arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to W. J. Stirling.
The production of Drell-Yan pairs in the double polarized mode of HERA-$\vec{\rm N}$ is studied at next-to-leading order in QCD. It is found that a measurement of this observable could yield vital information on the polarization of the light quark sea in the nucleon.
Some of the new experimental results and theoretical developments presented at the Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and Related Phenomena (Rome, April 1996) are reviewed.
The most general form of the $WWZ$ and $WWγ$ interaction contains a $CP$-violating term which has the same threshold behaviour as the Standard Model $\ee \to \ww$ cross section. We calculate the cross section as a function of the corresponding anomalous coupling, and estimate the bounds which can be obtained from a measurement of the threshold cross section at LEP2. We show how the effect of the coupling is most pronounced in the angular distributions of the final-state fermions.
New data, especially HERA measurements of the proton structure function at small $x$, allow the opportunity to improve our knowledge of the gluon and quark distribution functions. We perform a global analysis which incorporates these new precise data, and which extends down to $Q^2 = 1.5\; GeV^2$. We discuss the sensitivity to the value of $α_s$ and the improvement in the determination of the gluon. We compare the predictions of the single jet inclusive cross section with recent measurements from the Fermilab Tevatron.
An important issue in the direct reconstruction method of determining the $W$ mass from $q\bar q Q\bar Q$ events at LEP2 concerns the impact of the relatively unknown QCD interconnection effects. It has been suggested that a study of `short string' states, in which colour singlet states are formed from $q \bar Q $ and $Q\bar q$ pairs with small phase--space separation, could shed important light on this issue. We show that such configurations can also be generated by conventional background $e^+e^-\ar 4$~parton processes, in particular QCD $q \bar q g g$ and $q \bar q Q \bar Q$ and non--resonant electroweak $q \bar q Q \bar Q$ production. We study the colour and kinematic structure of these background contributions, and estimate the event rate to be expected at LEP2. We find that the QCD processes are heavily suppressed, but that non--resonant $q \bar q Q \bar Q$ production may be comparable in rate to the expected `short string' signal from $W^+W^-$ production.
In reconstructing the top quark momentum from its decay products, one must account for extra jets that can result from radiation of gluons. In this paper we study soft gluon radiation in top production and decay at the Fermilab Tevatron. We consider the cases where one or both $W$ bosons decays hadronically, {\it i.e.}, where at least one of the top quarks can be fully reconstructed. We show results for gluon distributions at the Tevatron and find that radiation from the $W$ decay products contributes substantially in the central region.
It has recently been shown that a new neutral vector boson $Z'$, with a mass of order 1~TeV and weak couplings to quarks only, could explain both the anomalous values of $R_b$ and $R_c$ and the apparent excess of large $E_T$ jet events measured by the CDF collaboration. We calculate the effects of $Z'$ exchange on the $t\bar{t}$ production cross section at Tevatron $p \bar p$ collider energies, including next-to-leading-order QCD corrections. We find a significant enhancement of the cross section and study the resulting $t \bar t$ invariant mass distribution, which could provide a decisive test of the $Z'$ model.
The recent CDF single jet inclusive measurements at Fermilab are incorporated in a global next-to-leading order parton analysis of the available deep inelastic and related data. We find that it is impossible to achieve a simultaneous QCD description of both the CDF jet distribution for transverse energies $E_T > 200$~GeV and the deep inelastic structure function data for $x > 0.3$. However, the CDF data for $E_T < 200$~GeV and the deep inelastic data are adequately described provided that the QCD coupling $α_S(M_Z^2)$ is increased from its preferred deep inelastic value to $α_S (M_Z^2) \simeq 0.116 - 0.120$.
The distribution of the spin of the nucleon among its constituents can be parametrized in the form of polarized parton distribution functions for quarks and gluons. Using all available data on the polarized structure function $g_1(x,Q^2)$, we determine these distributions both at leading and next-to-leading order in perturbation theory. We suggest three different, equally possible scenarios for the polarized gluon distribution, which is found to be only loosely constrained by current experimental data. We examine various possibilities of measuring polarized parton distributions at future experiments.
In Ref.~\cite{paper} we calculated all the experimentally relevant branching ratios of the Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, paying particular attention to the contributions from below--threshold decays. Unfortunately, an error in one of the subroutines of the {\tt FORTRAN} code we used was affecting the computation of the off--shell partial widths of the decays $A\ar Z^{0*}h^*$ and $H^\pm\ar W^{\pm *}h^*$. This has now been fixed, and the corrected plots are presented here
We examine the colour structure and charged particle yield for both the $t \bar t$ signal and the irreducible background processes contributing to \eebbww\ production close to the \ttb\ threshold. The charged particle multiplicity for the various components of the cross section is computed as a function of several kinematic variables. Our study may have important implications for recently proposed studies of interconnection phenomena in \ttb\ production at high--energy $e^+e^-$ colliders
A review of the present knowledge on polarized parton distributions is given. The effects of perturbative evolution on these distributions are discussed qualitatively and a comparison of various recent parametrizations is made.
The QED Coulomb correction is one of the most important corrections to the e+ e- --> W+ W- total cross section near threshold. We calculate these corrections through second order, and discuss the implications for extracting M_W from a threshold cross section measurement at LEP2. Analytic expressions are derived in various kinematic limits.
The $Q^2$ evolution of polarised parton distributions at small $x$ is studied. Various analytic approximations are critically discussed. We compare the full evolution with that obtained from the leading-pole approximation to the splitting functions, and show that the validity of this approximation depends critically on the $x \to 0$ behaviour of the starting distributions. A new analytic solution which is valid at small $x$ is obtained, and its domain of applicability is discussed.
We perform next-to-leading order global analyses of deep inelastic and related data for different fixed values of $α_S (M_Z^2)$. We present sets of parton distributions for six values of $α_S$ in the range 0.105 to 0.130. We display the $(x, Q^2)$ domains with the largest parton uncertainty and we discuss how forthcoming data may be able to improve the determination of the parton densities.
One of the most powerful methods for obtaining a precision measurement of M_W at LEP2 is from direct reconstruction of the invariant mass distribution of W bosons produced in e+e- --> W+W-. We investigate the effects on the W line shape, and in particular on the average invariant mass, of phase-space and first-order Coulomb corrections. The latter are shown to have a non-negligible effect on the reconstructed mass, inducing shifts of order -20 MeV at collision energies above threshold, compared to the Born approximation cross section. The sign and magnitude of the effect can be understood in a simple model calculation in which one of the W bosons is assumed to be stable.
We have substantially extended our analysis of the partonic content of the pomeron. Ambiguities in the normalization of the pomeron flux and the possiblity of a direct coupling of the pomeron to single quarks are discussed, yielding two equally possible scenarios for the parton distributions in the pomeron. We discuss various experimental tests of these scenarios.
Understanding the pattern of gluon radiation in $t \bar t$ production processes is important for making an accurate determination of the top mass from the measurement of its decay products. In a recent paper we showed that the exact matrix element and parton shower (HERWIG) calculations gave very different results for the distribution of gluon jets in $t \bar t$ production at the Tevatron $p \bar p$ collider. By repeating the calculation for the simpler $e^+e^- \to b \bar b W^+W^-g$ process, we reveal even more dramatic differences between the two approaches. We conclude that there are significant differences in gluon radiation between HERWIG and the matrix element calculation in regions of phase space where one would expect agreement.