Accelerator Neutrinos

Abstract:

A study of event-shape observables in proton-antiproton collisions at √s=1.96TeV is presented. The data for this analysis were recorded by the CDF II Detector at the Tevatron Collider. The variables studied are the transverse thrust and thrust minor, both defined in the plane perpendicular to the beam direction. The observables are measured using energies from unclustered calorimeter cells. In addition to studies of the differential distributions, we present the dependence of event-shape mean values on the leading-jet transverse energy. Data are compared with pythia Tune A and to resummed parton-level predictions that were matched to fixed-order results at next-to-leading-order (NLO) accuracy (NLO+NLL). Predictions from pythia Tune A agree fairly well with the data. However, the underlying event contributes significantly to these observables, making it difficult to make direct comparisons to the NLO+NLL predictions, which do not account for the underlying event. To overcome this difficulty, we introduce a new observable, a weighted difference of the mean values of the thrust and thrust minor, which is less sensitive to the underlying event, allowing for a comparison with NLO+NLL. Both pythia Tune A and the NLO+NLL calculations agree well within the 20% theoretical uncertainty with the data for this observable, indicating that perturbative QCD successfully describes shapes of the hadronic final states. © 2011 American Physical Society.

Abstract:

We report on the first measurement of the angular distributions of final state electrons in pp̄→γ*/Z→e +e-+X events produced in the Z boson mass region at √s=1.96TeV. The data sample collected by the CDF II detector for this result corresponds to 2.1fb-1 of integrated luminosity. The angular distributions are studied as a function of the transverse momentum of the electron-positron pair and show good agreement with the Lam-Tung relation, consistent with a spin-1 description of the gluon, and demonstrate that, at high values of the transverse momentum, Z bosons are produced via quark-antiquark annihilation and quark-gluon Compton processes. © 2011 American Physical Society.

Abstract:

The T2K experiment observes indications of $\nu_\mu\rightarrow \nu_e$ appearance in data accumulated with $1.43\times10^{20}$ protons on target. Six events pass all selection criteria at the far detector. In a three-flavor neutrino oscillation scenario with $|\Delta m_{23}^2|=2.4\times10^{-3}$ eV$^2$, $\sin^2 2\theta_{23}=1$ and $\sin^2 2\theta_{13}=0$, the expected number of such events is 1.5$\pm$0.3(syst.). Under this hypothesis, the probability to observe six or more candidate events is 7$\times10^{-3}$, equivalent to 2.5$\sigma$ significance. At 90% C.L., the data are consistent with 0.03(0.04)$<\sin^2 2\theta_{13}<$ 0.28(0.34) for $\delta_{\rm CP}=0$ and a normal (inverted) hierarchy.