Experimental results on the production of dimuons by 800-GeV protons incident on a copper target are presented. The results include measurements of both the continuum of dimuons and the dimuon decays of the three lowest-mass ϒ S states. A description of the apparatus, data acquisition, and analysis techniques is included. A comparison of the results with data taken at lower incident energies indicates a scaling behavior of the continuum dimuon yields.
We present a new measurement of the difference between the nucleon strange and antistrange quark distributions from dimuon events recorded by the NuTeV experiment at Fermilab. This analysis is the first to use a complete next to leading order QCD d escription of charm production from neutrino scattering. Dimuon events in neutrino deep inelastic scattering allow direct and independent study of the strange and antistrange content of the nucleon. We find a positive strange asymmetry with a significance of 1.6sigma . We also report a new measurement of the charm mass.
We present measurements of the semi-inclusive cross sections for νμ- and ν¯μ-nucleon deep inelastic scattering interactions with two oppositely charged muons in the final state. These events dominantly arise from the production of a charm quark during the scattering process. The measurement was obtained from the analysis of 5102 νμ-induced and 1458 ν¯μ-induced events collected with the NuTeV detector exposed to a sign-selected beam at the Fermilab Tevatron. We also extract a cross-section measurement from a reanalysis of 5030 νμ-induced and 1060 ν¯μ-induced events collected from the exposure of the same detector to a quad-triplet beam by the Chicago Columbia Fermilab Rochester (CCFR) experiment. The results are combined to obtain the most statistically precise measurement of neutrino-induced dimuon production cross sections to date. These measurements should be of broad use to phenomenologists interested in the dynamics of charm production, the strangeness content of the nucleon, and the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element Vcd.
A precise measurement of the atomic-mass dependence of dimuon production induced by 800-GeV protons is reported. Over 450 000 muon pairs with dimuon mass M≥4 GeV were recorded from targets of H2, C, Ca, Fe, and W. The ratio of dimuon yield per nucleon for nuclei versus H2, R=YA/Y2H, is sensitive to modifications of the antiquark sea in nuclei. No nuclear dependence of this ratio is observed over the range of target-quark momentum fraction 0.1<xt<0.3. For xt<0.1 the ratio is slightly less than unity for the heavy nuclei. These results are compared with predictions of models of the European Muon Collaboration effect.
Using a silicon-microstrip detector array to identify secondary vertices occurring downstream of a short platinum target, we have searched for the decay D0→μ+μ−. Normalized relative to the J/ψ→μ+μ− signal observed in the same data sample, for a 3.25-mm minimum decay distance our branching-ratio sensitivity is (4.8±1.4)×10−6 per event, and after background subtraction we observe -4.1±4.8 events. Using the statistical approach advocated by the Particle Data Group, we obtain a limit B(D0→μ+μ−)<3.1×10−5 at 90% confidence, confirming with a different technique the limit previously obtained by Louis et al. The interpretation of the upper limit involves complex statistical issues; we present another approach which is more suitable for combining the results of different experiments.
We report a high statistics measurement of Upsilon production with an 800 GeV/c proton beam on hydrogen and deuterium targets. The dominance of the gluon-gluon fusion process for Upsilon production at this energy implies that the cross section ratio, $\sigma (p + d \to \Upsilon) / 2\sigma (p + p\to \Upsilon)$, is sensitive to the gluon content in the neutron relative to that in the proton. Over the kinematic region 0 < x_F < 0.6, this ratio is found to be consistent with unity, in striking contrast to the behavior of the Drell-Yan cross section ratio $\sigma(p+d)_{DY}/2\sigma(p+p)_{DY}$. This result shows that the gluon distributions in the proton and neutron are very similar. The Upsilon production cross sections are also compared with the p+d and p+Cu cross sections from earlier measurements.
We present a measurement of the polarization observed for bottomonium states produced in p-Cu collisions at sqrt(s)=38.8 GeV. The angular distribution of the decay dimuons of the Upsilon(1S) state show no polarization at small xF and pT but significant positive transverse production polarization for either pT > 1.8 GeV/c or for xF > 0.35. The Upsilon(2S+3S) unresolved states show a large transverse production polarization at all values of xF and pT measured. These observations are compared with an NRQCD calculation that predicts a transverse polarization in bottomonium production arising from quark-antiquark fusion and gluon-gluon fusion diagrams.
Measurements of the ratio of Drell-Yan yields from an 800 \rm{GeV/c} proton beam incident on liquid hydrogen and deuterium targets are reported. Approximately 360,000 Drell-Yan muon pairs remained after all cuts on the data. From these data, the ratio of anti-down ($\bar{d}$) to anti-up ($\bar{u}$) quark distributions in the proton sea is determined over a wide range in Bjorken-$x$. These results confirm previous measurements by E866 and extend them to lower $x$. From these data, $(\bar{d}-\bar{u})$ and $\int(\bar{d}-\bar{u})dx$ are evaluated for $0.015<x<0.35$. These results are compared with parameterizations of various parton distribution functions, models and experimental results from NA51, NMC, and HERMES.
A precise measurement of the ratio of Drell-Yan yields from an 800 GeV/c proton beam incident on hydrogen and deuterium targets is reported. Over 140,000 Drell-Yan muon pairs with dimuon mass M_{mu+ mu-} >= 4.5 GeV/c^2 were recorded. From these data, the ratio of anti-down (dbar) to anti-up (ubar) quark distributions in the proton sea is determined over a wide range in Bjorken-x. A strong x dependence is observed in the ratio dbar/ubar, showing substantial enhancement of dbar with respect to ubar for x<0.2. This result is in fair agreement with recent parton distribution parameterizations of the sea. For x>0.2, the observed dbar/ubar ratio is much nearer unity than given by the parameterizations.