Forero, D. V., Morisi, S., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2011). Lepton flavor violation and non-unitary lepton mixing in low-scale type-I seesaw. J. High Energy Phys., 09(9), 142–18pp.
Abstract: Within low-scale seesaw mechanisms, such as the inverse and linear seesaw, one expects (i) potentially large lepton flavor violation (LFV) and (ii) sizeable non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI). We consider the interplay between the magnitude of non-unitarity effects in the lepton mixing matrix, and the constraints that follow from LFV searches in the laboratory. We find that NSI parameters can be sizeable, up to percent level in some cases, while LFV rates, such as that for μ-> e gamma, lie within current limits, including the recent one set by the MEG collaboration. As a result the upcoming long baseline neutrino experiments offer a window of opportunity for complementary LFV and weak universality tests.
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Ancilotto, F., Barranco, M., Navarro, J., & Pi, M. (2011). Cavitation of electron bubbles in liquid parahydrogen. Mol. Phys., 109(23-24), 2757–2762.
Abstract: Within a finite-temperature density functional approach, we have investigated the structure of electron bubbles in liquid parahydrogen below the saturated vapour pressure, determining the critical pressure at which electron bubbles explode as a function of temperature. The electron-parahydrogen interaction has been modelled by a Hartree-type local potential fitted to the experimental value of the conduction band-edge for a delocalized electron in pH(2). We have found that the pressure for bubble explosion is, in absolute value, about a factor of two smaller than that of the homogeneous cavitation pressure in the liquid. Comparison with the results obtained within the capillary model shows the limitations of this approximation, especially as temperature increases.
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Soriano, A., Gonzalez, A., Orero, A., Moliner, L., Carles, M., Sanchez, F., et al. (2011). Attenuation correction without transmission scan for the MAMMI breast PET. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 648, S75–S78.
Abstract: Whole-body Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners are required in order to span large Fields of View (FOV). Therefore, reaching the sensitivity and spatial resolution required for early stage breast tumor detection is not straightforward. MAMMI is a dedicated breast PET scanner with a ring geometry designed to provide PET images with a spatial resolution as high as 1.5 mm, being able to detect small breast tumors ( < 1 cm). The patient lays down in prone position during the scan, thus making possible to image the whole breast, up to regions close to the base of the pectoral without the requirement of breast compression. Attenuation correction (AC) for PET data improves the image quality and the quantitative accuracy of radioactivity distribution determination. In dedicated, high resolution breast cancer scanners, this correction would enhance the proper diagnosis in early disease stages. In whole-body PET scanners, AC is usually taken into account with the use of transmission scans, either by external radioactive rod sources or by Computed Tomography (CT). This considerably increases the radiation dose administered to the patient and time needed for the exploration. In this work we propose a method for breast shape identification by means of PET image segmentation. The breast shape identification will be used for the determination of the AC. For the case of a specific breast PET scanner the procedure we propose should provide AC similar to that obtained by transmission scans as we take advantage of the breast anatomical simplicity. Experimental validation of the proposed approach with a dedicated breast PET prototype is also presented. The main advantage of this method is an important dose reduction since the transmission scan is not required.
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Miñano, M. (2011). Radiation Hard Silicon Strips Detectors for the SLHC. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 58(3), 1135–1140.
Abstract: While the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) began taking data in 2009, scenarios for a machine upgrade to achieve a much higher luminosity are being developed. In the current planning, it is foreseen to increase the luminosity of the LHC at CERN around 2018. As radiation damage scales with integrated luminosity, the particle physics experiments will need to be equipped with a new generation of radiation hard detectors. This article reports on the status of the R&D projects on radiation hard silicon strips detectors for particle physics, linked to the Large Hadron Collider Upgrade, super-LHC (sLHC) of the ATLAS microstrip detector. The primary focus of this report is on measuring the radiation hardness of the silicon materials and the detectors under study. This involves designing silicon detectors, irradiating them to the sLHC radiation levels and studying their performance as particle detectors. The most promising silicon detector for the different radiation levels in the different regions of the ATLAS microstrip detector will be presented. Important challenges related to engineering layout, powering, cooling and reading out a very large strip detector are presented. Ideas on possible schemes for the layout and support mechanics will be shown.
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Gamermann, D., Garcia-Recio, C., Nieves, J., & Salcedo, L. L. (2011). Odd-parity light baryon resonances. Phys. Rev. D, 84(5), 056017–30pp.
Abstract: We use a consistent SU(6) extension of the meson-baryon chiral Lagrangian within a coupled channel unitary approach in order to calculate the T matrix for meson-baryon scattering in the s wave. The building blocks of the scheme are the pi and N octets, the rho nonet and the UDELTA; decuplet. We identify poles in this unitary T matrix and interpret them as resonances. We study here the nonexotic sectors with strangeness S = 0, -1, -2, -3 and spin J = 1/2, 3/2 and 5/2. Many of the poles generated can be asociated with known N, UDELTA;, sigma, Lambda, Xi and Omega resonances with negative parity. We show that most of the low-lying three and four star odd-parity baryon resonances with spin 1/2 and 3/2 can be related to multiplets of the spin-flavor symmetry group SU(6). This study allows us to predict the spin-parity of the Xi (1620), Xi (1690), Xi (1950), Xi (2250), Omega (2250) and Omega (2380) resonances, which have not been determined experimentally yet.
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BABAR Collaboration(Lees, J. P. et al), Lopez-March, N., Martinez-Vidal, F., & Oyanguren, A. (2011). Study of radiative bottomonium transitions using converted photons. Phys. Rev. D, 84(7), 072002–17pp.
