A search is conducted for a low-mass charged Higgs boson produced in a top quark decay and subsequently decaying into a charm and a strange quark. The data sample was recorded in proton-proton collisions at $\\sqrt{s}=$ 13 TeV by the CMS experiment at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb$^{-1}$. The search is performed in the process of top quark pair production, where one top quark decays to a bottom quark and a charged Higgs boson, and the other to a bottom quark and a W boson. With the W boson decaying to a charged lepton (electron or muon) and a neutrino, the final state comprises an isolated lepton, missing transverse momentum, and at least four jets, of which two are tagged as b jets. To enhance the search sensitivity, one of the jets originating from the charged Higgs boson is required to satisfy a charm tagging selection. No significant excess beyond standard model predictions is found in the dijet invariant mass distribution. An upper limit in the range 1.68-0.25% is set on the branching fraction of the top quark decay to the charged Higgs boson and bottom quark for a charged Higgs boson mass between 80 and 160 GeV.

Triple-GEM detector technology was recently selected by CMS for a part of the upgrade of its forward muon detector system as GEM detectors provide a stable operation in the high radiation environment expected during the future High-Luminosity phase of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC). In a first step, GEM chambers (detectors) will be installed in the innermost muon endcap station in the 1.6<|η|<2.2 pseudo-rapidity region, mainly to control level-1 muon trigger rates after the second LHC Long Shutdown. These new chambers will add redundancy to the muon system in the η-region where the background rates are high, and the bending of the muon trajectories due to the CMS magnetic field is small. A novel construction technique for such chambers has been developed in such a way where foils are mounted onto a single stack and then uniformly stretched mechanically, avoiding the use of spacers and glue inside the active gas volume. We describe the layout, the stretching mechanism and the overall assembly technique of such GEM chambers.

The hadronic part of the electron structure function F2e has been measured for the first time, using e+e− data collected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP, at centre-of-mass energies of s=91.2–209.5 GeV. The data analysis is simpler than that of the measurement of the photon structure function. The electron structure function F2e data are compared to predictions of phenomenological models based on the photon structure function. It is shown that the contribution of large target photon virtualities is significant. The data presented can serve as a cross-check of the photon structure function F2γ analyses and help in refining existing parameterisations.

A determ ination ofthesingleW Spin DensityM atrix(SDM )elem entsin thereaction e e ! W + W ! l q q(l= e= )isreported atcentre-of-m assenergies between 189 and 209 GeV.Thedata sam pleused correspondsto an integrated lum inosity of520 pb 1 taken by DELPHIbetween 1998 and 2000. ThesingleW SDM elem ents, W 0 ( ; = 1 or0),aredeterm ined asa function ofthe W production angle with respect to the e beam direction and are obtained from m easurem ents ofthe W decay productsby the application ofsuitableprojection operators, 0,which assum etheV-A coupling oftheW boson to ferm ions. The m easured SDM elem entsare used to obtain the fraction oflongitudinally polarised W s,with theresult:

The nature of b-quark jet hadronisation has been investigated using data taken at the Z peak by the DELPHI detector at LEP. Two complementary methods are used to reconstruct the energy of weakly decaying b-hadrons, E_B^weak . The average value of x^weak_B = E_B^weak/E_beam is measured to be 0.699±0.011. The resulting x^weak_B distribution is then analysed in the framework of two choices for the perturbative contribution (parton shower and Next to Leading Log QCD calculation) in order to extract measurements of the non-perturbative contribution to be used in studies of b-hadron production in other experimental environments than LEP. In the parton shower framework, data favour the Lund model ansatz and corresponding values of its parameters have been determined within PYTHIA 6.156 from DELPHI data: a= 1.84^+0.23_-0.21 b=0.642^+0.073_-0.063 GeV^-2, with a correlation factor ρ =92.2

Single top quark production via four-fermion contact interactions associated to flavour-changing neutral currents was searched for in data taken by the DELPHI detector at LEP2. The data were accumulated at centre-of-mass energies ranging from 189 to 209 GeV, with an integrated luminosity of 598.1 pb −1 . No evidence for a signal was found. Limits on the energy scale Λ , were set for scalar-, vector- and tensor-like coupling scenarios.

