Previous Experimental Particle Physics Seminars

2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, and 1997
Back to current year

Seminars in 2008 (spring/summer

Friday January 11 1:30pm
Dr. Dmitri Tsbychev
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Looking for new physics in the Bs-meson system
Slides (pdf)
The D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron collider has collected large samples of hadronic and semileptonic decays of Bs mesons, in which comprehensive studies were performed to search for evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. We present the latest results on the measurement of mixing parameter dMs and the width difference between heavy and light Bs-meson states as well the latest results on indirect CP violation in the Bs meson system at D0.

Thursday January 17 1:30pm
Dr. Chunhui Chen
University of Maryland
The Measurement of CP Violation Parameter Beta and Search for the New Physics from Babar Experiment
Slides (pdf)
In the Standard Model, quark mass, their mixing and CP violation have a common origin, the spontaneous electroweak symmetry breaking due to the Higgs boson. Studying CP violation and flavor-changing interactions not only probes the electroweak scale, but also provides an excellent laboratory for us to search new physics beyond the Standard Model. In this talk, I will present the most recent measurements of CP violation in the B meson decays from Babar experiment. The main focus of the talk will be the determination of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) phase: beta. I will also discuss the implication of the results of CP violation in B decays for the Standard Model and some of its extension.

Tuesday January 22 1:30pm
Dr. Eliot Lipeles
University of California, San Diego
The Search for the Higgs and Diboson Production at the Energy Frontier
Slides (pdf)
At the core of the standard model of particle physics is the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. The key ingredient of this mechanism, the Higgs boson, has yet to be seen. I present a search for the Higgs decay to the WW final state and measurements diboson production which is sensitive to the electroweak symmetry breaking predictions for the couplings between gauge bosons.

Thursday January 24 1:30pm
Dr. Florencia Canelli
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Towards an understanding of electroweak symmetry breaking
Slides (pdf)
The top quark offers a powerful window to understanding physics at the electroweak scale. Through the precision measurement of its mass, we are directed to the mass of the Higgs boson, the physical manifestation of the standard model explanation for electroweak symmetry breaking. Through its single-top production, as opposed to the more common QCD production, we learn about electroweak production of the heaviest quark, and we provide a stepping stone to Higgs boson production in the same topology. Through study of the top quark decay couplings, we test for new higher energy scale deviations from the standard model electroweak interaction. In this talk, I will highlight the rich physics of the top quark, and its significance in understanding electroweak scale physics.

Tuesday January 29 1:30pm
Dr. Alexandre Telnov
Princeton University
Recent progress in CP violation: New Physics under siege
Slides (pdf)
Just eight years ago, the dominant role of the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism of CP violation in low-energy flavor-changing processes was merely a credible hypothesis. Started in 1999, the asymmetric B-meson factories at SLAC and KEK rapidly established CP violation as one of the inalienable features of the Standard Model (SM) through the study of the B0 decays driven by the tree-level b -> c c-bar s transition. Then, they took advantage of their spectacular success in reaching luminosities well above the design values by unleashing an attack on the SM of unprecedented breadth, precision and vigor.
Indeed, nearly all SM extensions provide multiple new sources of CP and flavor violation, which in general could lead to significant deviations from SM predictions in B-meson decays. Particularly sensitive to New Physics are the processes driven by flavor-changing neutral currents (FCNCs), which are strongly suppressed in the SM by the small CKM angles and the GIM mechanism; various SM extensions would require highly specialized flavor structures to achieve similarly effective FCNC suppression. Any statistically significant deviation from the SM predictions would mean the end of Standard Model's reign; lack thereof provides unique information about TeV-scale physics and, with the increasing precision of B-factory measurements, greatly constrains the parameter spaces of the favorite SM extensions.
A brief historical and theoretical introduction to CP violation and its significance to cosmology will be followed by a review of the experimental techniques employed at B-meson factories to make precise measurements of CP-violating quantities and to search for signs of physics beyond the SM. We will review the measurements performed by the BaBar and Belle experiments where CP violation has been firmly established, and discuss how recent advances in harnessing the full particle-identification power of the BaBar detector have helped pave the way to the observation of CP violation in the time distribution of B0 -> pi+pi- decays and direct CP violation in B0 -> K+pi-. In conclusion, we will recap the current experimental status of CP violation and the Standard Model, and take a glimpse at their future.

Tuesday February 5 1:30pm
Dr. Andy Haas
Columbia University
The Search for the SM Higgs Boson at D0
Slides (pdf)
Discovery of the Higgs boson would verify the final piece of the Standard Model. The Higgs boson is needed to explain how the W and Z bosons of the weak force acquire mass and to consistently give masses to the fermions. Using the D0 detector at the Fermilab accelerator, our group is progressing in our hunt for this elusive new particle. Particular decay channels will be highlighted, and some of the advanced analysis methods and tools developed for the search will be discussed in detail. Finally, the projected sensitivity for the next two years and a few techniques that will help to achieve this sensitivity will be shown.

