Ph D Thesis

Title
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Observation of Diffractive W-Boson Production at the Tevatron

A thesis presented to the faculty of The Rockefeller University, 1997
by
Suren Bagdasarov

Abstract
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The first observation of diffractively produced W-bosons in ppbar  collisions
at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV is presented. In a sample of W -> e nu events collected by
the Collider Detector at Fermilab, an excess is found of events with a forward
rapidity gap, which is attributed to diffraction. The probability that this
excess is consistent with non-diffractive production is 1.1 x 10^-4 
(3.8 sigma). The relatively low fraction of W + Jet events observed within this
excess implies that mainly quarks from the pomeron, which mediates diffraction,
participate in diffractive W production. The diffractive to non-diffractive
production ratio is measured to be R_W = (1.15 +- 0.55)%. From a comparison of
diffractive W-boson and dijet production rates the hard-gluon and hard-quark
fractions of the pomeron structure are extracted.


Posted to /cdf/pub/thesis/cdf4603_BAGDASAROV_THESIS.ps
    http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/thesis/cdf4603_BAGDASAROV_THESIS.ps

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