An analysis of the direct soft photon production rate as a function of the parent jet characteristics is presented, based on hadronic events collected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP1. The dependences of the photon rates on the jet kinematic characteristics (momentum, mass, etc.) and on the jet charged, neutral and total hadron multiplicities are reported. Up to a scale factor of about four, which characterizes the overall value of the soft photon excess, a similarity of the observed soft photon behavior to that of the inner hadronic bremsstrahlung predictions is found for the momentum, mass, and jet charged multiplicity dependences. However for the dependence of the soft photon rate on the jet neutral and total hadron multiplicities a prominent difference is found for the observed soft photon signal as compared to the expected bremsstrahlung from final state hadrons. The observed linear increase of the soft photon production rate with the jet total hadron multiplicity and its strong dependence on the jet neutral multiplicity suggest that the rate is proportional to the number of quark pairs produced in the fragmentation process, with the neutral pairs being more effectively radiating than the charged ones.

The data taken by DELPHI at centre-of-mass energies between 189 and 209 GeV are used to place limits on the CP-conserving trilinear gauge boson couplings Delta_g1z, lambda_gamma and Delta_kappag associated to W+W- and single W production at LEP2. Using data from the jjlv, jjjj, jjX and lX final states, where j, l and X represent a jet, a lepton and missing four-momentum, respectively, the following limits are set on the couplings when one parameter is allowed to vary and the others are set to their Standard Model values of zero: Delta_g1z = -0.025^{+0.033}_{-0.030}, lambda_gamma = 0.002^{+0.035}_{-0.035} and Delta_kappag = 0.024^{+0.077}_{-0.081} . Results are also presented when two or three parameters are allowed to vary. All observations are consistent with the predictions of the Standard Model and supersede the previous results on these gauge coupling parameters published by DELPHI.

In a study of the reaction e − e + → W − W + with the DELPHI detector, the probabilities of the two W particles occurring in the joint polarisation states transverse–transverse ( TT ), longitudinal–transverse plus transverse–longitudinal ( LT ) and longitudinal–longitudinal ( LL ) have been determined using the final states WW→lν qq̅ ( l = e , μ ). The two-particle joint polarisation probabilities, i.e. the spin density matrix elements ρ TT , ρ LT , ρ LL , are measured as functions of the W − production angle, θ _W^- , at an average reaction energy of 198.2 GeV. Averaged over all cosθ_W^- , the following joint probabilities are obtained: ρ̅_TT=(67±8)%, ρ̅_LT=(30±8)%, ρ̅_LL=(3±7)%. These results are in agreement with the Standard Model predictions of 63.0

Measurements are presented of R_b, the ratio of the b bbar cross-section to the q qbar cross-section in e+e- collisions, and the forward-backward asymmetry A^b_FB at twelve energy points in the range sqrt(s) = 130-207 GeV. These results are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations. The measurements are used to set limits on new physics scenarios involving contact interactions.

A study of the inclusive charged hadron production in two-photon collisions is described. The data were collected with the DELPHI detector at LEP II. Results on the inclusive single-particle p(T) distribution and the differential charged hadrons d sigma/dp(T) cross-section are presented and compared to the predictions of perturbative NLO QCD calculations and to published results. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Single photons detected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP2 in the years 1997-2000 are used to investigate the existence of a single extra dimension in a modifed ADD scenario with slightly warped large extra dimensions. The data collected at centre-of-mass energies between 180 and 209 GeV for an integrated luminosity of ~650 pb^-1 agree with the predictions of the Standard Model and allow a limit to be set on graviton emission in one large extra dimension. The limit obtained on the fundamental mass scale MD is 1.69 TeV at 95% CL, with an expected limit of 1.71 TeV.

Measurements are presented of R b , the ratio of the [FORMULA] cross-section to the [FORMULA] cross-section in e + e − collisions, and the forward-backward asymmetry A FB b at twelve energy points in the range [FORMULA]-207 GeV. These results are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations. The measurements are used to set limits on new physics scenarios involving contact interactions.

