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John Womersley

Publications and source records attributed to John Womersley.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

Baryon Number Violation: From Nuclear Matrix Elements to BSM Physics

Processes that violate baryon number, most notably proton decay and $n\bar n$ transitions, are promising probes of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM) needed to understand the lack of antimatter in the Universe. To interpret current and forthcoming experimental limits, theory input from nuclear matrix elements to UV complete models enters. Thus, an interplay of experiment, effective field theory, lattice QCD, and BSM model building is required to develop strategies to accurately extract information from current and future data and maximize the impact and sensitivity of next-generation experiments. Here, we briefly summarize the main results and discussions from the workshop "INT-25-91W: Baryon Number Violation: From Nuclear Matrix Elements to BSM Physics," held at the Institute for Nuclear Theory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, January 13-17, 2025.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2006

The Top Quark - 2006 and Beyond

We know there is new physics at the electroweak scale, but we don't know what it is. Right now, the top quark is our only window on to this physics. In almost all models of electroweak symmetry breaking, top either couples strongly to new particles or its properties are modified in some way. Top is being studied in detail at the Fermilab Tevatron. Its production cross section has been measured in a variety of channels; its mass has been determined to better than 2%, and can be used to constrain the mass of the Higgs. Top quark decays have been tested and non-standard production mechanisms searched for. Single top production probes the electroweak properties of top, and has not yet been observed; searches are now closing in on this process and it should be seen soon. So far, all of the top quark's properties are consistent with the Standard Model. However, the data still to come at the Tevatron will increase the precision of all these measurements, and the enormous statistics available at the LHC will open up new possibilities such as observation of spin correlations and perhaps even CP violation in the top sector.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2003

Future Accelerators (?)

I describe the future accelerator facilities that are currently foreseen for electroweak scale physics, neutrino physics, and nuclear structure. I will explore the physics justification for these machines, and suggest how the case for future accelerators can be made.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2003

Tevatron Physics

These lectures form a personal, and not necessarily comprehensive, survey of physics at the Fermilab Tevatron proton-antiproton collider. They cover detectors, analysis issues, and physics prospects for the current Tevatron run. (Version 2 has typographic corrections).

hep-ex↗
arXiv2001

QCD at the Tevatron: Status and Prospects

I shall review the present status of Tevatron QCD studies, focusing on the production of jets, vector bosons, photons and heavy quarks. In general there is good agreement between the results of current calculational tools and the experimental data. The major areas of discrepancy arise when the input parton distributions become uncertain (for example, jets at high $E_T$) or when the momentum scales become relatively small (for example, $b$ production at low $p_T$). We can look forward to continued improvement in both calculations and measurements over the next decade. However, fully exploiting the power of the data will require considerable work, both from the experimentalists who must understand and publish all the systematic errors and their correlations, and from the phenomenologists who must understand the level of uncertainty in their calculations and in the parton distributions.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2000

Physics Beyond the Standard Model

I briefly summarize the prospects for extending our understanding of physics beyond the standard model within the next five years.

hep-ex↗
arXiv1999

Tests of Perturbative QCD and Jet Physics

I describe the current status of tests of perturbative QCD, using measurements of jet, photon, weak boson and heavy flavor production from the Tevatron, LEP and HERA. Measurements of the strong coupling constant are described, and I conclude with a "wish list" for the future.

hep-ex↗
arXiv1999

Can a light technipion be discovered at the Tevatron if it decays to two gluons?

In multiscale and topcolor-assisted models of walking technicolor, light, spin-one technihadrons can exist with masses of a few hundred GeV; they are expected to decay as rho_T -> W pi_T. For technirho masses ~200 GeV and technipion masses ~100 GeV, the process pbar p -> rho_T -> W pi_T has a cross section of about a picobarn at the Tevatron. We demonstrate the detectability of this process with simulations appropriate to Run II conditions, for the challenging case where the technipion decays dominantly into two gluons.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1998

Narrow Technihadron Production at the First Muon Collider

In modern technicolor models, there exist very narrow spin-zero and spin-one neutral technihadrons---$pi^0_T$, $rho^0_T$ and $omega_T$---with masses of a few 100 GeV. The large coupling of $π^0_T$ to $μ^+μ^-$, the direct coupling of $rho^0_T$ and $omega_T$ to the photon and $Z^0$, and the superb energy resolution of the First Muon Collider may make it possible to resolve these technihadrons and produce them at extraordinarily large rates.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1997

Finding Low-Scale Technicolor at Hadron Colliders

In multiscale and topcolor-assisted models of walking technicolor, relatively light spin-one technihadrons $ρ_T$ and $ω_T$ exist and are expected to decay as $ρ_T \to W π_T, Z π_T$ and $ω_T \to γπ_T$. For $M_{ρ_T} \simeq 200 GeV$ and $M_{π_T} \simeq 100 GeV$, these processes have cross sections in the picobarn range in $\bar p p$ colisions at the Tevatron and about 10 times larger at the Large Hadron Collider. We demonstrate their detectability with simulations appropriate to Run II conditions at the Tevatron.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1997

Weakly-Coupled Higgs Bosons and Precision Electroweak Physics

We examine the prospects for discovering and elucidating the weakly-coupled Higgs sector at future collider experiments. The Higgs search consists of three phases: (i) discovery of a Higgs candidate, (ii) verification of the Higgs interpretation of the signal, and (iii) precision measurements of Higgs sector properties. The discovery of one Higgs boson with Standard Model properties is not sufficient to expose the underlying structure of the electroweak symmetry breaking dynamics. It is critical to search for evidence for a non-minimal Higgs sector and/or new physics associated with electroweak symmetry breaking dynamics. An improvement in precision electroweak data at future colliders can play a useful role in confirming the theoretical interpretation of the Higgs search results.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1996

High Transverse Momentum Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

This note summarizes the various physics studies done for the LHC. It concentrates on the processes involving the production of high mass states. Results are drawn from simulations performed by the CMS and ATLAS collaborations. The ability of the LHC to provide insight into the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking is exemplified.

hep-ex↗
arXiv1996

Discovering Technicolor at Hadron Colliders

Strategies are presented for discovering light, color-singlet technipions (pi_T) produced in association with a vector boson through s-channel technirho production, at the Tevatron and LHC. Signal and W+jets background were simulated including detector effects. Tagging of b-quarks from the pi_T -> bb decay is found to be important to reduce the W+jets background. Kinematic properties of signal and background events are significantly different and simple cuts can be used to further improve the signal to background ratio.

hep-ph↗