Tuesday 25 March 1:30pm
Dr. Vadim Rusu
Wilson Fellow at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
From Collisions to Publication: A Higgs Story (Slides pdf)
For more than 30 years the Standard Model of Particle Physics provided a solid framework for explaining the experimental observations of the last decades. A fundamental piece is missing and that is the origin of mass. Within the Standard Model, the mass of fundamental particles is given by their interaction with the Higgs field. The quanta of this field is the Higgs boson. The experimental observation of the Higgs particle is an essential part of our particle physics program and may provide us with clues about new physics beyond the realm of the Standard Model. I will show the experimental progress towards this goal at CDF, one of the two experiments at Tevatron, the world's largest collider currently in operation. The presentation will overview all aspects of this progress, from detector and data collection improvements to new analysis strategies.

Tuesday 1 April 1:30pm
Dr. Chris Neu
University of Pennsylvania
Measurement of W+b-jets at CDF (pdf)

Tuesday 15 April 1:30pm
Dr. Anadi Canepa
University of Pennsylvania
Tau leptons at CDF (pdf)
Tau leptons are unique in the Standard Model. Thanks to a large coupling to the Higgs boson, they might shed light on the electroweak symmetry breaking. Tau leptons are also an exciting window into New Physics. SUSY predicts abundance of taus in charged Higgs decays. Taus processes are enriched in Right-Left Symmetric Models with double charged Higgs, while new massive gauge bosons can undergo lepton flavor violating decays. CDF established its tau reconstruction technique measuring the W → τ ν and Z → τ⁺ τ^- cross sections and it is now exploring the pp collisions at Tevatron looking for new phenomena. The challenge of reconstructing taus at hadron colliders and the latest results of tau physics at CDF are reported.

Thursday 17 April 4pm Room A8
Emeritus Professor James Cronin
University of Chicago
Study of the Highest Energy Cosmic Rays with the Pierre Auger Observatory

Tuesday 22 April 1:30pm
Professor Joe Boudreau
University of Pittsburgh
sin 2 β_s at CDF
While CP violation in B⁰ and B⁺ decays has been extensively investigated at B-factories over the last decade, corresponding knowlege in the B⁰_s system has been lacking. B⁰_s mesons, which are not produced in B factories at the Upsilon(4S) are produced with large cross section at the Tevatron collider. Following the measurement of the B⁰_s to B⁰_s oscillation frequency in 2006, the CDF experiment has now investigated CP asymmetries in B⁰_s meson decays. We report on the very first flavor-tagged analysis of about 2,000 B⁰_s decays to J/ψ φ, reconstructed in 1.35/fb of data. This channel is sensitive not only to the width difference Delta Γ in the B⁰_s system but also to to β_s, the angle of the "squashed" (bs) unitarity triangle. We report a confidence region in the two dimensional space of 2β_s and Delta Γ. The data is consistent with the standard model prediction at the 15% confidence level, corresponding to 1.5 Gaussian standard deviations.

Monday June 2 3W2 1:30pm
Sinead Farrington
University of Oxford
Rare B decays at CDF

Monday June 16 3W2 1:15pm
Chunlei Liu
University of Pittsburgh
The measurement of a small angle -- Search for CP violation in B⁰_s system at CDF
CKM mechanism has been established well since the first CP violation discovery in 1964. To search for New Physics, it's useful to compare tiny CP violation prediction from Standard Model with experimental result. The B0_s-> J/psi phi channel provides such an ideal place where the CP phase is predicted to be nearly zero. At CDF, we are able to reconstruct about 2000 signal events with 1.35 fb-1 data. The final result we obtained is a confidence region in the CP phase and decay width difference space which shows an intriguing deviation (1.5 sigma) of the Standard Model.

Thursday August 7 1:30pm
Mr. Joe Tuggle
University of Maryland
Searching for New Physics in Radiative Penguin Decays at BaBar

Friday August 8 1:30pm
Mr. Rustem Ospanov
University of Texas at Austin
A measurement of muon neutrino disappearance rate with the MINOS detectors and the NuMI neutrino beam

Monday August 11 3:30pm
Mr. Brandon Parks
Ohio State University
Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson at CDF Run II

Tuesday August 12 3:30pm
Mr. Sourabh Dube
Rutgers University
Search for Supersymmetry at CDF using the Trilepton signature

Seminars in 2007

Friday March 23
Teh Lee Cheng
Royal Holloway, London
Search for production of single top quarks via flavour-changing neutral currents with the ATLAS detector.
I present the search for anomalous production of single top quarks via flavour-changing neutral currents (FCNC) with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The signal is u/c + g -> t. Top quark FCNC coupling with a gluon is extremely small according to the Standard Model. However, new physics models usually allow large enhancements to this coupling, which may can be many orders of magnitude larger. A cut-based analysis is developed and the result shows that, with an integrated luminosity of 10 fb-1, equivalent to one year of LHC running at a tenth of the design luminosity, ATLAS starts to reach the required sensitivity to test predictions of some of the new physics models.