This paper presents the final interpretation of the results from DELPHI on the searches for Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM). A few representative scenarios are considered, that include CP conservation and explicit CP violation in the Higgs sector. The experimental results encompass the searches for neutral Higgs bosons at LEP1 and LEP2 in final states as expected in the MSSM, as well as LEP2 searches for charged Higgs bosons and for neutral Higgs bosons decaying into hadrons independent of the quark flavour. The data reveal no significant excess with respect to background expectations. The results are translated into excluded regions of the parameter space in the various scenarios. In the CP-conserving case, these lead to limits on the masses of the lightest scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs bosons, h and A, and on tanβ. The dependence of these limits on the top quark mass is discussed. Allowing for CP violation reduces the experimental sensitivity to Higgs bosons. It is shown that this effect depends strongly on the values of the parameters responsible for CP violation in the Higgs sector.

The effect of the heavy b-quark mass on the two, three and four-jet rates is studied using LEP data collected by the DELPHI experiment at the Z peak in 1994 and 1995. The rates of b-quark jets and light quark jets (ℓ=uds) in events with n=2, 3, and 4 jets, together with the ratio of two and four-jet rates of b-quarks with respect to light-quarks, Rn bℓ, have been measured with a double-tag technique using the CAMBRIDGE jet-clustering algorithm. A comparison between experimental results and theory (matrix element or Monte Carlo event generators such as PYTHIA, HERWIG and ARIADNE) is done after the hadronisation phase.Using the four-jet observable R4 bℓ, a measurement of the b-quark mass using massive leading-order calculations gives:\(m_b(M_Z) = 3.76 \pm0.32 ({\text{stat}}) \pm0.17 ({\text{syst}}) \pm0.22 ({\text{had}}) \pm0.90 ({\text{theo}})\,\text{GeV}/c^2\,.\) This result is compatible with previous three-jet determinations at the MZ energy scale and with low energy mass measurements evolved to the MZ scale using QCD renormalisation group equations.

A first measurement of the average polarisation Pτ of tau leptons produced in e+e− annihilation at energies significantly above the Z resonance is presented. The polarisation is determined from the kinematic spectra of tau hadronic decays. The measured value Pτ=−0.164±0.125 is consistent with the Standard Model prediction for the mean LEP energy of 197 GeV.

Muon bremsstrahlung photons converted in front of the DELPHI main tracker (TPC) in dimuon events at LEP1 were studied in two photon kinematic ranges: 0.2 < E_gamma <= 1 GeV and transverse momentum with respect to the parent muon p_T < 40 MeV/c, and 1 < E_gamma <= 10 GeV and p_T < 80 MeV/c . A good agreement of the observed photon rate with predictions from QED for the muon inner bremsstrahlung was found, contrary to the anomalous soft photon excess that has been observed recently in hadronic Z^0 decays. The obtained ratios of the observed signal to the predicted level of the muon bremsstrahlung are 1.06 +/- 0.12 +/- 0.07 in the photon energy range 0.2 < E_gamma <= 1 GeV and 1.04 +/- 0.09 +/- 0.12 in the photon energy range 1 < E_gamma <= 10 GeV. The bremsstrahlung dead cone is observed for the first time in the direct photon production at LEP.

A measurement of the W boson mass and width has been performed by the DELPHI collaboration using the data collected during the full LEP2 programme (1996-2000). The data sample has an integrated luminosity of 660 pb^-1 and was collected over a range of centre-of-mass energies from 161 to 209 GeV. Results are obtained by applying the method of direct reconstruction of the mass of the W from its decay products in both the W+W- -> lvqq and W+W- -> qqqq channels. The W mass result for the combined data set is M_W = 80.336 +/- 0.055 (Stat.) +/- 0.028 (Syst.) +/- 0.025 (FSI) +/- 0.009 (LEP) GeV/c^2, where FSI represents the uncertainty due to final state interaction effects in the qqqq channel, and LEP represents that arising from the knowledge of the collision energy of the accelerator. The combined value for the W width is Gamma_W = 2.404 +/- 0.140 (Stat.) +/- 0.077 (Syst.) +/- 0.065 (FSI) GeV/c^2. These results supersede all values previously published by the DELPHI collaboration. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Carlo Caso.