During the years between 1994 and 1997, the emulsion target of the CHORUS experiment was exposed to the wide band neutrino beam of the CERN SPS of 27 GeV average energy collecting about 106 neutrino interactions. A measurement of induced charm production and search for anticharmed pentaquark (0 c ) have been performed by using the presence of a 6% component in the beam. By requiring a positive muon charge as determined by the CHORUS muon spectrometer, 46 -induced charm events were observed with an estimated background of 5:20:4 events. At an average antineutrino energy of 18 GeV in the neutrino beam, the charm production rate induced by is

We present a search for scalar and tensor unparticles in the diphoton final state produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 10 TeV, with the CMS detector at LHC. The analysis focuses on the data sample corresponding to the integrated luminosity of 100 pb&amp / #8722 / 1, expected to be collected in the first LHC run. The exclusion limits on unparticle parameters, scaling dimension dU and coupling constant lambda, and the discovery potential for unparticles are presented. This is the first simulation study of the sensitivity to unparticles decaying into the diphoton final state at a hadron collider.

The littlest Higgs model is one of the most economical solution to the hierarchy problem of the standard model. It predicts existence of new gauge vectors and also new scalars, neutral and charged. The littlest Higgs model predicts the existence of new scalars beside a scalar that can be assigned as Higgs scalar of the standard model. In this thesis, the production of scalars in $e^+e^-$ colliders is studied. The scalar productions associated with standard model Higgs boson are also analyzed. The effects of the parameters of the littlest Higgs model to these processes are examined in detail. The collider phenomenology of the littlest Higgs model is strongly dependant on the free parameters of the model, which are the mixing angles $s,s&#039 / $ and the symmetry breaking scale $f$. The parameters of the model are strongly restricted when the fermions are charged under only one $U(1)$ subgroup. In this thesis, by charging fermions under two $U(1)$ subgroups, the constraints on the symmetry braking scale and the mixing angles are relaxed. In the littlest Higgs model, the existence of charged heavy scalars also displays an interesting feature. By writing a Majorano like term in the Yukawa Lagrangian, these heavy charged scalars are allowed to decay in to lepton pairs, violating lepton number and flavor. In this thesis, the leptonic final states and also the lepton flavor and number violating final signals are also analyzed. As a result of these thesis, it is predicted that the scalar production will be in the reach for a $sqrt{S}=2TeV$ $e^+ e^-$ collider, giving significant number of lepton flavor violating signals depending on the Yukawa couplings of the flavor violating term.

In this thesis, we study the subject of geometrical phases in detail by considering its various forms. We focus primarily on the relation between quantum geometrical phases and magnetic monopoles, and study how one can make use of the concepts of geometrical phases to define magnetic monopoles.

OPERA stands for Oscillation Project with Emulsion t-Racking Apparatus. The main goal of the OPERA experiment is to search for tau neutrino appearance in almost pure muon neutrino beam. The detector is located at Gran Sasso, 730 km away from the neutrino source, at CERN. In this thesis, the reconstruction efficiency and purity of neutrino interactions in the OPERA target have been studied by using Monte Carlo simulation. The efficiency of primary vertex reconstruction for muon neutrino Charge Current (CC) events is estimated as 83.2 percent. The main source of inefficiency is due to Quasi-elastic like topologies in which only one track is reconstructed. The purity of primary vertex tracks is found to be 99 percent. On the other hand, the reconstruction efficiency for muon neutrino CC charm events is estimated to be 90.2 percent, while the purity of the primary tracks is 67 percent. The low purity is due the fact that the secondary vertex tracks are wrongly assigned in the primary vertex. This spoils the purity.

Particle physics experiments with low event rates highly depend on background suppression methods. Neutron component of the ambient background radiation is especially problematic since neutrons are difficult to shield directly. TEXONO collaboration has employed a hybrid neutron detector composed of two different scintillating materials to measure the neutron background directly in the Kuo-Sheng Neutrino Laboratory. Detector is operated after calibration and optimization studies and from collected data, neutron flux is obtained using computational methods.

