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S. Kuhlmann

Publications and source records attributed to S. Kuhlmann.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2012

The Dark Energy Spectrometer (DESpec): A Multi-Fiber Spectroscopic Upgrade of the Dark Energy Camera and Survey for the Blanco Telescope

We describe an initiative to build and use the Dark Energy Spectrometer (DESpec), a wide-field spectroscopic survey instrument for the Blanco 4 meter telescope at Cerro Tololo InterAmerican Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. A new system with about 4000 robotically positioned optical fibers will be interchangeable with the CCD imager of the existing Dark Energy Camera (DECam), accessing a field of view of 3.8 square degrees in a single exposure. The proposed instrument will be operated by CTIO and available for use by the astronomy community. Our collaboration proposes to use DESpec to conduct a wide, deep spectroscopic survey to study Dark Energy. In a survey of about 350 nights, the DESpec collaboration proposes to obtain spectroscopic redshifts for about 8 million galaxies over 5000 square degrees selected from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). This Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey will advance our knowledge of cosmic expansion and structure growth significantly beyond that obtainable with imaging-only surveys. Since it adds a spectroscopic third dimension to the same sky as DES, DESpec will enable increasingly precise techniques to discriminate among alternative explanations of cosmic acceleration, such as Dark Energy and Modified Gravity.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2012

PreCam, a Precursor Observational Campaign for Calibration of the Dark Energy Survey

PreCam, a precursor observational campaign supporting the Dark Energy Survey (DES), is designed to produce a photometric and astrometric catalog of nearly a hundred thousand standard stars within the DES footprint, while the PreCam instrument also serves as a prototype testbed for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam)'s hardware and software. This catalog represents a potential 100-fold increase in Southern Hemisphere photometric standard stars, and therefore will be an important component in the calibration of the Dark Energy Survey. We provide details on the PreCam instrument's design, construction and testing, as well as results from a subset of the 51 nights of PreCam survey observations on the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy's Curtis-Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. We briefly describe the preliminary data processing pipeline that has been developed for PreCam data and the preliminary results of the instrument performance, as well as astrometry and photometry of a sample of stars previously included in other southern sky surveys.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2012

Supernova Simulations and Strategies For the Dark Energy Survey

We present an analysis of supernova light curves simulated for the upcoming Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova search. The simulations employ a code suite that generates and fits realistic light curves in order to obtain distance modulus/redshift pairs that are passed to a cosmology fitter. We investigated several different survey strategies including field selection, supernova selection biases, and photometric redshift measurements. Using the results of this study, we chose a 30 square degree search area in the griz filter set. We forecast 1) that this survey will provide a homogeneous sample of up to 4000 Type Ia supernovae in the redshift range 0.05<z<1.2, and 2) that the increased red efficiency of the DES camera will significantly improve high-redshift color measurements. The redshift of each supernova with an identified host galaxy will be obtained from spectroscopic observations of the host. A supernova spectrum will be obtained for a subset of the sample, which will be utilized for control studies. In addition, we have investigated the use of combined photometric redshifts taking into account data from both the host and supernova. We have investigated and estimated the likely contamination from core-collapse supernovae based on photometric identification, and have found that a Type Ia supernova sample purity of up to 98% is obtainable given specific assumptions. Furthermore, we present systematic uncertainties due to sample purity, photometric calibration, dust extinction priors, filter-centroid shifts, and inter-calibration. We conclude by estimating the uncertainty on the cosmological parameters that will be measured from the DES supernova data.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2011

DECam integration tests on telescope simulator

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is a next generation optical survey aimed at measuring the expansion history of the universe using four probes: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the survey, the DES Collaboration is building the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square degree, 570 Megapixel CCD camera which will be mounted at the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter- American Observatory. DES will survey 5000 square degrees of the southern galactic cap in 5 filters (g, r, i, z, Y). DECam will be comprised of 74 250 micron thick fully depleted CCDs: 62 2k x 4k CCDs for imaging and 12 2k x 2k CCDs for guiding and focus. Construction of DECam is nearing completion. In order to verify that the camera meets technical specifications for DES and to reduce the time required to commission the instrument, we have constructed a full sized telescope simulator and performed full system testing and integration prior to shipping. To complete this comprehensive test phase we have simulated a DES observing run in which we have collected 4 nights worth of data. We report on the results of these unique tests performed for the DECam and its impact on the experiments progress.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2009

