13969763
Baryon number strangeness and electric charge fluctuations at zero and non-zero chemical potential
We present results on baryon number, strangeness and electric charge fluctuations in QCD at non-zero density and temperature obtained from lattice calculations with almost physical quark masses. At vanishing chemical potential, i.e. under conditions almost realized at RHIC and the LHC, quartic fluctuations of net baryon number and strangeness are large in a narrow temperature interval characterizing the transition region from the low to the high temperature phase. Our results are based on Taylor expansions in light and strange quark chemical potentials, i.e. we rigorously compute corrections to bulk thermodynamic quantities at non-vanishing chemical potential, by performing a Taylor expansion in μ/T. We find non-monotonic behavior for the radius of convergence of this series, which could be a hint for a critical end point in the (T, μ)-plane.
67814332
An efficient method to compute the residual phase on a Lefschetz thimble
We propose an efficient method to compute the so-called residual phase that appears when performing Monte Carlo calculations on a Lefschetz thimble. The method is stochastic and its cost scales linearly with the physical volume, linearly with the number of stochastic estimators and quadratically with the length of the extra dimension along the gradient flow. This is a drastic improvement over previous estimates of the cost of computing the residual phase. We also report on basic tests of correctness and scaling of the code.
117478307
Chiral restoration and deconfinement in two-color QCD with two flavors of staggered quarks
In preparation of lattice studies of the two-color QCD phase diagram we studychiral restoration and deconfinement at finite temperature with two flavors ofstaggered quarks using an RHMC algorithm on GPUs. We first study unquenchingeffects in local Polyakov loop distributions, and the Polyakov loop potentialobtained via Legendre transformation, in a fixed-scale approach for heavierquarks. We also present the chiral condensate and the correspondingsusceptibility over the lattice coupling across the chiral transition forlighter quarks. Using Ferrenberg-Swendsen reweighting we extract the maxima ofthe chiral susceptibility in order to determine pseudo-critical couplings onvarious lattices suitable for chiral extrapolations. These are then used to fixthe relation between coupling and temperature in the chiral limit.
16120128
Bulk thermodynamics and charge fluctuations at non-vanishing baryon density
We present results on bulk thermodynamic quantities as well as net baryon number, strangeness and electric charge fluctuations in QCD at non-zero density and temperature obtained from lattice calculations with almost physical quark masses for two values of the lattice cut-off aT = 1/4 and 1/6. We show that with our improved p4fa3-action the cut-off effects are under control when using lattices with a temporal extent of 6 or larger and that the contribution to the equation of state, which is due to a finite chemical potential is small for {mu}{sub q}/T < 1. Moreover, at vanishing chemical potential, i.e. under conditions almost realized at RHIC and the LHC, quartic fluctuations of net baryon number and strangeness are large in a narrow temperature interval characterizing the transition region from the low to high temperature phase. At non-zero baryon number density, strangeness fluctuations are enhanced and correlated to fluctuations of the net baryon number. If strangeness is furthermore forced to vanish, as it may be the case in systems created in heavy ion collisions, strangeness fluctuations are significantly smaller than baryon number fluctuations.
119188644
QCD bulk thermodynamics and conserved charge fluctuations with HISQ fermions
After briefly reviewing recent progress by the HotQCD collaboration in studying the 2+1 flavor QCD equation of state, we will focus on results on fluctuations of conserved charges by the BNL-Bielefeld and HotQCD collaborations. Higher order cumulants of the net-charge distributions are increasingly dominated by a universal scaling behavior, which arises due to a critical point of QCD in the chiral limit. Considering cumulants up to the 6^{th} order, we observe that they generically behave as expected from universal scaling laws, which is quite different from cumulants calculated within the hadron resonance gas model. Taking ratios of these cumulants, we obtain volume independent results that can be compared to the experimental measurements. We will argue that the freeze-out chemical potentials and the freeze-out temperature, usually obtained by a HRG model fit to the measured hadronic yields, can also be obtained in a model independent way from ab-initio lattice QCD calculations by utilizing observables related to conserved charge fluctuations. Further, we will show that the freeze-out strangeness and electric charge chemical potentials can be fixed by imposing strangeness neutrality and isospin asymmetry constraints in the lattice QCD calculations, in order to accommodate conditions met in heavy ion collisions. All results have been obtained with the highly improved staggered quark action (HISQ) and almost physical quark masses on lattices with temporal extent of N_\tau=6,8,10,12. 
