arXiv subjects

B. R. Webber

Publications and source records attributed to B. R. Webber.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

CHARYBDIS: A Black Hole Event Generator

CHARYBDIS is an event generator which simulates the production and decay of miniature black holes at hadronic colliders as might be possible in certain extra dimension models. It interfaces via the Les Houches accord to general purpose Monte Carlo programs like HERWIG and PYTHIA which then perform the parton evolution and hadronization. The event generator includes the extra-dimensional `grey-body' effects as well as the change in the temperature of the black hole as the decay progresses. Various options for modelling the Planck-scale terminal decay are provided.

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arXiv2002

Exploring Small Extra Dimensions at the Large Hadron Collider

Many models that include small extra space dimensions predict graviton states which are well separated in mass, and which can be detected as resonances in collider experiments. It has been shown that the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider can identify such narrow states up to a mass of 2080 GeV in the decay mode G->ee, using a conservative model. This work extends the study of the ee channel over the full accessible parameter space, and shows that the reach could extend as high as 3.5 TeV. It then discusses ways in which the expected universal coupling of the resonance can be confirmed using other decay modes. In particular, the mode G-> di-photons is shown to be measurable with good precision, which would provide powerful confirmation of the graviton hypothesis. The decays G-> mu mu, WW, ZZ and jet--jet are measurable over a more limited range of couplings and masses. Using information from mass and cross-section measurements, the underlying parameters can be extracted. In one test model, the size of the extra dimension can be determined to a precision in length of 7x10^-33 m.

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arXiv2002

HERWIG 6.5: an event generator for Hadron Emission Reactions With Interfering Gluons (including supersymmetric processes)

HERWIG is a general-purpose Monte Carlo event generator, which includes the simulation of hard lepton-lepton, lepton-hadron and hadron-hadron scattering and soft hadron-hadron collisions in one package. It uses the parton-shower approach for initial- and final-state QCD radiation, including colour coherence effects and azimuthal correlations both within and between jets. This article updates the description of HERWIG published in 1992, emphasising the new features incorporated since then. These include, in particular, the matching of first-order matrix elements with parton showers, a more correct treatment of heavy quark decays, and a wide range of new processes, including many predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, with the option of R-parity violation. At the same time we offer a brief review of the physics underlying HERWIG together with details of the input and control parameters and the output data, to provide a self-contained guide for prospective users of the program. This version of the manual (version 3) is updated to HERWIG version 6.5, which is expected to be the last major release of Fortran HERWIG. Future developments will be implemented in a new C++ event generator, HERWIG++.

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arXiv2002

The MC@NLO Event Generator

This is the user's manual of MC@NLO.1.0. This package is a practical implementation, based upon the HERWIG event generator, of the recently proposed MC@NLO formalism for matching the next-to-leading order calculation of a QCD process with a parton-shower Monte Carlo simulation. The processes of standard-model vector boson pair production in hadronic collisions are available.

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arXiv2002

Matching NLO QCD computations and parton shower simulations

We propose a method for matching the next-to-leading order (NLO) calculation of a given QCD process with a parton shower Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. The method has the following features: fully exclusive events are generated, with hadronization according to the MC model; total exclusive rates are accurate to NLO; NLO results for distributions are recovered upon expansion in $α_S$; hard emissions are treated as in NLO computations while soft/collinear emissions are handled by the MC simulation, with the same logarithmic accuracy as the MC; and matching between the hard- and soft/collinear-emission regions is smooth. A fraction of events with negative weight is generated, but unweighting remains possible with reasonable efficiency. The method is clarified using a simple toy model, and illustrated by application to the hadroproduction of W$^+$W$^-$ pairs.

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arXiv2002

Implementation of supersymmetric processes in the HERWIG event generator

We describe the implementation of supersymmetric processes in the HERWIG Monte Carlo event generator. We define relevant parameter and mixing conventions and list the hard scattering matrix elements. Our implementation is based on the Minimum Supersymmetric Standard Model, with the option of R-parity violation. The sparticle spectrum is completely general. Both hadron-hadron and lepton-lepton collisions are covered. This article supplements a separate publication in which the general features of HERWIG 6.2 are described, and updates the treatment of supersymmetry to version 6.4.

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arXiv2002

HERWIG 6.4 Release Note

A new release of the Monte Carlo program HERWIG (version 6.4) is now available. The main new features are: spin correlations between the production and decay of heavy fermions, i.e. top quarks, tau leptons and SUSY particles; polarization effects in SUSY production processes in lepton-lepton collisions; an interface to TAUOLA for tau decays; MSSM Higgs processes in lepton-lepton collisions.

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arXiv2001

Jet fragmentation in e^+e^- annihilation

A short review of theoretical and experimental results on fragmentation in e^+e^- annihilation is presented. Starting with an introduction of the concept of fragmentation functions in e^+e^- annihilation, aspects of scaling violation, multiplicities, small and large x, longitudinal, gluon, light and heavy quark fragmentation are summarized.

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arXiv2001

QCD Matrix Elements + Parton Showers

We propose a method for combining QCD matrix elements and parton showers in Monte Carlo simulations of hadronic final states in $e^+e^-$ annihilation. The matrix element and parton shower domains are separated at some value $y_{ini}$ of the jet resolution, defined according to the $k_T$-clustering algorithm. The matrix elements are modified by Sudakov form factors and the parton showers are subjected to a veto procedure to cancel dependence on $y_{ini}$ to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. The method provides a leading-order description of hard multi-jet configurations together with jet fragmentation, while avoiding the most serious problems of double counting. We present first results of an approximate implementation using the event generator APACIC++.