Dark Energy Survey Supernovae: Simulations and Survey Strategy

We present simulations for the Dark Energy Survey (DES) using a new code suite (SNANA) that generates realistic supernova light curves accounting for atmospheric seeing conditions and intrinsic supernova luminosity variations using MLCS2k2 or SALT2 models. Errors include stat-noise from photo-statistics and sky noise. We applied SNANA to simulate DES supernova observations and employed an MLCS-based fitter to obtain the distance modulus for each simulated light curve. We harnessed the light curves in order to study selection biases for high-redshift supernovae and to constrain the optimal DES observing strategy using the Dark Energy Task Force figure of merit.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2007

The impact of new neutrino DIS and Drell-Yan data on large-x parton distributions

New data sets have recently become available for neutrino and antineutrino deep inelastic scattering on nuclear targets and for inclusive dimuon production in pp pd interactions. These data sets are sensitive to different combinations of parton distribution functions in the large-x region and, therefore, provide different constraints when incorporated into global parton distribution function fits. We compare and contrast the effects of these new data on parton distribution fits, with special emphasis on the effects at large x. The effects of the use of nuclear targets in the neutrino and antineutrino data sets are also investigated.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2005

Determination of the Jet Energy Scale at the Collider Detector at Fermilab

A precise determination of the energy scale of jets at the Collider Detector at Fermilab at the Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ collider is described. Jets are used in many analyses to estimate the energies of partons resulting from the underlying physics process. Several correction factors are developed to estimate the original parton energy from the observed jet energy in the calorimeter. The jet energy response is compared between data and Monte Carlo simulation for various physics processes, and systematic uncertainties on the jet energy scale are determined. For jets with transverse momenta above 50 GeV the jet energy scale is determined with a 3% systematic uncertainty.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2003

The CDF Calorimetry Upgrade for Run IIb

The physics program at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider will continue to explore the high energy frontier of particle physics until the commissioning of the LHC at CERN. The luminosity increase provided by the Main Injector will require upgrades beyond those implemented for the first stage (Run IIa) of the Tevatron's Run II physics program. The upgrade of the CDF calorimetry includes: 1) the replacement of the slow gas detectors on the front face of the Central Calorimeter with a faster scintillator version which has a better segmentation, and 2) the addition of timing information to both the Central and EndPlug Electromagnetic Calorimeters to filter out cosmic ray and beam related backgrounds.

physics.ins-det↗
arXiv2000

Report of the Working Group on Photon and Weak Boson Production

This report discusses physics issues which can be addressed in photon and weak boson production in Run II at the Tevatron. The current understanding and the potential of Run II to expand our knowledge of direct photon production in hadronic collisions is discussed. We explore the prospects for using the W-boson cross section to measure the integrated luminosity, improving the measurement of the W and Z boson transverse momentum distributions, the Z -> b\bar b signal, and the lepton angular distribution in W decays. Finally, we consider the prospects for measuring the trilinear gauge boson couplings in Run II.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Large-x Parton Distributions

Reliable knowledge of parton distributions at large x is crucial for many searches for new physics signals in the next generation of collider experiments. Although these are generally well determined in the small and medium x range, it has been shown that their uncertainty grows rapidly for x>0.1. We examine the status of the gluon and quark distributions in light of new questions that have been raised in the past two years about "large-x" parton distributions, as well as recent measurements which have improved the parton uncertainties. Finally, we provide a status report of the data used in the global analysis, and note some of the open issues where future experiments, including those planned for Jefferson Labs, might contribute.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Parton Densitites at High-x

