The NA61/SHINE experiment at the CERN SPS is performing a uniqe study of the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter by varying collision energy and nuclear mass number of colliding nuclei. In central Pb+Pb collisions the NA49 experiment found structures in the energy dependence of several observables in the CERN SPS energy range that had been predicted for the transition to a deconfined phase. New measurements of NA61/SHINE find intriguing similarities in p+p interactions for which no deconfinement transition is expected at SPS energies. Possible implications will be discussed.
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.
Measurements of the production of high transverse momentum direct photons by a 515 GeV/c piminus beam and 530 and 800 GeV/c proton beams in interactions with beryllium and hydrogen targets are presented. The data span the kinematic ranges of 3.5 < p_T < 12 GeV/c in transverse momentum and 1.5 units in rapidity. The inclusive direct-photon cross sections are compared with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations and expectations based on a phenomenological parton-k_T model.
We present results on the production of high transverse momentum pizero and eta mesons in pp and pBe interactions at 530 and 800 GeV/c. The data span the kinematic ranges: 1 < p_T < 10 GeV/c in transverse momentum and 1.5 units in rapidity. The inclusive pizero cross sections are compared with next-to-leading order QCD calculations and to expectations based on a phenomenological parton-k_T model.
We present a search for new heavy particles, $X$, which decay via $X \to WZ \to e\nu +jj$ in $p{\bar p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.8 TeV. No evidence is found for production of $X$ in 110 pb$^{-1}$ of data collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. Limits are set at the 95% C.L. on the mass and the production of new heavy charged vector bosons which decay via $W'\to WZ$ in extended gauge models as a function of the width, $\Gamma (W')$, and mixing factor between the $W'$ and the Standard Model $W$ bosons.
We report results from a study of Λ0 polarization in the exclusive reaction pp→pf(Λ0K+) at 800−GeV/c. We observe a dependence of the polarization on the Λ0K+ invariant mass with large (+71%) positive polarization at small mass (1.63−GeV/c2) and large (−43%) negative polarization at large mass (2.75−GeV/c2). This observation confirms the result of the CERN ISR R608 experiment and extends the range over which the effect is observed. The strong dependence of the polarization on the Λ0K+ invariant mass suggests that the origin of the polarization is closely related to the production dynamics of the diffractively produced Λ0K+ system.
The inclusive cross section for production of isolated photons has been measured in \pbarp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 630$ GeV with the \D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The photons span a transverse energy ($E_T$) range from 7-49 GeV and have pseudorapidity $|\eta| < 2.5$. This measurement is combined with to previous \D0 result at $\sqrt{s} = 1800$ GeV to form a ratio of the cross sections. Comparison of next-to-leading order QCD with the measured cross section at 630 GeV and ratio of cross sections show satisfactory agreement in most of the $E_T$ range.
We present results of searches for diphoton resonances produced both inclusively and also in association with a vector boson (W or Z) using 100 $pb^{-1}$ of $p\bar{p}$ collisions using the CDF detector. We set upper limits on the product of cross section times branching ratio for both $p\bar{p} \to \gamma \gamma + X$ and $p \bar{p} \to \gamma \gamma + W/Z$. Comparing the inclusive production to the expectations from heavy sgoldstinos we derive limits on the supersymmetry-breaking scale $\sqrt{F}$ in the TeV range, depending on the sgoldstino mass and the choice of other parameters. Also, using a NLO prediction for the associated production of a Higgs boson with a W or Z boson, we set an upper limit on the branching ratio for $H \to \gamma \gamma$. Finally, we set a lower limit on the mass of a 'bosophilic' Higgs boson (e.g. one which couples only to $\gamma, W,$ and $Z$ bosons with standard model couplings) of 82 GeV/$c^2$ at 95% confidence level.
We describe a search for the pair production of first-generation scalar and vector leptoquarks in the eejj and enujj channels by the D0 Collaboration. The data are from the 1992--1996 ppbar run at sqrt{s} = 1.8 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. We find no evidence for leptoquark production; in addition, no kinematically interesting events are observed using relaxed selection criteria. The results from the eejj and enujj channels are combined with those from a previous D0 analysis of the nunujj channel to obtain 95% confidence level (C.L.) upper limits on the leptoquark pair-production cross section as a function of mass and of beta, the branching fraction to a charged lepton. These limits are compared to next-to-leading-order theory to set 95% C.L. lower limits on the mass of a first-generation scalar leptoquark of 225, 204, and 79 GeV/c^2 for beta=1, 1/2, and 0, respectively. For vector leptoquarks with gauge (Yang-Mills) couplings, 95% C.L. lower limits of 345, 337, and 206 GeV/c^2 are set on the mass for beta=1, 1/2, and 0, respectively. Mass limits for vector leptoquarks are also set for anomalous vector couplings.
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.
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