Tuesday April 3
Peter Wagner
Texas A&M
Search for Heavy, Neutral, Long-Lived Particles that Decay to Photons at CDF
Searches for events with final state photons and missing transverse energy (MET) at collider experiments are sensitive to new physics from a wide variety of models including gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (GMSB). In these models the lightest neutralino (chi_10) decays into a photon and a weakly interacting, stable gravitino that gives rise to MET by leaving the detector without depositing any energy. The observation of an ee+photon+photon+MET candidate event by the CDF experiment during Run I at the Fermilab Tevatron has increased the interest in experimental tests of this class of theories. Most subsequent searches have focused on promptly produced photons, however the chi_10 can have a lifetime on the order of nanoseconds or more. In this talk I present the results of the first search for heavy, long-lived particles that decay to photons at a hadron collider using the newly installed EMTiming system at CDF to identify chi_10 candidates by virtue of their producing photons with a "delayed" arrival time.

Tuesday April 10
Huaizhang Deng
University of Pennsylvania
Discovery of Solar Neutrino Oscillations

Monday April 16
Sasa Fratina
Jozef Stefan Institute
Measurement of CP Violation in B0 -> D+D- Decays
I will report on the recent measurements of the branching fraction and CP violation parameters in B0 -> D+D- decays. The decay time distribution of these decays is sensitive to the angle of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix phi_1 (beta) and offers another opportunity to test the unitarity of the CKM mixing matrix and search for possible new physics contributions to these decays. The results to be shown are based on a large data sample of more than 500 x 10^6 BBbar pairs collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. We find evidence of CP violation in B0 -> D+D- at the 4.1 sigma confidence level. While the result for the CP violation parameter S is consistent with expectations from other measurements, the value of the parameter A favors large direct CP violation at the 3.2 sigma confidence level, in contradiction to Standard Model expectations.

Tuesday April 17
Sylvie Brunet
University of Montreal
|Vub| measurements at BaBar
The BaBar experiment, located at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), produces millions of B mesons. The decay of the B mesons can be used to measure many elements of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix, which quantifies the quarks' flavor changing probabilities. One of the important elements is |Vub|. Its value is not predicted by the Standard Model. Its measurement is a critical constraint on the Unitarity Triangle, and thus, on the Standard Model itself. Our knowledge of |Vub| comes from measurements of the small B -> Xu l nu decay rates where a "b" to "u" quark transition is present. The precision on |Vub| is limited in large part by the uncertainties in the non-perturbative QCD calculations (form-factor) that are used to extract |Vub| from the measured decay rates. In this talk, I will concentrate on the recent measurement of B -> pi0 l nu decays using semileptonic tags at BaBar. From this study, a total branching fraction and partial branching fractions in three bins of q^2, the invariant mass squared of the lepton-neutrino system are reported. This allows us to evaluate |Vub| and to compare the measured form-factor spectrum, in three bins of q^2 with different theoretical predictions. I will also summarize the state of the art of the |Vub| measurements obtained at the B factories.

Wednesday April 18
Hirohisa Tanaka
Princeton University
First Results from MiniBooNE

This seminar reports the initial results from a search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations by the MiniBooNE (Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment) Collaboration. MiniBooNE was motivated by the result from the LSND experiment which presented evidence for neutrino oscillations with a mass-squared difference of O(1 eV^2/c^4). The MiniBooNE experiment uses a high-intensity neutrino beam with an average energy of ~800 MeV produced by protons from the Booster accelerator at Fermilab. The detector is a 800 ton sphere of mineral oil instrumented with 1520 photomultiplier tubes positioned 540 meters from the production target. The detector identifies and classifies neutrino events via the Cherenkov and scintillation light produced by particles emerging from the neutrino interactions. The results of this analysis use the neutrino-mode data set corresponding to 5.58x10^20 protons on target.

Wednesday April 25 Fisher-Bennet Hall, 3340 Walnut
Franklin Medal Symposium
schedule

Monday April 30
Brian Connolly
Columbia University
Probing the High Energy Universe the Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays
The High Resolution Fly's Eye Experiment (HiRes) in Utah is an air fluorescence telescope mapping the northern sky in cosmic rays at energies above 10^18 eV. From December 1999 to March 2006 HiRes operated in stereo mode, i.e. with two sites separated by 13 km to provide cosmic ray data of unprecedented quality of the northern sky. We focus on the latest results from the monocular and stereoscopic data concerning the primary chemical composition above 10^18 eV and the observation of the GZK cut-off.

