ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Study of ordered hadron chains with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 96(9), 092008–31pp.
Abstract: The analysis of the momentum difference between charged hadrons in high-energy proton-proton collisions is performed in order to study coherent particle production. The observed correlation pattern agrees with a model of a helical QCD string fragmenting into a chain of ground-state hadrons. A threshold momentum difference in the production of adjacent pairs of charged hadrons is observed, in agreement with model predictions. The presence of low-mass hadron chains also explains the emergence of charge-combination-dependent two-particle correlations commonly attributed to Bose-Einstein interference. The data sample consists of 190 μb(-1) of minimum-bias events collected with proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy root s = 7 TeV in the early low-luminosity data taking with the ATLAS detector at the LHC.
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Garani, R., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2017). Dark matter in the Sun: scattering off electrons vs nucleons. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 007–41pp.
Abstract: The annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles accumulated in the Sun could produce a flux of neutrinos, which is potentially detectable with neutrino detectors/telescopes and the DM elastic scattering cross section can be constrained. Although the process of DM capture in astrophysical objects like the Sun is commonly assumed to be due to interactions only with nucleons, there are scenarios in which tree-level DM couplings to quarks are absent, and even if loop-induced interactions with nucleons are allowed, scatterings off electrons could be the dominant capture mechanism. We consider this possibility and study in detail all the ingredients necessary to compute the neutrino production rates from DM annihilationsin the Sun (capture, annihilation and evaporation rates) for velocity-independent and isotropic, velocity-dependent and isotropic and momentum-dependent scattering cross sections for DM interactions with electrons and compare them with the results obtained for the case of interactions with nucleons. Moreover, we improve the usual calculations in a number of ways and provide analytical expressions in three appendices. Interestingly, we find that the evaporation mass in the case of interactions with electrons could be below the GeV range, depending on the high-velocity tail of the DM distribution in the Sun, which would open a new mass window for searching for this type of scenarios.
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Di Valentino, E., Melchiorri, A., & Mena, O. (2017). Can interacting dark energy solve the H-0 tension? Phys. Rev. D, 96(4), 043503–11pp.
Abstract: The answer is yes. We indeed find that interacting dark energy can alleviate the current tension on the value of the Hubble constant H-0 between the cosmic microwave background anisotropies constraints obtained from the Planck satellite and the recent direct measurements reported by Riess et al. 2016. The combination of these two data sets points toward a nonzero dark matter-dark energy coupling. at more than two standard deviations, with xi = -0.26(-0.12)(+0.16) at 95% C.L., i.e. with a moderate evidence for interacting dark energy with an odds ratio of 6:1 respect to a non interacting cosmological constant. However the H-0 tension is better solved when the equation of state of the interacting dark energy component is allowed to freely vary, with a phantomlike equation of state w = -1.185 +/- 0.064 (at 68% C.L.), ruling out the pure cosmological constant case, w = -1, again at more than two standard deviations. When Planck data are combined with external datasets, as BAO, JLA Supernovae Ia luminosity distances, cosmic shear or lensing data, we find perfect consistency with the cosmological constant scenario and no compelling evidence for a dark matter-dark energy coupling.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Study of the material of the ATLAS inner detector for Run 2 of the LHC. J. Instrum., 12, P12009–59pp.
Abstract: The ATLAS inner detector comprises three different sub-detectors: the pixel detector, the silicon strip tracker, and the transition-radiation drift-tube tracker. The Insertable B-Layer, a new innermost pixel layer, was installed during the shutdown period in 2014, together with modifications to the layout of the cables and support structures of the existing pixel detector. The material in the inner detector is studied with several methods, using a low-luminosity root s = 13 TeV pp collision sample corresponding to around 2.0 nb(-1) collected in 2015 with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. In this paper, the material within the innermost barrel region is studied using reconstructed hadronic interaction and photon conversion vertices. For the forward rapidity region, the material is probed by a measurement of the efficiency with which single tracks reconstructed from pixel detector hits alone can be extended with hits on the track in the strip layers. The results of these studies have been taken into account in an improved description of the material in the ATLAS inner detector simulation, resulting in a reduction in the uncertainties associated with the charged-particle reconstruction efficiency determined from simulation.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Garcia Martin, L. M., Henry, L., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., et al. (2017). Observation of the B+ -> D*K-(+) pi(+) decay. Phys. Rev. D, 96(1), 011101–10pp.
Abstract: The B+ -> D*K--(+)pi(+) decay potentially provides an excellent way to investigate charm meson spectroscopy. The decay is searched for in a sample of proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb(-1). A clear signal is observed, and the ratio of its branching fraction to that of the B+ -> D*(-)pi(+)pi(+) normalization channel is measured to be beta(B+ -> D*K--(+)pi(+))/beta(B+ -> D*(-)pi(+)pi(+)) = (6.39 +/- 0.27 +/- 0.48) x 10(-2); where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. This is the first observation of the B+ -> D*K--(+)pi(+) decay.
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