Gao, F., & Oldengott, I. M. (2022). Cosmology Meets Functional QCD: First-Order Cosmic QCD Transition Induced by Large Lepton Asymmetries. Phys. Rev. Lett., 128(13), 131301–6pp.
Abstract: The lepton flavor asymmetries of the Universe are observationally almost unconstrained before the onset of neutrino oscillations. We calculate the cosmic trajectory during the cosmic QCD epoch in the presence of large lepton flavor asymmetries. By including QCD thermodynamic quantities derived from functional QCD methods in our calculation, our work reveals for the first time the possibility of a first-order cosmic QCD transition. We specify the required values of the lepton flavor asymmetries for which a first-order transition occurs for a number of different benchmark scenarios.
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Fuster-Martinez, N., Assmann, R. W., Bruce, R., Giovannozzi, M., Hermes, P., Mereghetti, A., et al. (2022). Beam-based aperture measurements with movable collimator jaws as performance booster of the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Eur. Phys. J. Plus, 137(3), 305–20pp.
Abstract: The beam aperture of a particle accelerator defines the clearance available for the circulating beams and is a parameter of paramount importance for the accelerator performance. At the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the knowledge and control of the available aperture is crucial because the nominal proton beams carry an energy of 362 MJ stored in a superconducting environment. Even a tiny fraction of beam losses could quench the superconducting magnets or cause severe material damage. Furthermore, in a circular collider, the performance in terms of peak luminosity depends to a large extent on the aperture of the inner triplet quadrupoles, which are used to focus the beams at the interaction points. In the LHC, this aperture represents the smallest aperture at top-energy with squeezed beams and determines the maximum potential reach of the peak luminosity. Beam-based aperture measurements in these conditions are difficult and challenging. In this paper, we present different methods that have been developed over the years for precise beam-based aperture measurements in the LHC, highlighting applications and results that contributed to boost the operational LHC performance in Run 1 (2010-2013) and Run 2 (2015-2018)
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Fuster-Martinez, N., Bruce, R., Hofer, M., Persson, T., Redaelli, S., & Tomas, R. (2022). Aperture measurements with ac dipoles and movable collimators in the Large Hadron Collider. Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams, 25(10), 101002–13pp.
Abstract: This paper presents a first experimental demonstration of a new nondestructive method for aperture measurements based on ac dipoles. In high intensity particle colliders, such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), aperture measurements are crucial for a safe operation while optimizing the optics in order to reduce the size of the colliding beams and hence increase the luminosity. In the LHC, this type of measurements became mandatory during beam commissioning and the current method used is based on the destructive blowup of bunches using a transverse damper. The new method presented in this paper uses the ac-dipole excitation to generate adiabatic forced oscillations of the beam in order to create losses to identify the smallest aperture in the machine without blowing up the beam emittance. A precise and tuneable control of the oscillation amplitude enables the beams to be reused for several aperture measurements, as well as for other subsequent commissioning activities. Measurements performed with the new method are presented and compared with the current LHC transverse damper method for two different beam energies and two different operational optics.
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Fourdrinoy, J., Robertson, S., James, N., Fabbri, A., & Rousseaux, G. (2022). Correlations on weakly time-dependent transcritical white-hole flows. Phys. Rev. D, 105(8), 085022–14pp.
Abstract: We report observations made on a run of transcritical flows over an obstacle in a narrow channel. Downstream from the obstacle, the flows decelerate from supercritical to subcritical, typically with an undulation on the subcritical side (known in hydrodynamics as an undular hydraulic jump). In the Analogue Gravity context, this transition corresponds to a white-hole horizon. Free-surface deformations are analyzed, mainly via the two-point correlation function which shows the presence of a checkerboard pattern in the vicinity of the undulation. In nongated flows where the white-hole horizon occurs far downstream from the obstacle, this checkerboard pattern is shown to be due to low-frequency fluctuations associated with slow longitudinal movement of the undulation. Tt can thus be considered as an artifact due to a time-varying background. In gated flows, however, the undulation is typically “attached” to the obstacle, and the fluctuations associated with its movement are strongly suppressed. In this case, the observed correlation pattern is likely due to a stochastic ensemble of surface waves, scattering on a background that is essentially stationary.
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Folgado, M. G., & Sanz, V. (2022). Exploring the political pulse of a country using data science tools. J. Comput. Soc. Sci., 5, 987–1000.
Abstract: In this paper we illustrate the use of Data Science techniques to analyse complex human communication. In particular, we consider tweets from leaders of political parties as a dynamical proxy to political programmes and ideas. We also study the temporal evolution of their contents as a reaction to specific events. We analyse levels of positive and negative sentiment in the tweets using new tools adapted to social media. We also train a Fully-Connected Neural Network (FCNN) to recognise the political affiliation of a tweet. The FCNN is able to predict the origin of the tweet with a precision in the range of 71-75%, and the political leaning (left or right) with a precision of around 90%. This study is meant to be viewed as an example of how to use Twitter data and different types of Data Science tools for a political analysis.
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