Tuesday 18 September A5 3:15pm
Dr. Bernd Stelzer
University of California, Los Angeles
Search for Single Top Quark Production at CDF
Slides (ppt) and pdf (no animations)
In 1995, the CDF and D0 collaborations at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab discovered top quarks that were produced in pairs via the strong interaction. The top quark was measured to be the heaviest elementary particle of the Standard Model. Ten years after the top quark discovery, many things remain unknown about its properties. In this talk, I will present recent evidence for electroweak single top quark production. This alternative mechanism of producing top quarks at the Tevatron is experimentally very challenging to measure but allows the direct determination of the CKM matrix element |Vtb|.

Wednesday 17 October A2 3:30pm
Dr. Ulrich Husemann
Yale University
Search for Flavor-Changing Neutral Currents in Top Quark Decay at CDF
Slides (pdf)
Flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) interactions are heavily suppressed in the standard model of particle physics, but are expected to be enhanced in the presence of new physics. Searches for FCNC interactions are therefore excellent probes of physics beyond the standard model. The suppression of FCNC interactions is especially strong in the top quark sector. The standard model predicts branching fractions for top quark FCNC decays far below the reach of experiments at the Fermilab Tevatron and even at the Large Hadron Collider currently under construction at CERN. I will present the first search for the FCNC decay t→ Zq during Tevatron Run II using data recorded with the CDF II detector between March 2002 and September 2006.

Tuesday 30 October A5 3:15pm
Prof. Daniel McKinsey
Yale University
New results from the XENON10 dark matter search
Slides (pdf)
The XENON10 experiment is a search for dark matter in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The XENON10 detector uses the simultaneous measurement of ionization and scintillation in liquid xenon to distinguish between nuclear recoils (due to WIMPs or fast neutrons) and electron recoils (due to gamma rays). Ionization electrons are extracted into the xenon vapor where they produce a large proportional scintillation signal in a grid assembly. Both prompt and proportional scintillation light are detected by PMT arrays on the top and bottom of the active liquid xenon volume. The distribution of proportional scintillation light in the top PMT array can be used to achieve xy position resolution, while the ionization drift time gives position resolution in the z direction. This allows the definition of a low-background fiducial volume. XENON10 was installed in the underground Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy in March 2006, and a blind analysis was performed on data acquired between November 2006 and February 2007. I will present the results of that analysis, which has resulted in the most sensitive limit to date on the spin-independent WIMP-nucleon scattering cross-section. I will also describe LUX, a new dark matter experiment using the same technology, planned for 2008-2009.

Tuesday 13 November A5 3:15pm
Dr. Conor Henderson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Global Search for New Physics at CDF
Slides (pdf)
The Standard Model of particle physics is widely believed to be incomplete, but as yet there are no clear indications as to what form the new electroweak scale physics might take. Rather than focusing on particular new physics scenarios, we present a new approach where the entire high transverse momentum data collected by the CDF detector at the Fermilab Tevatron are searched for discrepancies relative to the Standard Model prediction. A model-independent approach (Vista) considers the bulk features of the data, and a quasi-model-independent technique (Sleuth) focuses on the high-pT tails. Results of this global search for beyond Standard Model physics will be presented.

Tuesday 27 November A5 3:15pm
Prof. B. Lee Roberts
Boston University
Proposal for a new muon g-2 experiment
Slides (pdf)
The muon (g-2) experiment at the BNL AGS reached a relative precision of 0.5 parts per million on the muon anomalous magnetic moment. Thanks to recent data from electron-positron annihilation to hadrons, the standard-model prediction has reached the same level of precision. When compared, the two differ by 3.4 standard deviations. Since the muon anomaly is sensitive to a wide range of physics beyond the standard model, agreement or difference with the standard-model will be important in constraining interpretations of discoveries that will be made at the LHC. The experiment and theory will be reviewed, and possibilities for improving both values will be discussed, along with the implications for LHC data.
A recent review of theory and experiment can be found in hep-ph/0703049, published in Reports on Progress in Physics, {\bf 70}, (2007) 795-881 The non-standard model reach is discussed in arXiv:0705.4617 [hep-ph]

Tuesday 11 December 2N36 1:30pm
Prof. Gregorio Bernardi
LPNHE, Universities Paris VI and VII, France
Search for the Higgs boson at D0
Slides (pdf)
The Higgs boson is the only particle of the standard model which has not been discovered yet, but it might be the most important one. Indeed, it is through the Higgs mechanism that all massive fundamental particles are expected to acquire their mass. Hence the search for the Higgs boson has been one of the major activities of Elementary Particle Physicists during this last decade. In this seminar, we will introduce the physics of the Higgs boson and report on the experimental searches which are currently being done at the Tevatron by the D0 experiment, and on the combined results obtained by CDF and D0. We will conclude on the prospects of Higgs discovery in the coming years.

