Radiation environment simulations at the Tevatron, studies of the beam profile and measurement of the Bc meson mass

The description of a computer simulation of the CDF detector at Fermilab and the adjacent accelerator parts is detailed, with MARS calculations of the radiation background in various elements of the model due to the collision of beams and machine-related losses. Three components of beam halo formation are simulated for the determination of the principal source of radiation background in CDF due to beam losses. The effect of a collimator as a protection for the detector is studied. The simulation results are compared with data taken by a CDF group. Studies of a 150 GeV Tevatron proton beam are performed to investigate the transverse diffusion growth and distribution. A technique of collimator scan is used to scrape the beam under various experimental conditions, and computer programs are written for the beam reconstruction. An average beam halo growth speed is given and the potential of beam tail reconstruction using the collimator scan is evaluated. A particle physics analysis is conducted in order to detect the Bc → J/ψπ decay signal with the CDF Run II detector in 360 pb-1 of data. The cut variables and an optimization method to determine their values are presented along with a criterion for the detection threshold of the signal. The mass of the Bc meson is measured with an evaluation of the significance of the signal