We report a set of measurements of particle production in inelastic pp collisions collected with a minimum-bias trigger at the Tevatron Collider with the CDF II experiment. The inclusive charged particle transverse momentum differential cross section is measured, with improved precision, over a range about ten times wider than in previous measurements. The former modeling of the spectrum appears to be incompatible with the high particle momenta observed. The dependence of the charged particle transverse momentum on the event particle multiplicity is analyzed to study the various components of hadron interactions. This is one of the observable variables most poorly reproduced by the available Monte Carlo generators. A first measurement of the event transverse energy sum differential cross section is also reported. A comparison with a pythia prediction at the hadron level is performed. The inclusive charged particle differential production cross section is fairly well reproduced only in the transverse momentum range available from previous measurements. At higher momentum the agreement is poor. The transverse energy sum is poorly reproduced over the whole spectrum. The dependence of the charged particle transverse momentum on the particle multiplicity needs the introduction of more sophisticated particle production mechanisms, such as multiple parton interactions, in order to be better explained.

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An inclusive search for the standard model Higgs boson using the four-lepton final state in protonantiproton collisions produced by the Tevatron at √ s = 1.96 TeV is conducted. The data are recorded by the CDF II detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 9.7 fb −1 . Three distinct Higgs decay modes, namely ZZ, WW, and τ τ , are simultaneously probed. Nine potential signal events are selected and found to be consistent with the background expectation. We set a 95% credibility limit on the production cross section times the branching ratio and subsequent decay to the four lepton final state for hypothetical Higgs boson masses between 120 GeV/c 2 and 300 GeV/c 2 . * Deceased † With visitors from

The chemical response of energetic materials is analyzed in terms of 1) the thermal decomposition under the thermal stimulus and 2) the reactive flow upon the mechanical impact, both of which give rise to an exothermic thermal runaway or an explosion. The present study aims at building a set of chemical kinetics that can precisely model both thermal and impact initiation of a heavily aluminized cyclotrimethylene-trinitramine (RDX) which contains 35% of aluminum. For a thermal decomposition model, the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurement is used together with the Friedman isoconversional method for defining the frequency factor and activation energy in the form of Arrhenius rate law that are extracted from the evolution of product mass fraction. As for modelling the impact response, a series of unconfined rate stick data are used to construct the size effect curve which represents the relationship between detonation velocity and inverse radius of the sample. For validation of the modeled results, a cook-off test and a pressure chamber test are used to compare the predicted chemical response of the aluminized RDX that is either thermally or mechanically loaded.