Seminars in 2006

January 11 2006 - Department Colloquium
Young-Kee Kim
Co-spokesperson of CDF and new Deputy Director of Fermilab
University of Chicago
E=mc² Opening Windows on the World
slides (pdf)

January 17 2006
Masahiro Morii
Harvard University
B physics beyond CP violation: Semileptonic B decays
slides (pdf)

January 24 2006
Carsten Krauss
Queens University
The PICASSO dark matter experiment
slides (ppt) (pdf)

February 7 2006 Penn-Princeton joint seminar @ Penn
Pier Oddone
Director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
Fermilab and High Energy Physics

March 1 2006 - Department Colloquium - Primakoff Lecture
Paul Langacker
University of Pennsylvania
The Standard Model and Strings - Can They be Connected?
slides (pdf)

March 14 2006
Kyle Cranmer
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Prospects for the Higgs at the LHC
slides (pdf)

April 4 2006
Anadi Canepa
Purdue University
Chargino and Neutralino in the Golden Channel at CDF
slides (pdf)

April 11 2006
Dave Casper
University of California, Irvine
A long-baseline oscillation experiment using a radioactive ion storage ring ("beta-beam")
slides (pdf)

April 25 2006
Veronica Sorin
Michigan State University
CDF Trigger System at World Record Luminosities & Test of Electric Charge of the Top Quark
slides (pdf)

May 2 2006
Richard Hughes
Ohio State University
GLAST: Science in Flight
slides (pdf)

May 3 2006 - Special Department Colloquium
Joe Kroll
University of Pennsylvania
Matter-Antimatter Transformations at 3 Trillion Hertz

May 9 2006
Karen Gibson
Carnegie-MellonUniversity
Measurement of Relative Fragmentation Fractions of B hadrons at CDF
slides (pdf)

September 11 2006
Katherine Copic
University of Michigan
A New Measurement of the Ratio of W and Z Production at CDF

Electroweak physics at Fermilab is entering an era of new precision. With benchmark analyses completed, we are investigating new approaches to get the most out of our expanding data samples. I will present a new method for measuring the ratio of W and Z production at the Tevatron's center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. This measurement can be used to extract the indirect width of the W boson and, therefore, the CKM matrix elements. For this analysis, a combined sample of W and Z boson candidates is selected by requiring at least one charged lepton and low net hadronic activity. The Missing Transverse Energy spectrum of the events is used to infer the relative rate of W and Z bosons. I will show a preliminary measurement of this ratio using data collected with the CDF detector, and discuss future prospects.

September 12 2006
Alexander Brandt
DESY
Photoinjectors: Automated Signal Calibration of Probeless Resonators

The accelerating field inside photoinjectors is required to be stable in phase to less than one degree. Field-symmetry considerations as well as difficulties in routing channels for cooling water put the mounting of a field probe into question. An alternative is to deduce the field from the incident and reflected wave from the resonator, which demands for a precise calibration of the channels. In this presentation, basic resonator theory is illuminated in order to deduce a method for an automated determination of these parameters, which also provides detailed information about the coupling (beta) and nonlinear properties of the sensors. The procedure, based on the investigation of resonant circles has been successfully tested at the electron guns at FLASH and PITZ. It is currently being implemented into FPGA-based controller of the FLASH electron gun.

October 10 2006
Dr. Aart Heijboer
University of Pennsylvania
Observation of Strange Beauty Meson oscillations
We report the observation of Bs-Bsbar oscillations from a time-dependent measurement of the Bs-Bsbar oscillation frequency Delta ms. Using a data sample of 1 fb^-1 of p-pbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron, we find signals of 5600 fully reconstructed hadronic Bs decays, 3100 partially reconstructed hadronic Bs decays, and 61500 partially reconstructed semileptonic Bs decays. We measure the probability as a function of proper decay time that the Bs decays with the same, or opposite, flavor as the flavor at production, and we find a signal for Bs-Bsbar oscillations. The probability that random fluctuations could produce a comparable signal is 8 X 10^-8, which exceeds 5 sigma significance. We measure Delta ms = 17.77 +- 0.10 (stat) +- 0.07 (syst) ps^-1 and extract |Vtd/Vts| = 0.2060 +- 0.0007 (exp) + 0.0081 - 0.0060 (theory).

