Search for heavy, long-lived particles that decay to photons in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 tev

Abstract

This dissertation presents the results of the first search for heavy, neutral, longlived particles that decay to photons at a hadron collider. We use a sample of

+jet+missing transverse energy events in p¯p collisions at ps = 1.96 TeV taken with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. Candidate events are selected based on the arrival time of a high-energy photon at the electromagnetic calorimeter as measured with a timing system that was recently installed. The final result is that we find 2 events, using 570±34 pb−1 of data collected during 2004-2005 at the Fermilab Tevatron, consistent with the background estimate of 1.3±0.7 events. While our search strategy does not rely on model-specific dynamics, we interpret this result in terms of cross section limits in a supersymmetric model with e01! eG and set a world-best e01 mass reach of 101 GeV/c2 at e = 5 ns. We can exclude any +jet+missing transverse energy signal that would produce more than 5.5 events.