Abstract: In this work we explore the applicability of a special gluon mass generating mechanism in the context of the linear covariant gauges. In particular, the implementation of the Schwinger mechanism in pure Yang-Mills theories hinges crucially on the inclusion of massless bound-state excitations in the fundamental nonperturbative vertices of the theory. The dynamical formation of such excitations is controlled by a homogeneous linear Bethe-Salpeter equation, whose nontrivial solutions have been studied only in the Landau gauge. Here, the form of this integral equation is derived for general values of the gauge-fixing parameter, under a number of simplifying assumptions that reduce the degree of technical complexity. The kernel of this equation consists of fully dressed gluon propagators, for which recent lattice data are used as input, and of three-gluon vertices dressed by a single form factor, which is modeled by means of certain physically motivated Ansatze. The gauge-dependent terms contributing to this kernel impose considerable restrictions on the infrared behavior of the vertex form factor; specifically, only infrared finite Ansatze are compatible with the existence of nontrivial solutions. When such Ansatze are employed, the numerical study of the integral equation reveals a continuity in the type of solutions as one varies the gauge-fixing parameter, indicating a smooth departure from the Landau gauge. Instead, the logarithmically divergent form factor displaying the characteristic “zero crossing,” while perfectly consistent in the Landau gauge, has to undergo a dramatic qualitative transformation away from it, in order to yield acceptable solutions. The possible implications of these results are briefly discussed.

Abstract: In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of m(X) > 1.3 keV, or m(s) > 5.5 keV for the case of sterile neutrinos nonresonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90% confidence level.

Abstract: Inclusive isolated-photon production in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV is studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a data set with an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb(-1). The cross section is measured as a function of the photon transverse energy above 125 GeV in different regions of photon pseudorapidity. Next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD and Monte Carlo event-generator predictions are compared to the cross-section measurements and provide an adequate description of the data.

Abstract: It is shown that standard constituent quark models produce ((c)over-barcqqq) hidden-charm pentaquarks, where c denotes the charmed quark and q a light quark, which lie below the lowest threshold for spontaneous dissociation and thus are stable in the limit where the internal (c)over-barc annihilation is neglected. The binding is a cooperative effect of the chromoelectric and chromomagnetic components of the interaction, and it disappears in the static limit with a pure chromoelectric potential. Their wave function contains color sextet and color octet configurations for the subsystems and can hardly be reduced to a molecular state made of two interacting hadrons. These pentaquark states could be searched for in the experiments having discovered or confirmed the hidden-charm meson and baryon resonances.

Abstract: Jet energy scale measurements and their systematic uncertainties are reported for jets measured with the ATLAS detector using proton-proton collision data with a center-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb(-1) collected during 2015 at the LHC. Jets are reconstructed from energy deposits forming topological clusters of calorimeter cells, using the anti-k(t) algorithm with radius parameter R = 0.4. Jets are calibrated with a series of simulation-based corrections and in situ techniques. In situ techniques exploit the transverse momentum balance between a jet and a reference object such as a photon, Z boson, or multijet system for jets with 20 < p(T) < 2000 GeV and pseudorapidities of vertical bar eta vertical bar < 4.5, using both data and simulation. An uncertainty in the jet energy scale of less than 1% is found in the central calorimeter region (vertical bar eta vertical bar < 1.2) for jets with 100 < p(T) < 500 GeV. An uncertainty of about 4.5% is found for low-p(T) jets with p(T) = 20 GeV in the central region, dominated by uncertainties in the corrections for multiple proton-proton interactions. The calibration of forward jets (vertical bar eta vertical bar > 0.8) is derived from dijet p(T) balance measurements. For jets of p(T) = 80 GeV, the additional uncertainty for the forward jet calibration reaches its largest value of about 2% in the range vertical bar eta vertical bar > 3.5 and in a narrow slice of 2.2 < vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.4.