CDF
The Tevatron collider, located at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) nearby Chicago (USA), produces proton-antiproton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The CDF and D0 experiments record such collisions and will continue exploring the energy frontier in particle physics until the new LHC at CERN starts operations. After the discovery of the top quark in 1995, the Tevatron has been upgraded: the centre-of-mass energy has been increased (from 1.8 to 1.96 TeV) and its instantaneous luminosity has already achieved the Run II design value of 3.5x1032cm-2s-1. The Tevatron has already delivered 7 fb-1 of luminosity. The CDF and D0 detectors have already collected more than 5.5 fb-1 of data.
The laboratory plans to run Tevatron in 2010 and is currently considering possible collisions also in 2011, corresponding to a total delivered luminosity of 10 fb-1. Since 2003, the IFAE group in the CDF experiment has taken major responsibilities in the quality control of the data taken by the experiment (DQM) and intend to maintain the commitments throughout the life of the experiment.
The IFAE group plays a leading role in physics analysis involving jets of hadrons as well as in searches for signal of supersymmetry in CDF. Results on inclusive jet production, prompt photon production, Z+jets production, and the inclusive search for supersymmetric squarks and gluinos have been published in the most relevant particle physics journals and constituted the topics of several PhD. theses in IFAE.
The years 2009 – 2011 will be characterized by the race for the discovery of the Higgs particle between Tevatron and the LHC. The discovery of a very light Higgs boson at the LHC will require a level of understanding of the detector performance and the standard model background contributions, together with a b-tagging efficiency and integrated luminosity, that will only come with time. In this sense, there still exists a window of opportunity for Tevatron experiments after LHC starts operations. At the Tevatron, members of IFAE will contribute to the search for the Higgs boson in the channel where it is produced in association with a Z boson.
