Chris Stokely, Rice University

"Reconstruction of Lambda and AntiLambda Hyperons in the E896 Forward
Detectors, and Analyses of Lambda and AntiLambda Spectra and Correlations."


This thesis will concentrate on the reconstruction of the charged decays of
lambda and anti-lambda hyperons using tracking, secondary vertex
reconstruction, and direct particle identication from the E896 forward
detectors.

The three time-of-flight walls and the beam counters will be used to
provide the direct particle identification of the tracks measured with
the distributed drift chamber (DDC) and the beam vertex detector.
The locations of the hits in the time-of-flight walls will be used to
improve the accuracy of DDC track finding and fitting algorithms by providing
space points after a long flight path.

The lambda and antilambda spectra (i.e. impact parameter and mid-rapidity
multiplicity gated distributions of transverse momentum, rapidity,
multiplicities, production cross sections) will be measured and compared to
filtered model events and the results from other experiments.  Of particular
interest is acceptance-corrected measurements of the multiplicity ratios
antilambda/antiproton and antilambda/lambda.  Recently, an antilambda to
antiproton ratio on the order of 3 was observed, which is unexpectedly large.
The pair correlation functions of Lambda and Antilambda hyperons will also be
investigated in as much detail as possible given the integrated luminosity
in the coming run.