November 7 2006
Daniel Sherman
Harvard University
Top Quark Pair Production at CDF

November 14 2006
Jovan Mitrevski
Columbia University
Search for Electroweak Top Quark Production at D0
Electroweak production of the top quark has many attractive features. One is that the cross section is proportional to |Vtb|^2 and thus provides a test of the CKM matrix^s 3-generation unitarity. The constraints on |Vtb| not assuming unitarity are weak. Another is that it provides a way to probe the V - A structure of the weak interaction. Because the top quark decays before it has time to hadronize, it retains its polarization information, making it available for study. Furthermore, because the top quark has such a large mass, close to the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking, one wonders if it has some special role in beyond the Standard Model physics. Studying the electroweak interaction in single top production is a good way to look for such beyond the Standard Model effects. In this seminar I will discuss the search for electroweak production of the top quark being undertaken by the D0 collaboration at Fermilab. I will discuss our selection criteria and background modeling, and I will focus in particular on the matrix element method analysis currently under way using 1 fb-1 of data.

November 16 2006
Jed Biesiada
Princeton University
CP Violation in b -> d Penguins
Over the last few years, the B factories at SLAC, USA, and KEK, Japan, have verified the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism of CP violation in the Standard Model through the study of tree-dominated decays of the B meson. The focus of the B factories has now shifted to the search for signatures of new physics beyond the Standard Model, particularly through the study of flavor-changing neutral currents, which proceed through "penguin" diagrams involving a virtual loop. These decays are suppressed in the Standard Model, increasing sensitivity to new-physics effects but decreasing branching fractions. Exploiting large and growing datasets, BaBar and Belle have made many measurements in the penguin decays where a b quark transitions to an s quark, observing hints of possible deviations from Standard Model expectations in CP-violating measurements. In this talk, I describe the observation and first CP asymmetry measurement in the corresponding gluonic b-to-d penguins, which are further suppressed in the Standard Model and have not been previously observed. The observation of the decays B->K0K0bar and B->K0barK+ opens a new sector of enquiry for the B factories. I will also describe the update to the BaBar muon detector using Limited Streamer Tube technology.

November 21 2006
Dr. Gabriella Sciola
MIT
Searching for New Physics in Rare B Decays
The study of CP violation at the B factories allows us to perform quantitative tests of the CP sector of the Standard Model. Accurate measurements of the sides and angles of the Unitarity Triangle determine the parameters rho and eta of the theory, while redundant measurements of the same quantities allow us to probe physics Beyond the Standard Model. The recent measurements of the B_s mixing frequency at the Tevatron have dramatically improved our knowledge of |V_td/V_ts|, the right side of the Unitarity Triangle. This opens up a new opportunity for probing New Physics through an independent determination of the same quantity. In this talk, I will discuss how such a measurement can be made using rare B decays, and show our recent results.

November 28 2006
Dr. Stan Majewski
Jefferson Lab
A concept of a dedicated PET imager for proton therapy facilities

November 29 2006
Alberto Belloni
MIT
Observation of B_s - B_sbar oscillations

The latest results on the measurement of the Bs-Bsbar oscillation frequency using 1 fb-1 of data from ppbar collisions with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron are reported. The probability as a function of proper decay time that the Bs decays with the same, or opposite, flavor as its flavor at production, which is determined using opposite-side and same-side flavour identification methods, is measured. A signal consistent with Bs-Bsbar oscillations is found.

December 19 2006
James Degenhardt
University of Michigan
Recent Diboson Physics Results from the DZero Collaboration
Diboson physics is the regime of electroweak physics that concerns itself with the production of two gauge bosons. Diboson measurements allow for verification of the Standard Model, while at the same time searching for evidence of new physics by measuring the coupling strengths of gauge bosons to each other. The Tevatron, which is the highest energy particle accelerator in the world, has been a rich source of new diboson physics results. I will be presenting the latest diboson physics results from the DZero collaboration, including the first evidence for WZ production.

Seminars in 2005

September 13 2005
Daniel Whiteson
University of Pennsylvania
Precision Top Quark Mass Measurement in the Dilepton channel at CDF
slides (pdf)

September 27 2005
Dan Akerib
Case Western Reserve University
Looking for WIMPs in the Galactic Halo: The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search
slides (pdf)

October 11 2005
Jason Nielsen
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Search for the standard model Higgs Boson
slides (pdf)

November 1 2005
Chris Ainsley
Cambridge University
CALICE: a high precision calorimeter for the ILC
slides (pdf)

November 8 2005- Penn-Princeton joint seminar @ Princeton
Joe Lykken
University of Chicago and FNAL
Is Particle Physics Ready for the LHC?
slides (pdf)

November 15 2005
Aart Heijboer
University of Pennsylvania
Search for B_s mixing at CDF
slides (pdf)

December 6 2005
Volker Braun
University of Pennsylvania
Recent developments in String Theory Group at Penn - A Heterotic Standard Model
slides (pdf)

Seminars in 2004

Tuesday, January 13 2004 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Huaizhang Deng
University of Pennsylvania
Final result of the muon g-2 experiement