Abstract: We use (111 +/- 1) million Gamma(3S) and (89 +/- 1) million Gamma(2S) events recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II B-factory at SLAC to perform a study of radiative transitions between bottomonium states using photons that have been converted to e(+)e(-) pairs by the detector material. We observe Gamma(3S) -> gamma chi b(0,2)(1P) decay, make precise measurements of the branching fractions for chi b(1,2)(1P, 2P) -> gamma Gamma(1S) and chi b(1,2)(2P) -> gamma Gamma(2S) decays, and search for radiative decay to the eta(b)(1S) and eta(b)(2S) states.
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Forero, D. V., & Guzzo, M. M. (2011). Constraining nonstandard neutrino interactions with electrons. Phys. Rev. D, 84(1), 013002–7pp.
Abstract: We update the phenomenological constraints of the nonstandard neutrino interactions (NSNI) with electrons including in the analysis, for the first time, data from LAMPF, Krasnoyarsk, and the latest Texono observations. We assume that NSNI modify the cross section of elastic scattering of (anti) neutrinos off electrons, using reactor and accelerator data, and the cross section of the electron-positron annihilation, using the four LEP experiments, in particular, new data from DELPHI. We find more restrictive allowed regions for the NSNI parameters: -0.11< epsilon(eR)(ee) < 0.05 and -0.02 < epsilon(eL)(ee) < 0.09 (90% C.L.). We also recalculate the parameters of tauonic flavor obtaining -0.35 < epsilon(eR)(tau tau) < 0.50 and -0.51 < epsilon(eL)(tau tau) < 0.34 (90% C.L.). Although more severe than the limits already present in the literature, our results indicate that NSNI are allowed by the present data as a subleading effect, and the standard electroweak model continues consistent with the experimental panorama at 90% C.L. Further improvement on this picture will deserve a lot of engagement of upcoming experiments.
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Villaescusa-Navarro, F., Miralda-Escude, J., Pena-Garay, C., & Quilis, V. (2011). Neutrino halos in clusters of galaxies and their weak lensing signature. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 027–14pp.
Abstract: We study whether non-linear gravitational effects of relic neutrinos on the development of clustering and large-scale structure may be observable by weak gravitational lensing. We compute the density profile of relic massive neutrinos in a spherical model of a cluster of galaxies, for several neutrino mass schemes and cluster masses. Relic neutrinos add a small perturbation to the mass profile, making it more extended in the outer parts. In principle, this non-linear neutrino perturbation is detectable in an all-sky weak lensing survey such as EUCLID by averaging the shear profile of a large fraction of the visible massive clusters in the universe, or from its signature in the general weak lensing power spectrum or its cross-spectrum with galaxies. However, correctly modeling the distribution of mass in baryons and cold dark matter and suppressing any systematic errors to the accuracy required for detecting this neutrino perturbation is severely challenging.
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Ikeno, N., Kimura, R., Yamagata-Sekihara, J., Nagahiro, H., Jido, D., Itahashi, K., et al. (2011). Precision Spectroscopy of Deeply Bound Pionic Atoms and Partial Restoration of Chiral Symmetry in Medium. Prog. Theor. Phys., 126(3), 483–509.
Abstract: We study theoretically the formation spectra of deeply bound pionic atoms expected to be observed by experiments with high energy resolution at RIBF/RIKEN, and we discuss in detail the possibilities to extract new information on the pion properties at finite density from the observed spectra, which may provide information on partial restoration of chiral symmetry in medium. We find that the non-yrast pionic states such as 2s are expected to be seen in the (d,(3)He) spectra, which will be helpful to reduce uncertainties of the theoretical calculations in the neutron wave functions in nucleus. The observation of the 2s state with the ground is state is also helpful to reduce the experimental uncertainties associated in the calibration of the absolute excitation energy. We find that the nuclear densities probed by atomic pions are quite stable and almost constant for various atomic states and various nuclei. Effects of the pion wave function renormalization to the formation spectra are also evaluated.
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BABAR Collaboration(Lees, J. P. et al), Martinez-Vidal, F., & Oyanguren, A. (2011). Study of Y(3S, 2S) -> eta Y(1S) and Y(3S, 2S) -> pi(+) pi(-) Y(1S) hadronic transitions. Phys. Rev. D, 84(9), 092003–8pp.
Abstract: We study the Y(3S, 2S) -> eta Y(1S) and Y (3S,2S) -> pi(+)pi(-) transitions with 122 x 10(6) x Y(3S) and 100 x 10(6) Y (2S) mesons collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e(+)e(-) collider. We measure B[Y(2S) -> eta Y(1S)] = (2.39 +/- 0.31 (stat) +/- 0.14(syst)) x 10(-4) and Gamma[Y(2S) -> eta Y(1S)]/Gamma[Y(2S) ->pi(+)pi(-)(1S)] – (2.39 +/- 0.31(stat) +/- 0.14(syst)) x 10(-3). We find no evidence for Y(3S) -> eta Y (1S) and obtain B[Y(3S) -> eta Y(1S)] < 1.0 x 10(-4) and Gamma[Y (3S) -> eta Y(1S)/Gamma[Y(3S) -> pi(+)pi(-) Y(1S)] < 2.3 x 10(-3) as upper limits at the 90% confidence level. We also provide improved measurements of the Y(S) – Y(1S) and Y(3S) – Y (1S) mass differences, 562.170 +/- 0.007(stat) +/- 0.088(syst). MeV/c(2) and 893.813 +/- 0: 015(stat) +/- 0.107(syst.) MeV/c(2), respectively.
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