[Clas_hadron] Abstract for April APS

[Michael Evan McCracken]

Dear Igor,
   I can certainly add a bit of text suggesting what decays we're 
looking for.  I'll tell you that we're investigating decays to a meson 
(either charged pion or kaon, or a K^0_s) and a lepton (either electron 
or muon, or a neutrino in the case of the K^0).  I'll amend the abstract 
after I have received everyone's comments.
   As far as 'blind analysis' is concerned, the term is common in 
high-energy literature.  For the benefit of those on this list-serv, 
I'll write that we use histograms of the invariant mass of the Lambda 
decay products to identify signal events.  To perform a 'blind search', 
we hide the region of the invariant mass plots around the Lambda mass 
while tuning background reduction cuts.  Thus, we remove the tendency to 
choose a set of cuts because it produces an interesting shape in the 
signal region.  I debated whether or not to include this information in 
the abstract, but have opted not to since the term is used frequently in 
searches for rare reactions.  I'll give a full description of the 
technique at the Feb 22 meeting.
Best,
Mike


----------------------------------------------
Michael Evan McCracken, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Physics
Washington & Jefferson College
60 South Lincoln Street
Washington, PA 15301
(724)223.6148
----------------------------------------------

On 12/27/12 12:42 PM, Igor Strakovsky wrote:
> Dear Mike,
>
> Abstract is good as is but there are two issues which may bother.
> Can you please be more specific about 'baron-number-violating
> decays'.  Then what your 'blind analysis' means?  We know how a
> double-blind analysis works in pharmacology but I am not sure how
> it may be applicable in physics.
>
> Thanks, Igor
>
> On Thu, 27 Dec 2012 12:23:31 -0500, Michael Evan McCracken
> <mmccracken at washjeff.edu> wrote:
>
>> Dear Spectroscopists,
>>    I would like to give a 10-minute contributing talk at the April APS
>> meeting in Denver.  I plan to present the status of a search for
>> baron-number-violating decays of the $\Lambda$ hyperon using the g11 dataset.
>> I have been working on this analysis with Matt Bellis since last Summer, and
>> it is progressing nicely.  This news may seem out of the blue, but I plan to
>> give a full talk at the Hadron Spec Working Group meeting on February 22nd.
>>    Until then, the abstract has been placed in the JLab filesystem at
>> http://www.jlab.org/Hall-B/secure/hadron/abstracts/2012/aps_april_2013_mccracken.pdf
>> A pdf of the abstract is also attached to this e-mail.
>>
>> I welcome any comments or suggestions.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Mike McCracken
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------
>> Michael Evan McCracken, Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor of Physics
>> Washington & Jefferson College
>> 60 South Lincoln Street
>> Washington, PA 15301
>> (724)223.6148
>> ----------------------------------------------
>
> Igor Strakovsky, SAID CNS The George Washington University
> Tel: 703-726-8344(NV),202-994-4742(FB),Skype: igors1945_2
> Fax: 202-994-3001(FB),Emails: igor at va.gwu.edu, igor at jlab.org
>