Wednesday, January 21 2004 at 2:00 (2N36 DRL)
Jonathan Link
Columbia University
Future Measurements of sin^2 2theta_13 at Nuclear Reactors

Tuesday, March 16 2004 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Christopher Stepaniak
University of Minnesota
Measurements of semileptonic B-meson decay at CLEO

Tuesday, March 30 2004 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Dawn Williams
University of California at Los Angeles
From the Moon to the Mines: Radio Detection of EHE Neutrinos

Wednesday, April 7 2004 at 1:30 (3N6 DRL)
Veronique Boisvert
CERN
Holding the Weights of the Heavens: the ATLAS High Level Trigger

Seminars in 2003

Tuesday, March 18 2003 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Chris Walter
Boston University
Oscillation Results From The K2K Experiment

Tuesday, March 25 2003 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Scott Oser
University of Pennsylvania
Solar Neutrinos And Beyond: Where Do We Stand?

Tuesday, April 1 2003 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Huaizhang Deng
Yale University
Measurement of g-2

Tuesday, April 8 2003 at 4:00, DRL A7
Sasha Glazov
University of Chicago
Measurement of $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ by KTeV collaboration

Tuesday, April 29 2003 at 1:30, DRL 2N36
Evelyn Thomson
Ohio StateUniversity
Top Quark Physics at CDF

Tuesday, October 7 2003 at 1:30 (3N6 DRL)
Daniel Whiteson
University of California, Berkeley
The electron-muon final state at D0: Top quark production and exotic physics

Seminars in 2002

Tuesday, Sep. 10 2002 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Fred Gray
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Measuring and Interpreting the Anomalous Magnetic Moment of the Muon

Tuesday, Nov. 5 2002 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Daniel McKinsey
Princeton University
CLEAN: Cryogenic Low Energy Astrophysics with Neon

Tuesday, Nov. 26 2002 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Brian Humensky
Princeton University
SLAC E-158: A Precision Measurement of Parity Violation in Moller Scattering

Tuesday, Dec. 3 2002 at 1:30 (2N36 DRL)
Roman Fleysher
NYU
Search for Gamma Ray Emission from Galactic Plane with Milagro

Seminars in 2001

Tuesday Feb. 6 2001 at 1:30
Jon Urheim
University of Minnesota
Status of MINOS

Wednesday Feb. 14 2001 at 1:30
Joseph Formaggio
Columbia University
Searching High and Low for Exotic Particles at NuTeV

Friday, Feb. 23 2001 at 2:00 (2N36 DRL)
Akira Konaka
TRIUMF
A 2nd generation long baseline neutrino experiment - Neutrino program at JHF

Tuesday Feb. 27 2001 at 1:30
Dieter Zeppenfeld
University of Wisconsin
Weak Boson Fusion: A Tool for Higgs Boson Studies at the LHC

Monday Mar. 5 2001 at 12:45
Jordan Goodman
University of Maryland
New Results from Milagro

Tuesday, Mar. 2001 at 1:30
Tao Han
University of Wisconsin
Higgs/SUSY Searches at Future Colliders

Monday Mar. 26 2001 at 12:45
Viktor Zacekv
University of Montreal
Search for Neutralino Dark Matter and the PICASSO Project

Tuesday Apr. 10 2001 at 1:30
Sven Heinemeyer
Theoretical and experimental implications of the possible observation of Higgs bosons at LEP

Tuesday Apr 24 2001 at 1:30
Cenap Ozben
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Precise measurement of the positive muon anomalous magnetic moment at BNL

Tuesday May 1 2001 at 1:30
George Redlinger
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Probing the Unitarity Triangle with Rare K Decays

Seminars in 2000

Tuesday Jan. 18 2000 1:30
Scott Oser
University of Chicago
Closing the Gap: First Results from STACEE

Tuesday Feb. 15 2000 1:30
Glenn Horton-Smith
Tohoku University, Japan
Introduction to KamLAND, the 1-kT Liquid scintillator
Anti-Neutrino Detector at Kamioka

Tuesday Feb. 22 2000 1:30
Artur Barczyk
ETH-Zurich
Measurement of W Boson Properties with the L3 experiment at LEP

Monday Feb. 28 2000 1:00
Kael Hanson
University of Michigan
A Measurement of the Neutrino-Induced Muon Flux at the MACRO Detector

Tuesday Feb. 29 2000 1:30
Klaus Rabbertz
Aachen
Event Shapes and Power Corrections in ep DIS

Monday Apr. 10 2000 3:30
Jens Erler
University of Pennsylvania
Is there a hint for a new Z boson in the precision data?

