor cores to measure the flux of electron antineutrinos and one detector at a distance from the reactors to measure the disappearance of electron antineutrinos due to oscillations. The far detector began data taking in the spring of 2011 and the near detector will be installed in 2012. Double Chooz has the opportunity of sensitivity for probing sin$^{2}$(2$\Theta _{13})$ to 0.03 (90{\%}CL) with both detectors running. [Preview Abstract] |
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