This thesis reports on our investigation of the uses of matter waves to probe many-body targets. We begin by discussing decoherence in an atom interferometer, in which a free gas acts as a refractive medium for a matter ...

Flavor oscillations of neutral B mesons have been studied with e+e- annihilation data collected at center of mass energies near the [gamma](4S) at the PEP-II asymmetric collider with the BABAR detector. One B⁰ is fully ...

We measure the mass of b-hadrons in exclusive J/[psi]-decay modes. The correct momentum scale is established by the following steps: validate and quantify distortions or systematic effects in the Central Outer Tracker and ...

In this thesis, I describe a study of the CP asymmetry in [beta] --> [sigma] [gamma] decays. This CP asymmetry is expected to be less than 0.01 in the Standard Model, but could be enhanced up to the order of 0.10 by ...

This thesis presents a measurement of the spin alignment of prompt [gamma](1S) mesons produced in proton-proton collisions at [square root of]s = 7 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider using the Compact Muon Solenoid detector. ...

Spin dependent measurements provide incisive tests for modern theories of particle physics. The discovery that the integral of the quark helicity distribution is much too small to account for the spin of the proton is an ...

Measurements of collective flow and two-particle correlations have proven to be effective tools for understanding the properties of the system produced in ultrarelativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at the Relativistic ...

A rectangular array of three-dimensional Mach probes is constructed and installed in the plasma vessel of the Versatile Toroidal Facility (VTF) at MIT in order to measure ion flow velocity on the cross section of the VTF. ...

In this thesis work, I designed, fabricated, and calibrated, a radio-frequency magnetic probe, subsequently used to measure magnetic turbulance in the reconnecting plasmas of the Versatile Toroidal Facility (VTF). Reconnecting ...