Reliable knowledge of parton distributions at large x is crucial for many searches for new physics signals in the next generation of collider experiments. Although these are generally well determined in the small and medium x range, it has been shown that their uncertainty grows rapidly for x>0.1. We examine the status of the distributions in light of new questions that have been raised about "large-x" parton distributions, as well as recent measurements which have improved the parton uncertainties.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2000

Parton Distributions Working Group

The main focus of this working group was to investigate the different issues associated with the development of quantitative tools to estimate parton distribution functions uncertainties. In the conclusion, we introduce a "Manifesto" that describes an optimal method for reporting data.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1999

Large-x Parton Distributions

Reliable knowledge of parton distributions at large x is crucial for many searches for new physics signals in the next generation of collider experiments. Although these are generally well determined in the small and medium x range, it has been shown that their uncertainty grows rapidly for x > 0.1. We examine the status of the gluon and quark distributions in light of new questions that have been raised in the past two years about large-x parton distributions, as well as recent measurements which have improved the parton uncertainties. We perform several specific global fits to answer the outstanding questions, and to investigate the potential of future experiments, particularly at HERA, which may provide critical constraints on parton distributions at large x.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1999

Global QCD Analysis of Parton Structure of the Nucleon: CTEQ5 Parton Distributions

An up-to-date global QCD analysis of high energy lepton-hadron and hadron-hadron interactions is performed to better determine the gluon and quark parton distributions in the nucleon. Improved experimental data on inclusive jet production, in conjunction with precise deep inelastic scattering data, place good constraints on the gluon over a wide range of x; while new data on asymmetries in Drell-Yan processes contribute to better determine the d/u ratio. Comparisons with results of other recent global analyses are made, and the differences are described. Open issues and the general problem of determining the uncertainties of parton distributions are discussed.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1998

kt Effects in Direct-Photon Production

We discuss the phenomenology of initial-state parton-kt broadening in direct-photon production and related processes in hadron collisions. After a brief summary of the theoretical basis for a Gaussian-smearing approach, we present a systematic study of recent results on fixed-target and collider direct-photon production, using complementary data on diphoton and pion production to provide empirical guidance on the required amount of kt broadening. This approach provides a consistent description of the observed pattern of deviation of next-to-leading order QCD calculations relative to the direct-photon data, and accounts for the shape and normalization difference between fixed-order perturbative calculations and the data. We also discuss the uncertainties in this phenomenological approach, the implications of these results on the extraction of the gluon distribution of the nucleon, and the comparison of our findings to recent related work.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1998

Study of the Uncertainty of the Gluon Distribution

The uncertainty in the calculation of many important new processes at the Tevatron and LHC is dominated by that concerning the gluon distribution function. We investigate the uncertainty in the gluon distribution of the proton by systematically varying the gluon parameters in the global QCD analysis of parton distributions. The results depend critically on the parton momentum fraction x and the QCD scale Q^2. The uncertainties are presented for integrated gluon-gluon and gluon-quark luminosities for both the Tevatron and LHC as a function of sqrt(tau)=sqrt(x1x2)=sqrt(shat/s), the most relevant quantity for new particle production. The uncertainties are reasonably small, except for large x.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1997

Structure Function Subgroup Summary

We summarize the studies and discussions of the Structure Function subgroup of the QCD working group of the Snowmass 1996 Workshop: New Directions for High Energy Physics.

hep-ph↗
arXiv1997

Hera Events, Tevatron Jets, and the Uncertainty On Quarks At Large X

The recently reported excess of events at HERA compared to QCD calculations impels us to examine all possible Standard Model explanations before invoking ``new physics''. We explore the possibility of adding an unusual, but small, component of additional quarks at large x (beyond x>0.75) as a way to increase the predicted SM cross-section in the HERA kinematic region by the QCD evolution feed-down effect. We describe various scenarios under which this can be achieved while maintaining good global fits to all established data sets. This implies a much larger SM uncertainty than commonly assumed. In addition, the modified parton distributions provide another possible mechanism to account for the CDF high-pt jet excess which occurs at similar x and Q^2 values.

hep-ph↗