Physics with the CDF detector
CDF was one of two general purpose particle detectors at Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator. It detected and recorded data from proton antiproton interactions at what, pre-LHC, were the highest centre-of-mass energies in the world, and provided an ideal opportunity to explore particle physics in a hadronic environment.In CDF, I had a particular interest in physics channels that yield b quarks. Previous studies of b quark production at Run 1 showed a potential discrepancy when compared to QCD predictions. If true, this observation could signal the first hint of physics beyond the Standard Model. Understanding b quark production and detection was thus of paramount importance. We (Anant Gajjar, Ronan McNulty and myself) developed a novel method to determine b identification efficiency purely from data, which was used to measure b production. We also measured the production rate of photons produced in conjunction with heavy quarks - not only a valuable test of QCD, but also a topology that can be significantly enriched by New Physics (eg. supersymmetry) contributions.
More information
- Public results webpage and documentation for the photon +b analysis.
- B b-bar cross-section public webpage
- Latest results for the bb cross-section, including comparison to NLO.
- Differential cross-section as a function of leading jet Et (linear / log scales)
- Differential cross-section as a function of dijet invariant mass (linear / log scales)
- Differential cross-section as a function of phi angle between jets (linear / log scales)
- Comparisons with MC@NLO+JIMMY: differential cross-sections as functions of; leading jet Et; dijet invariant mass; phi angle between jets;
- See also presentation at HEPP2005
- And most recently, my review at DIS in 2008.