Abstract: The EUROnu project has studied three possible options for future, high intensity neutrino oscillation facilities in Europe. The first is a Super Beam, in which the neutrinos come from the decay of pions created by bombarding targets with a 4 MW proton beam from the CERN High Power Superconducting Proton Linac. The far detector for this facility is the 500 kt MEMPHYS water Cherenkov, located in the Frejus tunnel. The second facility is the Neutrino Factory, in which the neutrinos come from the decay of mu(+) and mu(-) beams in a storage ring. The far detector in this case is a 100 kt magnetized iron neutrino detector at a baseline of 2000 km. The third option is a Beta Beam, in which the neutrinos come from the decay of beta emitting isotopes, in particular He-6 and Ne-18, also stored in a ring. The far detector is also the MEMPHYS detector in the Frejus tunnel. EUROnu has undertaken conceptual designs of these facilities and studied the performance of the detectors. Based on this, it has determined the physics reach of each facility, in particular for the measurement of CP violation in the lepton sector, and estimated the cost of construction. These have demonstrated that the best facility to build is the Neutrino Factory. However, if a powerful proton driver is constructed for another purpose or if the MEMPHYS detector is built for astroparticle physics, the Super Beam also becomes very attractive.

Abstract: The explicit form of the next-to-next-to-leading order ((NLO)-L-2) of the Skyrme effective pseudopotential compatible with all required symmetries and especially with gauge invariance is presented in a Cartesian basis. It is shown in particular that for such a pseudopotential there is no spin-orbit contribution and that the D-wave term suggested in the original Skyrme formulation does not satisfy the invariance properties. The six new (NLO)-L-2 terms contribute to both the equation of state and the Landau parameters. These contributions to symmetric nuclear matter are given explicitly and discussed.

Abstract: The first LHC results seem to disfavor, from the point of view of naturalness, any constrained MSSM realization with universal conditions at the SUSY-breaking scale. A more motivated scenario is given by split-family SUSY, in which the first two generations of squarks are heavy, compatible with a U(2)(3) flavor symmetry. We consider this flavor symmetry to be broken at a very high scale and study the consequences at low energies through its RGE evolution. Initial conditions compatible with a split scenario are found, and the preservation of correlations from minimal U(2)(3) breaking are checked. The various chiral operators in Delta F = 2 processes are analyzed, and we show that, due to LHC gluino bounds, the (LL)(RR) operators cannot always be neglected. Finally, we also study a possible extension of the U(2)(3) model compatible with the lepton sector.

Abstract: The flavour structure of the general Two Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) is analysed and a detailed study of the parameter space is presented, showing that flavour mixing in the 2HDM can be parametrized by various unitary matrices which arise from the misalignment in flavour space between pairs of various Hermitian flavour matrices which can be constructed within the model. This is entirely analogous to the generation of the CKM matrix in the Standard Model (SM). We construct weak basis invariants which can give insight into the physical implications of any flavour model, written in an arbitrary weak basis (WB) in the context of 2HDM. We apply this technique to two special cases, models with MFV and models with NNI structures. In both cases non-trivial CP-odd WB invariants arise in a mass power order much smaller than what one encounters in the SM, which can have important implications for baryogenesis in the framework of the general 2HDM.

Abstract: The half-life of the yrast I-pi = 2(+) state in the neutron-rich nucleus W-188 has been measured using fast-timing techniques with the HPGe and LaBr3:Ce array at the National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Bucharest. The resulting value of t(1/2) = 0.87(12) ns is equivalent to a reduced transition probability of B(E2;2(1)(+) -> 0(1)(+)) = 85(12) W.u. for this transition. The B(E2;2(1)(+) -> 0(1)(+)) is compared to neighboring tungsten isotopes and nuclei in the Hf, Os, and Pt isotopic chains. Woods-Saxon potential energy surface (PES) calculations have been performed for nuclei in the tungsten isotopic chain and predict prolate deformed minima with rapidly increasing gamma softness for W184-192 and an oblate minimum for W-194.