Abstract: A measurement is presented of the phi x BR(phi -> K+ K-) production cross section at root s = 7 TeV using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 383 μb(-1), collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Selection of phi(1020) mesons is based on the identification of charged kaons by their energy loss in the pixel detector. The differential cross section is measured as a function of the transverse momentum, pT, phi, and rapidity, y(phi), of the phi(1020) meson in the fiducial region 500 < pT,phi < 1200MeV, vertical bar y phi| < 0.8, kaon p(T), (K) > 230 MeV and kaon momentum p(K) < 800 MeV. The integrated phi(1020)-meson production cross section in this fiducial range is measured to be sigma(phi) x BR(phi -> K+ K-) = 570 +/- 8 (stat) +/- 66 (syst) +/- 20 (lumi) μb.

Abstract: A likelihood-based discriminant for the identification of quark- and gluon-initiated jets is built and validated using 4.7 fb of proton-proton collision data at collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Data samples with enriched quark or gluon content are used in the construction and validation of templates of jet properties that are the input to the likelihood-based discriminant. The discriminating power of the jet tagger is established in both data and Monte Carlo samples within a systematic uncertainty of 10-20 %. In data, light-quark jets can be tagged with an efficiency of while achieving a gluon-jet mis-tag rate of in a range between and for jets in the acceptance of the tracker. The rejection of gluon-jets found in the data is significantly below what is attainable using a Pythia 6 Monte Carlo simulation, where gluon-jet mis-tag rates of 10 % can be reached for a 50 % selection efficiency of light-quark jets using the same jet properties.

Abstract: A high-resolution silicon detector probe, in coincidence with a conventional PET scanner, is expected to provide images of higher quality than those achievable using the scanner alone. Spatial resolution should improve due to the finer pixelization of the probe detector, while increased sensitivity in the probe vicinity is expected to decrease noise. A PET-probe prototype is being developed utilizing this principle. The system includes a probe consisting of ten layers of silicon detectors, each a 80 x 52 array of 1 x 1 x 1 mm(3) pixels, to be operated in coincidence with a modern clinical PET scanner. Detailed simulation studies of this system have been performed to assess the effect of the additional probe information on the quality of the reconstructed images. A grid of point sources was simulated to study the contribution of the probe to the system resolution at different locations over the field of view (FOV). A resolution phantom was used to demonstrate the effect on image resolution for two probe positions. A homogeneous source distribution with hot and cold regions was used to demonstrate that the localized improvement in resolution does not come at the expense of the overall quality of the image. Since the improvement is constrained to an area close to the probe, breast imaging is proposed as a potential application for the novel geometry. In this sense, a simplified breast phantom, adjacent to heart and torso compartments, was simulated and the effect of the probe on lesion detectability, through measurements of the local contrast recovery coefficient-to-noise ratio (CNR), was observed. The list-mode ML-EM algorithm was used for image reconstruction in all cases. As expected, the point spread function of the PET-probe system was found to be non-isotropic and vary with position, offering improvement in specific regions. Increase in resolution, of factors of up to 2, was observed in the region close to the probe. Images of the resolution phantom showed visible improvement in resolution when including the probe in the simulations. The image quality study demonstrated that contrast and spill-over ratio in other areas of the FOV were not sacrificed for this enhancement. The CNR study performed on the breast phantom indicates increased lesion detectability provided by the probe.

Abstract: A fission reaction chamber based on Parallel Plate Avalanche Counters (PPACs) was built for measuring angular distributions of fragments emitted in neutron-induced fission of actinides at the neutron beam available at the Neutron Time-Of-Flight (n_TOF) facility at CERN. The detectors and the samples were tilted 45 degrees with respect to the neutron beam direction to cover all the possible values of the emission angle of the fission fragments. The main features of this setup are discussed and results on the fission fragment angular distribution are provided for the Th-232(n,f) reaction around the fission threshold. The results are compared with the available data in the literature, demonstrating the good capabilities of this setup.

Abstract: A facility that can deliver beams of electron and muon neutrinos from the decay of a stored muon beam has the potential to unambiguously resolve the issue of the evidence for light sterile neutrinos that arises in short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments and from estimates of the effective number of neutrino flavors from fits to cosmological data. In this paper, we show that the nuSTORM facility, with stored muons of 3.8 GeV/c +/- 10%, will be able to carry out a conclusive muon neutrino appearance search for sterile neutrinos and test the LSND and MiniBooNE experimental signals with 10 sigma sensitivity, even assuming conservative estimates for the systematic uncertainties. This experiment would add greatly to our knowledge of the contribution of light sterile neutrinos to the number of effective neutrino flavors from the abundance of primordial helium production and from constraints on neutrino energy density from the cosmic microwave background. The appearance search is complemented by a simultaneous muon neutrino disappearance analysis that will facilitate tests of various sterile neutrino models.