Abstract: The T2K experiment is designed to study neutrino oscillation properties by directing a high intensity neutrino beam produced at J-PARC in Tokai, Japan, towards the large Super-Kamiokande detector located 295 km away, in Kamioka, Japan. The experiment includes a sophisticated near detector complex, 280 m downstream of the neutrino production target in order to measure the properties of the neutrino beam and to better understand neutrino interactions at the energy scale below a few GeV. A key element of the near detectors is the ND280 tracker, consisting of two active scintillator-bar target systems surrounded by three large time projection chambers (TPCs) for charged particle tracking. The data collected with the tracker are used to study charged current neutrino interaction rates and kinematics prior to oscillation, in order to reduce uncertainties in the oscillation measurements by the far detector. The tracker is surrounded by the former UA1/NOMAD dipole magnet and the TPCs measure the charges, momenta, and particle types of charged particles passing through them. Novel features of the TPC design include its rectangular box layout constructed from composite panels, the use of bulk micromegas detectors for gas amplification, electronics readout based on a new ASIC, and a photoelectron calibration system. This paper describes the design and construction of the TPCs, the micromegas modules, the readout electronics, the gas handling system, and shows the performance of the TPCs as deduced from measurements with particle beams, cosmic rays, and the calibration system.

Abstract: It is shown that in the scheme with a rotating fermion mass matrix (i.e. one with a scale-dependent orientation in generation space) suggested earlier for explaining fermion mixing and mass hierarchy, the theta angle term in the QCD action of topological origin can be eliminated by chiral transformations, while giving still nonzero masses to all quarks. Instead, the effects of such transformations get transmitted by the rotation to the CKM matrix as the KM phase giving, for theta of order unity, a Jarlskog invariant typically of order 10(-5), as experimentally observed. Strong and weak CP violations appear then as just two facets of the same phenomenon.

Abstract: We present the results of a search for pair production of the supersymmetric partner of the top quark (the top squark (t) over tilde (1)) decaying to a b quark and a chargino (chi) over tilde (+/-)(1) with a subsequent (chi) over tilde (+/-)(1) decay into a neutralino (chi) over tilde (0)(1), lepton l, and neutrino nu Using a data sample corresponding to 2.7 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity of p (p) over bar collisions at root s = 1: 96 TeV collected by the CDF II detector, we reconstruct the mass of top squark candidate events and fit the observed mass spectrum to a combination of standard model processes and (t) over tilde (1)(t) over tilde (1). We find no evidence for (t) over tilde (1)(t) over tilde (1) production and set 95% C. L. limits on the masses of the top squark and the neutralino for several values of the chargino mass and the branching ratio B((X) over tilde (+/-)(1) -> (chi) over tilde (0)(1)l(+/-)nu).