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arXiv2001

Detecting Exotic Heavy Leptons at the Large Hadron Collider

New almost-degenerate charged and neutral heavy leptons are a feature of a number of theories of physics beyond the Standard Model. The prospects for detecting these at the Large Hadron Collider using a time-of-flight technique are considered, along with any cosmological or experimental constraints on their masses. Based on a discovery criterion of 10 detected exotic leptons we conclude that, with an integrated luminosity of 100 fb-1, it should be possible to detect such leptons provided their masses are less than 950 GeV. It should also be possible to use the angular distribution of the produced particles to distinguish these exotic leptons from supersymmetric scalar leptons, at a better than 90% confidence level, for masses up to 580 GeV.

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arXiv2001

HERWIG 6.3 Release Note

A new release of the Monte Carlo program HERWIG (version 6.3) is now available. The main new features are new (MRST) built-in parton distribution functions, more SM gauge boson production processes, 2 to 3 MSSM Higgs production processes, an option to handle negative event weights, and an interface to the CIRCE beamstrahlung program.

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arXiv2001

Extracting the Flavour Structure of a Baryon-Number R-parity Violating Coupling at the LHC

The detection of the flavour content of jets produced from R-parity violating neutralino decays is investigated in the case where one baryon-number violating coupling dominates. Simulations are performed of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC for all couplings, other than lambda"_tjk since neutralino decays through these couplings are very suppressed. Secondary vertex distributions and muons produced by heavy-quark (b- and c-) jets allow discrimination between LSP decay modes. The dominant coupling can be identified at better than 3.5 sigma in almost all cases, with the only remaining ambiguity caused by the inability to distinguish strange from down quarks.

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arXiv2000

Measuring sparticle masses in non-universal string inspired models at the LHC

We demonstrate that some of the suggested five supergravity points for study at the LHC could be approximately derived from perturbative string theories or M-theory, but that charge and colour breaking minima would result. As a pilot study, we then analyse a perturbative string model with non-universal soft masses that are optimised in order to avoid global charge and colour breaking minima. By combining measurements of up to six kinematic edges from squark decay chains with data from a new kinematic variable, designed to improve slepton mass measurements, we demonstrate that a typical LHC experiment will be able to determine squark, slepton and neutralino masses with an accuracy sufficient to permit an optimised model to be distinguished from a similar standard SUGRA point. The technique thus generalizes SUSY searches at the LHC.

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arXiv2000

Searching for Narrow Graviton Resonances with the ATLAS Detector at the Large Hadron Collider

A spectrum of massive graviton states is present in several recent theoretical models that include extra space dimensions. In some such models the graviton states are well separated in mass, and can be detected as resonances in collider experiments. The ability of the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider to identify such states and measure their properties is considered, in the case that the resonances are narrow compared to the experimental resolution. The discovery limits for the detection of the decay mode G->e+e- are derived. The angular distribution of the lepton pair is used to determine the spin of the intermediate state. In one specific model, the resonance can be detected up to a graviton resonance mass of 2080 GeV, while the angular distribution favours a spin-2 hypothesis over a spin-1 hypothesis at 90% confidence for resonance masses up to 1720 GeV.

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arXiv2000

Naturalness Reach of the Large Hadron Collider in Minimal Supergravity

We re-analyse the prospects of discovering supersymmetry at the LHC, in order to re-express coverage in terms of a fine-tuning parameter and to extend the analysis to scalar masses (m_0) above 2 TeV. We use minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) unification assumptions for the SUSY breaking parameters. The discovery reach at high m_0 is of renewed interest because this region has recently been found to have a focus point, leading to relatively low fine-tuning, and because it remains uncertain how much of the region can be ruled out due to lack of radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. The best fine tuning reach is found in a mono-leptonic channel, where for mu>0, A_0=0 and tan beta=10 (within the focus point region), and a top mass of 174 GeV, all points in mSUGRA with m_0 < 4000 GeV, with a fine tuning measure up to 210 (500) are covered by the search, where the definition of fine-tuning excludes (includes) the contribution from the top Yukawa coupling. Even for arbitrarily high m_0, mSUGRA can be discovered through gaugino events, provided the gaugino mass parameter M_1/2 < 460 GeV. In this region, the mono-leptonic channel still provides the best reach.

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arXiv2000

Report of the QCD Working Group

The activities of the QCD working group concentrated on improving the understanding and Monte Carlo simulation of multi-jet final states due to hard QCD processes at LEP, i.e. quark-antiquark plus multi-gluon and/or secondary quark production, with particular emphasis on four-jet final states and b-quark mass effects. Specific topics covered are: relevant developments in the main event generators PYTHIA, HERWIG and ARIADNE; the new multi-jet generator APACIC++; description and tuning of inclusive (all-flavour) jet rates; quark mass effects in the three- and four-jet rates; mass, higher-order and hadronization effects in four-jet angular and shape distributions; b-quark fragmentation and gluon splitting into b-quarks.

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arXiv2000

Combining QCD Matrix Elements and Parton Showers

A new method for combining QCD matrix elements and parton showers in Monte Carlo simulations of hadronic final states is outlined. The aim is to provide at least a leading-order description of all hard multi-jet configurations together with jet fragmentation to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, while avoiding the most serious problems of double counting.

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arXiv2000

QCD

We discuss issues of QCD at the LHC including parton distributions, Monte Carlo event generators, the available next-to-leading order calculations, resummation, photon production, small x physics, double parton scattering, and backgrounds to Higgs production.

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