Abstract: Developing sustainable software for the scientific community requires expertise in software engineering and domain science. This can be challenging due to the unique needs of scientific software, the insufficient resources for software engineering practices in the scientific community, and the complexity of developing for evolving scientific contexts. While open-source software can partially address these concerns, it can introduce complicating dependencies and delay development. These issues can be reduced if scientists and software developers collaborate. We present a case study wherein scientists from the SuperNova Early Warning System collaborated with software developers from the Scalable Cyberinfrastructure for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics project. The collaboration addressed the difficulties of open-source software development, but presented additional risks to each team. For the scientists, there was a concern of relying on external systems and lacking control in the development process. For the developers, there was a risk in supporting a user-group while maintaining core development. These issues were mitigated by creating a second Agile Scrum framework in parallel with the developers' ongoing Agile Scrum process. This Agile collaboration promoted communication, ensured that the scientists had an active role in development, and allowed the developers to evaluate and implement the scientists' software requirements. The collaboration provided benefits for each group: the scientists actuated their development by using an existing platform, and the developers utilized the scientists' use-case to improve their systems. This case study suggests that scientists and software developers can avoid scientific computing issues by collaborating and that Agile Scrum methods can address emergent concerns.

Abstract: This article describes the setup and performance of the near and far detectors in the Double Chooz experiment. The electron antineutrinos of the Chooz nuclear power plant were measured in two identically designed detectors with different average baselines of about 400 m and 1050 m from the two reactor cores. Over many years of data taking the neutrino signals were extracted from interactions in the detectors with the goal of measuring a fundamental parameter in the context of neutrino oscillation, the mixing angle 013. The central part of the Double Chooz detectors was a main detector comprising four cylindrical volumes filled with organic liquids. From the inside towards the outside there were volumes con- taining gadolinium-loaded scintillator, gadolinium-free scintillator, a buffer oil and, optically separated, another liquid scintillator acting as veto system. Above this main detector an additional outer veto system using plastic scintillator strips was installed. The technologies developed in Double Chooz were inspiration for several other antineutrino detectors in the field. The detector design allowed implementation of efficient background rejection techniques including use of pulse shape information provided by the data acquisition system. The Double Chooz detectors featured remarkable stability, in particular for the detected photons, as well as high radiopurity of the detector components.

Abstract: Interest in searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) at the LHC has increased considerably in the past few years. In the minimal scenario, HNLs are produced and decay via their mixing with active neutrinos in the Standard Model (SM) spectrum. However, many SM extensions with HNLs have been discussed in the literature, which sometimes change expectations for LHC sensitivities drastically. In the N-R SMEFT, one extends the SM effective field theory with operators including SM singlet fermions, which allows to study HNL phenomenology in a “model independent” way. In this paper, we study the sensitivity of ATLAS to HNLs in the N-R SMEFT for four-fermion operators with a single HNL. These operators might dominate both production and decay of HNLs, and we find that new physics scales in excess of 20 TeV could be probed at the high-luminosity LHC.

Abstract: Entangled neutral K mesons allow for the study of their correlated dynamics at interference and decoherence times not accessible in any other system. We find novel quantum phenomena associated to a correlation in time between the two partners: The past state of the first decayed kaon, when it was entangled before its decay, is post-tagged by the result and the time of the future observation of the second decay channel. This surprising “from future to past” effect is fully observable and leads to the unique experimental tag of the K-S state, an unsolved problem since the discovery of CP violation.

Abstract: We consider the phenomenological signatures of Simplified Models of Flavourful Leptoquarks, whose Beyond-the-Standard Model (SM) couplings to fermion generations occur via textures that are well motivated from a broad class of ultraviolet flavour models (which we briefly review). We place particular emphasis on the study of the vector leptoquark Delta(mu) with assignments (3, 1, 2/3) under the SM's gauge symmetry, SU(3)(C) x SU(2)(L) x U(1)(Y), which has the tantalising possibility of explaining both R-K(*) and R-D(*) anomalies. Upon performing global likelihood scans of the leptoquark's coupling parameter space, focusing in particular on models with tree-level couplings to a single charged lepton species, we then provide confidence intervals and benchmark points preferred by low(er)-energy flavour data. Finally, we use these constraints to further evaluate the (promising) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detection prospects of pairs of tau-flavoured Delta(mu), through their distinct (a)symmetric decay channels. Namely, we consider direct third-generation leptoquark and jets plus missing-energy searches at the LHC, which we find to be complementary. Depending on the simplified model under consideration, the direct searches constrain the Delta(mu), mass up to 1500-1770 GeV when the branching fraction of Delta(mu), is entirely to third-generation quarks (but are significantly reduced with decreased branching ratios to the third generation), whereas the missing-energy searches constrain the mass up to 1150-1700 GeV while being largely insensitive to the third-generation branching fraction.