Abstract: The low-lying energy levels of proton-rich Cu-56 have been extracted using in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy with the state-of-the-art gamma-ray tracking array GRETINA in conjunction with the S800 spectrograph at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at Michigan State University. Excited states in Cu-56 serve as resonances in the Ni-55(p,gamma)Cu-56 reaction, which is a part of the rp process in type-I x-ray bursts. To resolve existing ambiguities in the reaction Q value, a more localized isobaric multiplet mass equation (IMME) fit is used, resulting in Q = 639 +/- 82 keV. We derive the first experimentally constrained thermonuclear reaction rate for Ni-55(p,.) Cu-56. We find that, with this newrate, the rp processmay bypass the (56)Niwaiting point via the Ni-55(p,gamma) reaction for typical x-ray burst conditions with a branching of up to similar to 40%. We also identify additional nuclear physics uncertainties that need to be addressed before drawing final conclusions about the rp-process reaction flow in the Ni-56 region.

Abstract: Current neutrino experiments are measuring the neutrino mixing parameters with an unprecedented accuracy. The upcoming generation of neutrino experiments will be sensitive to subdominant neutrino oscillation effects that can in principle give information on the yet-unknown neutrino parameters: the Dirac CP-violating phase in the PMNS mixing matrix, the neutrino mass ordering and the octant of.23. Determining the exact values of neutrino mass and mixing parameters is crucial to test various neutrino models and flavor symmetries that are designed to predict these neutrino parameters. In the first part of this review, we summarize the current status of the neutrino oscillation parameter determination. We consider the most recent data from all solar neutrino experiments and the atmospheric neutrino data from Super-Kamiokande, IceCube, and ANTARES. We also implement the data from the reactor neutrino experiments KamLAND, Daya Bay, RENO, and Double Chooz as well as the long baseline neutrino data from MINOS, T2K, and NO.A. If in addition to the standard interactions, neutrinos have subdominant yet-unknown Non-Standard Interactions (NSI) with matter fields, extracting the values of these parameters will suffer from new degeneracies and ambiguities. We review such effects and formulate the conditions on the NSI parameters under which the precision measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters can be distorted. Like standard weak interactions, the non-standard interaction can be categorized into two groups: Charged Current (CC) NSI and Neutral Current (NC) NSI. Our focus will bemainly on neutral current NSI because it is possible to build a class of models that give rise to sizeable NC NSI with discernible effects on neutrino oscillation. These models are based on new U(1) gauge symmetry with a gauge boson of mass. 10 MeV. The UV complete model should be of course electroweak invariant which in general implies that along with neutrinos, charged fermions also acquire new interactions on which there are strong bounds. We enumerate the bounds that already exist on the electroweak symmetric models and demonstrate that it is possible to build viable models avoiding all these bounds. In the end, we review methods to test these models and suggest approaches to break the degeneracies in deriving neutrino mass parameters caused by NSI.

Abstract: Using decays to f-meson pairs, the inclusive production of charmonium states in b-hadron decays is studied with pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb(-1), collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. Denoting by B-C = B(b -> CX) x B(C -> phi phi) the inclusive branching fraction of a b hadron to a charmonium state C that decays into a pair of phi mesons, ratios R-C2(C1) = B-C1/B-C2 are determined as R-eta c(1S)(chi c0) = 0.147 +/- 0.023 +/- 0.011, R-eta c(1S)(chi c1) = 0.073 +/- 0.016 +/- 0.006, R-eta c(1S)(chi c2) = 0.081 +/- 0.013 +/- 0.005, R-chi c0(chi c1) = 0.50 +/- 0.11 +/- 0.01, R-chi c0(chi c2) = 0.56 +/- 0.10 +/- 0.01 and R-eta c(1S)(eta c(2S)) = 0.040 +/- 0.011 +/- 0.004. Here and below the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. Upper limits at 90% confidence level for the inclusive production of X(3872), X(3915) and.c2(2P) states are obtained as R-chi c1(X(3872)) < 0.34, R-chi c0(X(3915)) < 0.12 and R-chi c2(chi c2(2P)) < 0.16. Differential cross-sections as a function of transverse momentum are measured for the eta(c)(1S) and chi(c) states. The branching fraction of the decay B-s(0). phi phi phi is measured for the first time, B(B-s(0) -> phi phi phi) = (2.15 +/- 0.54 +/- 0.28 +/- 0.21 B) x10(-6). Here the third uncertainty is due to the branching fraction of the decay B-s(0) -> phi phi, which is used for normalization. No evidence for intermediate resonances is seen. A preferentially transverse phi polarization is observed. Themeasurements allow the determination of the ratio of the branching fractions for the eta(c)(1S) decays to ff and p (p) over bar as B(eta(c)(1S) -> phi phi)/B(eta(c)(1S) -> p (p) over bar) = 1.79 +/- 0.14 +/- 0.32.

Abstract: We compute a new generation of standard solar models (SSMs) that includes recent updates on some important nuclear reaction rates and a more consistent treatment of the equation of state. Models also include a novel and flexible treatment of opacity uncertainties based on opacity kernels, required in. light of recent theoretical and experimental works on radiative opacity. Two large sets of SSMs, each based on a different canonical set of solar abundances with high and low metallicity (Z), are computed to determine model uncertainties and correlations among different observables. We present detailed comparisons of high-and low-Z models against different ensembles of solar observables,. including solar neutrinos, surface helium abundance, depth of the. convective envelope, and sound speed profile. A global comparison, including all observables, yields a p-value of 2.7 sigma for the high-Z model and 4.7 sigma for the low-Z one. When the sound speed differences in the narrow region of 0.65 < r/R-circle dot < 0.70 are excluded from the analysis, results are 0.9 sigma and 3.0 sigma for high-and low-Z models respectively. These results show that. high-Z models agree well with solar data but have a systematic problem right below the bottom of the convective envelope linked to steepness of molecular weight and temperature gradients, and that low-Z models lead to a much more general disagreement with solar data. We also show that, while simple parametrizations of opacity uncertainties can strongly alleviate the solar abundance problem, they are insufficient to substantially improve the agreement of SSMs with helioseismic data beyond that obtained for high-Z models due to the intrinsic correlations of theoretical predictions.

Abstract: ANTARES is currently the largest neutrino telescope operating in the Northern Hemisphere, aiming at the detection of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Neutrino telescopes constantly monitor at least one complete hemisphere of the sky, and are thus well-suited to detect neutrinos produced in transient astrophysical sources. A time-dependent search has been applied to a list of 33 X-ray binaries undergoing high flaring activities in satellite data (RXTE/ASM, MAXI and Swift/BAT) and during hardness transition states in the 2008-2012 period. The background originating from interactions of charged cosmic rays in the Earth's atmosphere is drastically reduced by requiring a directional and temporal coincidence with astrophysical phenomena. The results of this search are presented together with comparisons between the neutrino flux upper limits and the neutrino flux predictions from astrophysical models. The neutrino flux upper limits resulting from this search limit the jet parameter space for some astrophysical models.