Friday Apr. 28 2000 1:00
Sherri Towers
Carleton Institute for Physics, Ottawa, Canada
Really Strange Tau Physics

Tuesday Nov. 7 2000 at 1:30
Hal Evans
Columbia University
B-Physics at Dzero (it's not just production any more)

Tuesday Nov. 14 2000 at 1:30
Paul Langacker
Penn
Electroweak Physics at LEP

Tuesday Nov. 21 2000 at 1:30
Larry Gladney
Penn
Recent Results from BABAR

Monday Dec. 4 2000 at 12:45
Kazuo Abe
KEK
Recent Results from BELLE

Tuesday Dec. 12 2000 at 1:30
Frank Paige
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Physics at a 500 GeV Linear Collider

Monday Dec. 18 2000 at 12:45
Chris Tully
Princeton University
Status of LEP-wide Higgs Searches

Seminars in 1999

Feb. 2 1999
Josh Klein
University of Pennsylvania
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory: Current Status

Feb. 5 1999 AT 1:00
Mary Anne Cummings
Northern Illinois University
Top Quark Production in the All-Jet Channel at D0
and/or
Radiocoherence and Neutrino Physics

Feb. 8 1999 AT 1:00
Jean Duboscq
Ohio State University
The Tau Neutrino Mass Limit at CLEO and Elsewhere

Mar. 2 1999 at 1:30
Amit Lath
Rutgers University
Recent Results on Rare Processes and New Physics from KTeV

Friday, March 5 1999 at 1:30
Aaron Dominquez
CERN
Higgs searches at L3 using the 189 GeV data

Mar. 16 1999 at 1:30
Brad Cox
University of Virginia
New Results from KTeV on Time Reversal Violation

Mar. 30 1999 at 1:30
Ikaros Bigi
University of Indiana
The Brown Muck of Beauty -- The Beauty of the Brown Muck

Thursday, Apr. 22 1999 1:00 3N6 DRL
John Beacom
Caltech
Neutrinos from the Next Galactic Supernova

Monday Sep. 13 1999 AT 4:00
Kate Frame
Michigan State University
A New Jet Finding Algorithm For Hadron Colliders

MONDAY Oct. 11 1999 at 1:30 3N6 DRL
Jim Hill
SUNY/Stony Brook
First Data from the K2K Experiment

Tuesday Oct. 19 1999 at 1:30
Yongsheng Gao
Harvard University
Observation of B --> Pseudo-scalar and vector meson Decays at CLEO

Tuesday Nov. 2 1999 at 1:30
Wasiq Bokhari
University of Pennsylvania
Status of Higgs Boson Searches at the Tevatron

Tuesday Nov. 9 1999 at 1:30
Joao Guimaraes da Costa
University of Michigan
b' Quark: The Next Generation

Thursday Nov. 11 1999 at 1:00 in 2N36 DRL
George Hou
National Taiwan University
Constraints on Gamma in the Unitarity Triangle

Seminars in 1998

Jan 27 1998
George Smith
Yacht Apogee (Israel)
The History and Current Status of the CCD

Feb 9 1998
Rene Ong
University of Chicago
The Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment

Feb 10 1998
Jesse Stone
Princeton
K -> pi nu nu

Feb 17 1998
Mark Oreglia
University of Chicago
Results from the 183 GeV Running of OPAL

Feb 18 1998, 2pm
Chris Mindas
Princeton
K+ -> mu+ pi0 nu decays

Mar 31 1998 2:00 pm
Ed Kearns
Boston University
Atmospheric Neutrino Results from SuperKamiokande

Apr 7 1998
Jim Beatty
Pennsylvania State University
Status of the Pierre Auger Project

Apr 14 1998
Tom Devlin
Rutgers University
Observation of the B_c Meson

Apr 28 1998
Kirk McDonald
Princeton University
The Physics of a Muon Collider

Oct 27 1998
George W.S. Hou
Brookhaven National Lab./National Taiwan University
West Indies, or New Continent--CP Violation at B Factories
(A phenomenological talk prepared for experimentalists.)

November 3 1998
Kate Scholberg
Boston University
The International Supernova Neutrino Alert Network

December 1 1998
Richard Steinberg
Drexel University
The CHOOZ Experiment

Seminars in 1997

Oct 6 1997
Eric Prebys
Princeton University
SLAC E-144: Results from Sparking the Vacuum

Oct 13 1997
Tim Bolton
Kansas State University
Electroweak Physics with the NuTeV Detector at Fermilab

Nov 3 1997
Samim Erhan
UCLA
B Physics in the 21st Century

Nov 17 1997
David Stuart
Fermilab
The Search for New Phenomena at CDF

Nov 24 1997
Steven Ritz
Columbia University
The GLAST Experiment

Dec 1 1997
Andrew Bazarko
Princeton University
K --> pi nu nu

Dec 8 1997
Young-Kee Kim
UC-Berkeley
Precision Tests of the Electroweak Interaction from Hadron Colliders