The final public oral examination of David Langs will take place on Monday, June 7, 2004 at 1:30 p.m. in Room 202. The examining committee will consist of Professors Milind Purohit (University of South Carolina), Daniel Marlow, Kirk McDonald and Igor Klebanov. Any other members of the University wishing to attend the examination may do so.

The thesis of David Langs entitled "Differential cross sections, charge production asymmetry, and spin-density matrix elements for D*+-(2010) produced in 500 GeV/c pi- -- nucleon interactions" has been placed on deposit.

Any member of the University wishing to read the thesis may do so. Any objections should be submitted to me in writing. The principal advisor for this work was Milind Purohit. The abstract is below:

ABSTRACT

Differential cross sections for the production of D^*+- (2010) mesons produced in 500 GeV/c pi- - nucleon interactions from Fermilab experiment E791, are reported as functions of Feynman-x and transverse momentum squared and fitted to standard distributions. The D^*+- charge asymmetry and spin-density matrix elements as functions of these variables are also reported. The asymmetry curve is compared to Pythia Monte Carlo models. Investigation of the spin-density matrix elements shows no evidence of polarization. The average values of the spin alignment are eta = 0.01 +- 0.02 and -0.01 +- 0.02 for leading and non-leading particles, respectively.

Daniel Marlow
Chair, Dept. of Physics