Abstract: A Galactic cosmic-ray transport model featuring non-homogeneous transport has been developed over the latest years. This setup is aimed at reproducing gamma-ray observations in different regions of the Galaxy (with particular focus on the progressive hardening of the hadronic spectrum in the inner Galaxy) and was shown to be compatible with the very-high-energy gamma-ray diffuse emission recently detected up to PeV energies. In this work, we extend the results previously presented to test the reliability of that model throughout the whole sky. To this aim, we compare our predictions with detailed longitude and latitude profiles of the diffuse gamma-ray emission measured by Fermi-LAT for different energies and compute the expected Galactic nu diffuse emission, comparing it with current limits from the ANTARES collaboration. We emphasize that the possible detection of a Galactic nu component will allow us to break the degeneracy between our model and other scenarios featuring prominent contributions from unresolved sources and TeV halos.

Abstract: The T2K experiment widely uses plastic scintillator as a target for neutrino interactions and an active medium for the measurement of charged particles produced in neutrino interactions at its near detector complex. Over 10 years of operation the measured light yield recorded by the scintillator based subsystems has been observed to degrade by 0.9-2.2% per year. Extrapolation of the degradation rate through to 2040 indicates the recorded light yield should remain above the lower threshold used by the current reconstruction algorithms for all subsystems. This will allow the near detectors to continue contributing to important physics measurements during the T2K-II and Hyper-Kamiokande eras. Additionally, work to disentangle the degradation of the plastic scintillator and wavelength shifting fibres shows that the reduction in light yield can be attributed to the ageing of the plastic scintillator. The long component of the attenuation length of the wavelength shifting fibres was observed to degrade by 1.3-5.4% per year, while the short component of the attenuation length did not show any conclusive degradation.

Abstract: The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a second-generation continuously operated, wide field-of-view, TeV gamma-ray observatory. The HAWC observatory and its analysis techniques build on experience of the Milagro experiment in using ground-based water Cherenkov detectors for gamma-ray astronomy. HAWC is located on the Sierra Negra volcano in Mexico at an elevation of 4100 meters above sea level. The completed HAWC observatory principal detector (HAWC) consists of 300 closely spaced water Cherenkov detectors, each equipped with four photomultiplier tubes to provide timing and charge information to reconstruct the extensive air shower energy and arrival direction. The HAWC observatory has been optimized to observe transient and steady emission from sources of gamma rays within an energy range from several hundred GeV to several hundred TeV. However, most of the air showers detected are initiated by cosmic rays, allowing studies of cosmic rays also to be performed. This paper describes the characteristics of the HAWC main array and its hardware.

Abstract: Momentum measurements for very high momentum charged particles, such as muons from electroweak vector boson decays, are particularly susceptible to charge-dependent curvature biases that arise from misalignments of tracking detectors. Low momentum charged particles used in alignment procedures have limited sensitivity to coherent displacements of such detectors, and therefore are unable to fully constrain these misalignments to the precision necessary for studies of electroweak physics. Additional approaches are therefore required to understand and correct for these effects. In this paper the curvature biases present at the LHCb detector are studied using the pseudomass method in proton-proton collision data recorded at centre of mass energy root s = 13 TeV during 2016, 2017 and 2018. The biases are determined using Z -> mu(+)mu(-) decays in intervals defined by the data-taking period, magnet polarity and muon direction. Correcting for these biases, which are typically at the 10(-4) GeV-1 level, improves the Z -> mu(+)mu(-) mass resolution by roughly 18% and eliminates several pathological trends in the kinematic-dependence of the mean dimuon invariant mass.

Abstract: A neural network for software compensation was developed for the highly granular CALICE Analogue Hadronic Calorimeter (AHCAL). The neural network uses spatial and temporal event information from the AHCAL and energy information, which is expected to improve sensitivity to shower development and the neutron fraction of the hadron shower. The neural network method produced a depth-dependent energy weighting and a time-dependent threshold for enhancing energy deposits consistent with the timescale of evaporation neutrons. Additionally, it was observed to learn an energy-weighting indicative of longitudinal leakage correction. In addition, the method produced a linear detector response and outperformed a published control method regarding resolution for every particle energy studied.