The study is mainly focused on Monte Carlo simulation of carbon fragmentation in nuclear emulsion. The carbon ion is selected as a remarkable candidate for the cancer therapy usages due to its high efficiency in depositing majority of its energy in the narrow region which is called Bragg Peak. On the other hand, the main side effect of heavy-ion therapy is the radiation dose beyond the Bragg Peak which damages the healthy tissues. Therefore the use of heavy-ion in cancer therapy requires accurate understanding of ion-matter interactions which result in the production of secondary particles. A Geant4 based simulation of carbon fragmentation has been done considering 400 MeV/n carbon beam directed to the detector which is made of nuclear emulsion films, interleaved with lexan layers. Four different models in Geant4 are compared with recent real data. Among the four different models, Binary Cascade Model (BIC) shows a better agreement with real data.

Nuclear waste remains radioactive for thousands of years. Burying it underground in an enormous repository, called Onkalo, surrounded and secured by solid rock is the long-term solution Finnish authorities implement right now. Once the repository is filled up, it will be locked up forever and never opened again. At the same time three new nuclear power plants are built. Out of Sight, out of Mind? Ultimately, this raises questions: Can this be the solution for final disposal of nuclear waste? How do we understand a problem clearly exceeding our capabilities as human beings? How do we deal with the dilemmas of uncertainty, invisibility, time, demand, possible contamination, and our individual responsibility as human beings? Understanding Through Interaction I designed three everyday products, a lamp, a toy for children, and a pregnancy test, that afford a familiar everyday action on one hand, while exposing a dilemma related to Onkalo on the other. In doing so, the artifacts make those dilemma tangible and facilitate understanding and critical thinking. Sharing a personal experience, the users can engage in a personal discourse around nuclear waste actively, opposing the distant and highly politicalised discourse spread by the media.

Commercial sterilization of medical devices may be performed using electron beam irradiators, which operate at various electron energies. The potential for activating components of the devices has been discussed, with current standards stating that an electron energy greater than 10 MeV requires assessment of potential induced radioactivity. There does not appear to be a literature citation for this energy limit, but it is the accepted default assumption within the industry. This research was directed at evaluating potential activation in medical products sterilized in electron beam as a function of the electron maximum energy. Monte Carlo simulation of a surrogate medical device was used to calculate photon and neutron fields resulting from electron irradiation, which were used to calculate concentrations for several radionuclides. The predominant mechanism for inducing radioactivity is photoneutron production in metal elements. Other mechanisms, including photoneutron production in deuterium with subsequent neutron capture, neutron capture of the photoneutrons produced in metal elements, and isomeric excitation, are all possible means of inducing radioactivity in similar conditions, but none made a perceptible contribution to activation in these experiments. The experiments confirmed that 10 MeV is a conservative assumption that any lower energy does not create significant activation. However, in the absence of a limited number of elements, the amount of induced radioactivity at 11 MeV and 12 MeV could also be considered insignificant. When based on an estimate of the amount of metal present in a medical device, the sum-of-fractions comparison to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission exempt concentration limits is less than unity for all energies below 12.1 MeV, which suggests that there is minimal probability of significant induced activity at energies above the generally-accepted standard 10 MeV upper energy limit. / text

<p>The aim of this study was to test whether one could use the same methods as used for sampling heavy metals and apply them to radioactive elements. Furthermore a sampling protocol was developed, the first of its kind, for the sampling of radioactive elements in fractured rock aquifers. This was achieved by initially examining local as well as international manuals and methods. The aforementioned was done in conjunction with a literature review of the movement of radioactive elements in these fractured rock aquifers. Beaufort West was utilised as a study area and the geology, hydrogeology and topography was outlined. Background radioactivity was generally acceptable except for two samples which were anomalously high. Taking cognisance of the methods used, as well as those previously applied in the area and abroad, a sampling protocol for radioactive elements in fractured rock aquifers was developed and attached as an appendix. In conclusion it was suggested that multiple methods be tested on one well in order to check whether similar results would occur. This would thus determine the best applicable methods. Also it was proposed that a new method, called DGT sampling, be applied in order to gain a time weighted average of the heavy metals and radioactive elements in groundwater. It could also be clearly seen, by comparing historical data and the current data, that the methods used for sampling heavy metal can be applied to radioactivity.</p>