Frontiers in testing the Standard Model

The author examines tests of the electroweak and strong sectors of the Standard Model. First, the effects of possible non-Standard Model couplings of electroweak vector bosons, and extra neutral bosons, are studied in W pair production in e+e- collisions. Helicity amplitudes are calculated in a factorized formalism; the choice of helicity basis suggested by this formalism is shown to increase sensitivity of angular correlations to non-Standard Model physics. In the course of this analysis, the chi-squared test for finite data samples is more carefully formulated. Second, bottom quark production is studied in proton-antiproton collisions at √s = 630 and 1,800 GeV. High-statistics samples of events have been generated with the ISAJET Monte Carlo simulation program. These samples include production to lowest order in quantum chromodynamics (QCD), flavor excitation, and fluon splitting contributions. The structure functions of both Eichten et al. (EHLQ) and Diemonz et al. (DFLM) have been used. The integral transverse momentum distribution is presented for each data set. Results are compared to a full analytical next-to-leading order calculation of Nason, Dawson, and Ellis. He finds that ISAJET cross sections at large pT are greater than the result obtained in the analytical calculation. The ratio of the full cross section to the lowest order result can be as large as a factor of two greater than the analytical result, depending on √s and pT