After briefly reviewing recent progress by the HotQCD collaboration in studying the 2+1 flavor QCD equation of state, we will focus on results on fluctuations of conserved charges by the BNL-Bielefeld and HotQCD collaborations. Higher order cumulants of the net-charge distributions are increasingly dominated by a universal scaling behavior, which arises due to a critical point of QCD in the chiral limit. Considering cumulants up to the 6(th) order, we observe that they generically behave as expected from universal scaling laws, which is quite different from cumulants calculated within the hadron resonance gas model. Taking ratios of these cumulants, we obtain volume independent results that can be compared to the experimental measurements. We will argue that the freeze-out chemical potentials and the freeze-out temperature, usually obtained by a HRG model fit to the measured hadronic yields, can also be obtained in a model independent way from ab-initio lattice QCD calculations by utilizing observables related to conserved charge fluctuations. Further, we will show that the freeze-out strangeness and electric charge chemical potentials can be fixed by imposing strangeness neutrality and isospin asymmetry constraints in the lattice QCD calculations, in order to accommodate conditions met in heavy ion collisions. All results have been obtained with the highly improved staggered quark action (HISQ) and almost physical quark masses on lattices with temporal extent of N(τ) = 6, 8, 10, 12.
15858058
Non-zero density QCD by the Taylor expansion method: The isentropic equation of state, hadronic fluctuations and more
We discuss the Taylor expansion approach to non-zero baryon chemical potential ($\mu_B$) and present results on expanion coefficients of the pressure and energy density up to the 6-th order in $\mu_B$. Calculations have been performed with (2+1)-flavor of improved staggerd fermions (p4fat3) and almost physical masses on lattices with temporal extent of four and six time slices. We use the expansion coefficients to construct the isentropic equation of state on lines of constant entropy per baryon number and various different hadronic fluctuations. Furthermore, we estimate the radius of convegence of our expansion, which can be seen as a method to analyze the structure of the QCD phase diagram.
8018207
Top Quark Physics at the NLC
A high energy $e^+e^-$ linear collider (NLC) is an excellent tool for studying the properties of the top quark. In this talk I review some of the theory of top quark production and decay in $e^+e^-$ collisions both at threshold and in the continuum. I also report on the results of phenomenological analyses of $t\bar t$ production at the NLC.
40776986
Measurement of small radius gradient magnets using ion beams
Several small and precise 90/spl deg/, 20-inch-radius bending and focusing magnet systems will be needed for the transport line of the Fermilab Electron Cooling Project to transport 4.36 MeV electrons. Originally, it was anticipated that these magnets would have a gradient index of -1/2. To measure these magnets and complete achromatic bend modules, a well defined beam transport system was developed to determine the transfer matrix knowing the position and angle of several input and output beam rays passing through the magnet. The beam for this was a 12.5 keV proton beam that has the same magnetic rigidity as the electron beam in the final setup. The magnetic field is approximately 300 Gauss. For this purpose a high-brightness proton source was used and the beam collimated to give a low emittance (/spl sim/10/sup -8/ m rad) pencil beam of /spl sim/1 mm diameter with a current of /spl sim/100 nA. Details of the system and results of measuring a magnet will be presented.
119495100
QCD phenomenology of charm production at HERA
We compare different schemes for the treatment of heavy quark production in Deep-Inelastic Scattering (DIS). For fully-integrated quantities such as F{sub 2}(x,Q{sup 2}), we advocate the use of the General-Massive Variable-Flavor-Number (GM-VFN) scheme; we present some results showing the progress of a Next-to-Leading Order calculation in this scheme. For differential quantities, the Fixed-Flavor-Number (FFN) scheme provides a more appropriate starting point. We present a new calculation of the azimuthal distribution of charm quark production in DIS. All results have been obtained using a Monte Carlo program under development.
44449559
Magnetic Shielding of an Electron Beamline in a Hadron Accelerator Enclosure
The Fermilab Electron Cooling Project requires the operation of a 4.34 MeV electron beam in the same enclosure that houses the 120, 150 GeV Main Injector. Effective shielding of the magnetic fields from the ramped electrical busses and local static fields is necessary to maintain the high beam quality and recirculation efficiency required by the electron cooling system. This paper discusses the operational tolerances and the design of the beamline shielding, bus design, and bus shielding as well as experimental results from the prototype and final installation.
110755788
Fermilab linac injector, revisited
The Fermilab Linac has been operating at 200 MeV since 1971 and was upgraded to 400 MeV in 1993 with a peak current of /spl sim/35 mA. The injector consists of a Haefely Cockcroft-Walton, H/sup -/ source, an high gradient accelerating column (750 kV), 4 and 10 meter long transfer lines and a single gap 201.24 MHz cavity. The performance of the injector has been very gratifying although some tuning must be done approximately daily. The purpose of this report is to present representative experimental data and numerical simulations that are used as a guide for improvements to the Fermilab Linac. Today, the Fermilab Linac delivers a 400 MeV H/sup -/ beam with a peak current over 45 mA.