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CDF

cdf_detector.jpg

The CDF Detector.

CDF is one of two detectors at the Tevatron at Fermilab, located outside Chicago. The Tevatron collides proton and anti-proton beams with a combined energy of about 2 TeV, and has a rich physics program, including bottom physics, top physics, W measurements and searches for the Higgs. While the LHC will supersede the Tevatron in many of these areas, others remain the best in the world.

Search for WZ and ZZ in MET + b Jets

The ZZ and WZ events are topologically similar to ZH and WH, which are the most promising Higgs discovery channels at low Higgs mass. Also, the production cross sections of ZZ and WZ are sensitive to extra gauge couplings that might exist, but are not present in the Standard Model. In this analysis, we require that one Z decay to a pair of bottom quarks and that the accompanying W or Z decay to lepton+neutrino or neutrino-neutrino respectively.

Group: Peter Wittich, Steve Proprocki.

Search for Bs→ μμ

The decay of Bs mesons into muon pairs, highly suppressed in the Standard Model, can be enhanced by new physics such as SUSY by several orders of magnitude. Using the large dataset collected at the CDF experiment at the Tevatron, we are performing a blind search for these decays. Existing limits from CDF and D0 are already setting tight constraints on many SUSY models, and the improved analysis performance and increased data set will be sensitive to deviations from the Standard Model expectation.

Group: Julia Thom, Walter Hopkins (grad student).