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A. Brandenburg

Publications and source records attributed to A. Brandenburg.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

Top quark pair production and decay at hadron colliders

In ongoing and upcoming hadron collider experiments, top quark physics will play an important role in testing the Standard Model and its possible extensions. In this work we present analytic results for the differential cross sections of top quark pair production in hadronic collisions at next-to-leading order in the QCD coupling, keeping the full dependence on the spins of the top quarks. These results are combined with the corresponding next-to-leading order results for the decay of polarized top quarks into dilepton, lepton plus jets, and all jets final states. As an application we predict double differential angular distributions which are due to the QCD-induced top quark spin correlations in the intermediate state. In addition to the analytic results, we give numerical results in terms of fit functions that can easily be used in an experimental analysis.

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Turbulent magnetic Prandtl number and magnetic diffusivity quenching from simulations

Forced turbulence simulations are used to determine the turbulent kinematic viscosity, nu_t, from the decay rate of a large scale velocity field. Likewise, the turbulent magnetic diffusivity, eta_t, is determined from the decay of a large scale magnetic field. In the kinematic regime, when the field is weak, the turbulent magnetic Prandtl number, nu_t/eta_t, is about unity. When the field is nonhelical, eta_t is quenched when magnetic and kinetic energies become comparable. For helical fields the quenching is stronger and can be described by a dynamical quenching formula.

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Ejection of bi-helical fields from the sun

It is argued that much of the observed magnetic helicity losses at the solar surface may represent a reduction of an otherwise more dominant nonlinearity of solar and stellar dynamos. This nonlinearity is proportional to the internal twist (as opposed to writhe) of helical and sigmoidal surface structures.

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Top quark physics and QCD: Progress since the TESLA TDR

I review progress on investigations concerning top quark physics and QCD at a future linear e+e- collider that has been achieved since the presentation of the TESLA technical design report in spring 2001. I concentrate on studies that have been presented during the workshop series of the Extended Joint ECFA/DESY Study on Physics and Detectors for a Linear Electron-Positron Collider.

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Relaxation of writhe and twist of a bi-helical magnetic field

In the past few years suggestions have emerged that the solar magnetic field might have a bi-helical component with oppositely polarized magnetic fields at large and small scales, and that the shedding of such fields may be crucial for the operation of the dynamo. It is shown that, if a bi-helical field is shed into the solar wind, positive and negative contributions of the magnetic helicity spectrum tend to mix and decay. Even in the absence of turbulence, mixing and decay can occur on a time scale faster than the resistive one provided the two signs of magnetic helicity originate from a single tube. In the presence of turbulence, positively and negatively polarized contributions mix rapidly in such a way that the ratio of magnetic helicity to magnetic energy is largest both at the largest scale and in the dissipation range. In absolute units the small scale excess of helical fields is however negligible.

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How magnetic helicity ejection helps large scale dynamos

There is mounting evidence that the ejection of magnetic helicity from the solar surface is important for the solar dynamo. Observations suggest that in the northern hemisphere the magnetic helicity flux is negative. We propose that this magnetic helicity flux is mostly due to small scale magnetic fields; in contrast to the more systematic large scale field of the 11 year cycle, whose helicity flux may be of opposite sign, and may be excluded from the observational interpretation. Using idealized simulations of MHD turbulence as well as a simple two-scale model, we show that shedding small scale (helical) field has two important effects. (i) The strength of the large scale field reaches the observed levels. (ii) The evolution of the large scale field proceeds on time scales shorter than the resistive time scale, as would otherwise be enforced by magnetic helicity conservation. In other words, the losses ensure that the solar dynamo is always in the near-kinematic regime. This requires, however, that the ratio of small scale to large scale losses cannot be too small, for otherwise the large scale field in the near-kinematic regime will not reach the observed values.

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On a possible measurement of alpha_s from B-Bbar correlations in Z^0 decay

Motivated by recent preliminary results from the SLD Collaboration on the measurement of angle-dependent B-Bbar energy correlations in Z^0 -> b bbar events, we propose a class of observables that can be computed as a power expansion in the strong coupling constant alpha_s, of order alpha_s at the Born level and that can be used for a precision measurement of alpha_s(M_Z). We compute their next-to-leading order O(alpha_s^2) corrections in the strong coupling constant, including exactly quark-mass effects. We show that, in the theoretical evaluation of these quantities, large logarithms of the ratio of the mass of the final quark over the centre-of-mass energy cancel out. Thus, these variables have a well-behaved perturbative expansion in alpha_s(M_Z). We study the theoretical uncertainties due to the renormalization-scale dependence and the quark-mass scheme and we address the question of which mass scheme is more appropriate for these variables.

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Spin properties of top quark pairs produced at hadron colliders

We discuss the spin properties of top quark pairs produced at hadron colliders at next-to-leading order in the coupling constant alpha_s of the strong interaction. Specifically we present, for some decay channels, results for differential angular distributions that are sensitive to t tbar spin correlations.

