S C I P P
S E M I N A R S


ARCHIVE FALL QUARTER 2007
Last updated: 01/07/08
 

SPECIAL DAY: Friday, October 5th, 10:30am
Location: ISB 310
Heavy flavour QCD at the Tevatron
Speaker: Dr. Alison Lister (UC Davis)
A brief introduction to the Tevatron accelerator facilities at 
Fermilab will be followed by an overview of the CDF detector. The 
importance of understanding QCD processes will be stressed through 
the presentation of recent CDF measurements. The main focus will be 
on a selection of heavy flavour measurements through which the 
importance of understanding Monte Carlo simulation methods will be 
emphasised.
 

Tuesday, October 16th, 10:30am

Location: ISB 310
Improved Proton-Proton Modeling for Astrophysics and Applications
Speaker: Niklas Karlsson

Recent X-ray observations of SNR RXJ1713-3946 with Chandra and 
Suzako show strong evidence for magnetic field amplification in the 
shock fronts; a crucial element for cosmic ray acceleration. This 
gives support for hadronic modeling of the TeV gamma ray emission; 
gamma rays due to decays of neutral pion produced by the 
interactions of accelerated cosmic rays and interstellar matter. It 
is therefore of great importance to have an accurate model 
describing the interaction and the subsequent production of gamma 
rays. The models used by astrophysicists have until very recently 
been based on scaling models known to be incorrect. In this talk, a 
new proton-proton interaction model is presented that incorporates 
all the latest knowledge of the interaction, including scaling 
violation, a logarithmically rising inelastic cross section and 
diffraction dissociation. The results of Monte Carlo simulations 
based on this new interaction model has been parameterized to 
facilitate fast and accurate calculations in astrophysical 
applications. The parameterization is explained and some 
applications of its used are shown; calculation of Galactic diffuse 
emission, estimate on cosmic-ray flux in a close-by galaxy, the 
Large Magellanic Cloud, and a toy jet model.

 
Tuesday, October 23rd, 10:30am
Location: ISB 310
Electron Acceleration in Solar Flares: X-Ray Observations
Speaker: Sam Krucker (Space Sciences Lab, University of California, Berkeley)
X-ray observations reveal that solar flares are efficiently 
accelerating electrons up to relativistic energies. The acceleration mechanisms, 
however, are not understood. The observed X-ray emissions are 
produced by collisions between flare-accelerated electrons and the 
ambient plasma (i.e. non-thermal bremsstrahlung emission). As the bremsstrahlung 
mechanism is well understood, X-ray observations are excellent 
diagnostics of electron acceleration in solar flares providing 
quantitative measurements such as spectral shape and energy content 
in flare-accelerated electrons.

After an extensive introduction, I will review recent observational 
results obtained by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Spectroscopic 
Imager (RHESSI), a NASA small explorer mission, and I will describe 
desired future instrumentation.
 
Tuesday, October 30th, 10:30am
Location: ISB 310
Discriminating Spin Through Quantum Interference
Speaker: Matthew Buckley
Many of the proposed solutions to the hierarchy and naturalness 
problems postulate new 'partner' fields to the standard model 
particles. Determining the spins of these new particles will be 
critical in distinguishing among the various possible SM 
extensions, yet such determinations will be challenging even for an 
ILC. We propose a new model-independent method for spin 
measurements which takes advantage of quantum interference among 
helicity states. We demonstrate that this method will be able to 
discriminate scalar particles from higher spin states at the ILC, 
and discuss application to higher spins and possible uses at the LHC.
 

Tuesday, November 6th, 10:30am
Location: ISB 310
Science and Instrumentation of NeXT Mission: Next Generation X-ray Satellite Mission
Speaker: Hiro Tajima (SLAC)

The NeXT (New X-ray Telescope/Non-thermal Energy eXploration 
Telescope) mission has been proposed in Japan as a successor to the 
Suzaku mission. Two major scientific objectives include: study of 
dark energy through structure formation history and study of the 
high-energy non-thermal Universe (particle acceleration). The 
instrument design of the NeXT satellite is optimized to achieve the 
above science goals: a high resolution spectrometer (SXS) with an 
energy resolution better than 7 eV at iron, two hard X-ray imagers 
(HXI) with hard X-ray telescopes (HXTs) to achieve two orders of 
magnitudes of sensitivity improvement in the energy range from 10 
keV up to 80 keV, two soft gamma-ray detectors (SGDs) with one 
order of magnitude better sensitivity in the 10-300 keV energy 
band, in addition to a soft X-ray telescope (SXT)/soft X-ray imager 
(SXI) for modest spectroscopy/imaging in the 0.1-10 keV energy 
band. The continuum sensitivity of the mission will reach several 
x10^(-8) photons/s/keV/cm^2 in the hard X-ray region and a few x 10^ (-7)
photons/s/keV/cm^(2) in the soft gamma-ray region. Recently, the NeXT mission
is approved by ISAS/JAXA for phase-A study.
I will describe the science of the NeXT mission followed by the 
development of Si/CdTe detectors and ASICs (Application Specific 
Integrated Circuits) for HXI/SGD.

 
Tuesday, November 13th, 10:30am
Location: ISB 310
Title: Topic: Prospects for exotic physics at BaBar
Speaker: Art Snyder (SLAC)

The talk will be on searching for Higgs and
other exotica at BaBar. I'll consider production
in B-decay, Upsilon decay and from the e+e- continuum.
I'll also cover the implications of the 511 KeV line
from the Galactic center and speculate on the possiblity
of collecting a substantial number of 3S decays during
BaBar's last run.
 
SPECIAL DAY & TIME: Monday, November 26th, 11:30am - 1:00pm
Location: ISB 310
MSSM-like Models from Strings
Speaker: Akin Wingerter
We first highlight some of the (theoretical) shortcomings of the
Standard Model, and then consider hints at physics beyond the
electroweak scale. Grand Unification and theories in extra dimensions
are motivated, and string orbifolds are introduced as ultraviolet
completions of these theories. We present a general search strategy
for MSSM-like models based on a local SO(10) Grand Unified Theory. The
results of our search include 15 models with (i) 3 families of quarks
and leptons, (ii) only vectorlike exotics that decouple along D- and
F-flat directions, (iii) an exact R-parity, (iv) non-trivial Yukawa
matrices, (v) mass hierarchies. [Based on arXiv:0708.2691]
 
Tuesday, December 4th, 10:30am
Location: ISB 310
Title: Supersymmetry searches with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC
Speaker: Sven Vahsen (LBNL)

In less than one year from now the LHC may produce its first proton-proton collisions.Due to the large increase in sqrt(s) with respect to existing colliders, the LHC opens up a large window to new physics. Supersymmetry (SUSY) is one of the most exciting possibilities for what we might discover at the LHC, and the discovery could happen early on. I will give an overview of recent SUSY work in the ATLAS collaboration, focused on what can be done with early data.