Heavy Flavor Physics

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

The study of heavy quark flavors has yielded significant insight into the fundamental interactions and symmetries of matter. It provides a unique and powerful tool to search for new physics not described by the Standard Model of particles and interactions. Eventually, it may lead to answers, or at least provide important hints, to some of the most fundamental questions in science such as the source of the matter anti-matter asymmetry in the universe. This research group has found that the superb vertex resolution and particle identification of FOCUS are crucial for heavy quark studies. The BTeV experiment at Fermilab will have these capabilities, and will allow them to continue their physics objectives in the forward region at the Tevatron where B mesons and baryons are copiously produced. During the period covered by this proposal, the group will finish its analyses of charm data from the Fermilab photoproduction experiment FOCUS. In the period covered by this proposal, the group will pursue its ongoing interests in using charm decays to search for new physics, using semileptonic charm decay as a window into the mysteries of the strong force, mapping out excited charm meson spectroscopy, and understanding charm photoproduction. Vanderbilt is playing a leading role on BTeV, the second generation B-factory at Fermilab. BTeV is designed to make precision measurements of charm and beauty decays in order to challenge the Standard Model explanation of CP violation, mixing, and rare decays. They are also leading the development of a Grid computing infrastructure and off-line computing resources for BTeV, and heading up a research group that is developing a fault adaptive framework for the BTeV trigger and data acquisition system. Broader Impact: Vanderbilt's collaborative efforts with computer scientists are breaking new ground in the development of fault adaptive frameworks for real-time embedded systems such as the BTeV trigger, which is at a unique scale and complexity. The results of this work will be useful in any area that requires large scale, reliable, real-time systems. In the past, Vanderbilt has benefited greatly from the participation of undergraduates in our program. During the period covered by the past grant, nine undergraduates made significant contributions to our program. This level of activity will continue during the period covered by this grant. Finally, the group is contributing significantly to the activities of its local QuarkNet center, which involves several high school teachers in high energy physics research and assists them with the development of curriculum and experiments for their classes.