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MHD simulations of small and large scale dynamos

Isotropic homogeneous hydromagnetic turbulence is studied using numerical simulations at resolutions of up to 1024^3 meshpoints. It is argued that, in contrast to the kinematic regime, the nonlinear regime is characterized by a spectral magnetic power that is decreasing with increasing wavenumber, regardless of whether or not the turbulence has helicity. This means that the root-mean-square field strength converges to a limiting value at large magnetic Reynolds numbers. The total (magnetic and kinetic) energy spectrum tends to be somewhat shallower than k^{-5/3}, in agreement with the findings of other groups. In the presence of helicity, an inverse cascade develops, provided the scale separation between the size of the computational box and the scale of the energy carrying eddies exceeds a ratio of at least two. Finally, the constraints imposed by magnetic helicity conservation on mean-field theory are reviewed and new results of simulations are presented.

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Decay of Magnetic Fields in the Early Universe

We study the evolution of a stochastic helical magnetic field generated in the early Universe after the electroweak phase transition, using standard magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). We find how the coherence length xi, magnetic energy E_M and magnetic helicity H evolve with time. We show that the self-similarity of the magnetic power spectrum alone implies that xi ~ t^{1/2}. This in turn implies that magnetic helicity decays as H ~ t^{-2s}, and that the magnetic energy decays as E_M ~ t^{-0.5-2s}, where s is inversely proportional to the magnetic Reynolds number Re_M. These laws improve on several previous estimates.

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Sfermion Precision Measurements at a Linear Collider

At future e+- e- linear colliders, the event rates and clean signals of scalar fermion production - in particular for the scalar leptons - allow very precise measurements of their masses and couplings and the determination of their quantum numbers. Various methods are proposed for extracting these parameters from the data at the sfermion thresholds and in the continuum. At the same time, NLO radiative corrections and non-zero width effects have been calculated in order to match the experimental accuracy. The substantial mixing expected for the third generation sfermions opens up additional opportunities. Techniques are presented for determining potential CP-violating phases and for extracting tan(beta) from the stau sector, in particular at high values. The consequences of possible large mass differences in the stop and sbottom system are explored in dedicated analyses.

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Testing coupling relations in SUSY-QCD at a Linear Collider

Supersymmetry predicts that gauge couplings are equal to the corresponding gaugino-sfermion-fermion Yukawa couplings. This prediction can be tested for the QCD sector of the MSSM by studying the processes eplus+eminus -> squark+antisquark+gluon and eplus+eminus -> squark+antiquark+gluino at a future linear collider. We present results for these processes at next-to-leading order in alpha_s in the framework of the MSSM. We find sizable SUSY-QCD corrections. The renormalization scale dependence is significantly reduced at next-to-leading order.

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Impact of SUSY-QCD corrections on top quark decay distributions

We compute the supersymmetric QCD corrections to the decay distribution of polarized top quarks for the semileptonic decay mode $t(\uparrow)\to b l^+ν_l$. As a byproduct, we reinvestigate the SUSY-QCD corrections to the total decay width $Γ(t\to W^+b)$ and resolve a discrepancy between two previous results in the literature.

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Magnetoconvection and dynamo coefficients: II. Field-direction dependent pumping of magnetic field

We study the pumping of magnetic flux in three-dimensional compressible magnetoconvection in the context of stellar dynamos. The simulation domain represents a rectangular section from the lower part of a stellar convection zone plus the underlying stably stratified layer, with a total depth of up to five pressure scale heights. Once convection has attained a statistically stationary state, a magnetic field is introduced. The magnetic field is subsequently modified by the convective motions, and the resulting pumping effects are isolated by calculating various coefficients of the expansion of the electromotive force, uxb, in terms of components of the mean magnetic field. The dependence of the pumping effects on rotation, latitude and other parameters is studied. First numerical evidence is found for the existence of pumping effects in the horizontal directions, unless the rotation axis coincides with the vertical axis, as is the case on the poles. Evidence is found that the pumping effects act differently on different components of the mean magnetic field. Latitudinal pumping is mainly equatorward for toroidal field, and can be poleward for poloidal field. Longitudinal pumping is mainly retrograde for the radial field but prograde for the latitudinal field. The pumping effect in the vertical direction is found to be dominated by the diamagnetic effect, equivalent to a predominating downward advection with a maximum speed in the turbulent case of about 10 percent of the rms convective velocity. Where possible, an attempt is made to identify the physical origin of the effect. Finally, some consequences of the results for stellar dynamos are discussed.

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QCD-corrected spin analysing power of jets in decays of polarized top quarks

We present results for the differential distributions of jets from non-leptonic decays of polarized top quarks within the Standard Model, including QCD radiative corrections. Our work extends existing results which are only available for semileptonic top quark decays at the parton level. For $t(\uparrow)$ -> b-jet + 2 light jets we compute in particular the QCD-corrected top-spin analysing power of the b-quark jet and the least energetic light jet. The dependence of the results on the choice of the jet recombination scheme is found to be small. In addition we compute the spin analysing power of the thrust axis. Our results constitute a so far missing ingredient to analyse top quark production and subsequent non-leptonic decay at next-to-leading order in alpha_s, keeping the full information on the top quark polarization.

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