Abstract: The neutron sensitivity of the Cr6D6 detector setup used at nTOF facility for capture measurements has been studied by means of detailed GEANT4 simulations. A realistic software replica of the entire nTOF experimental hall, including the neutron beam line, sample, detector supports and the walls of the experimental area has been implemented in the simulations. The simulations have been analyzed in the same manner as experimental data, in particular by applying the Pulse Height Weighting Technique. The simulations have been validated against a measurement of the neutron background performed with a(nat)-C sample, showing an excellent agreement above 1 keV. At lower energies, an additional component in the measured C-nat yield has been discovered, which prevents the use of C-nat data for neutron background estimates at neutron energies below a few hundred eV. The origin and time structure of the neutron background have been derived from the simulations. Examples of the neutron background for two different samples are demonstrating the important role of accurate simulations of the neutron background in capture cross-section measurements.

Abstract: We generalize the embedding of induced-gravity inflation beyond the no-scale Supergravity presented in ref. [1] employing two gauge singlet chiral superfields, a superpotential uniquely determined by applying a continuous R and a discrete Z(n) symmetries, and a logarithmic Kahler potential including all the allowed terms up to fourth order in powers of the various fields. We show that, increasing slightly the prefactor (-3) encountered in the adopted Kahler potential, an efficient enhancement of the resulting tensor-to-scalar ratio can be achieved rendering the predictions of the model consistent with the recent BICEP2 results, even with subplanckian excursions of the original inflaton field. The remaining inflationary observables can become compatible with the data by mildly tuning the coefficient involved in the fourth order term of the Kahler potential which mixes the inflaton with the accompanying non-inflaton field. The inflaton mass is predicted to be close to 10(14) GeV.

Abstract: In this paper we study the nonperturbative structure of the SU(3) four-gluon vertex in the Landau gauge, concentrating on contributions quadratic in the metric. We employ an approximation scheme where “one-loop” diagrams are computed using fully dressed gluon and ghost propagators, and tree-level vertices. When a suitable kinematical configuration depending on a single momentum scale p is chosen, only two structures emerge: the tree-level four-gluon vertex, and a tensor orthogonal to it. A detailed numerical analysis reveals that the form factor associated with this latter tensor displays a change of sign (zero-crossing) in the deep infrared, and finally diverges logarithmically. The origin of this characteristic behavior is proven to be entirely due to the masslessness of the ghost propagators forming the corresponding ghost-loop diagram, in close analogy to a similar effect established for the three-gluon vertex. However, in the case at hand, and under the approximations employed, this particular divergence does not affect the form factor proportional to the tree-level tensor, which remains finite in the entire range of momenta, and deviates moderately from its naive tree-level value. It turns out that the kinematic configuration chosen is ideal for carrying out lattice simulations, because it eliminates from the connected Green's function all one-particle reducible contributions, projecting out the genuine one-particle irreducible vertex. Motivated by this possibility, we discuss in detail how a hypothetical lattice measurement of this quantity would compare to the results presented here, and the potential interference from an additional tensorial structure, allowed by Bose symmetry, but not encountered within our scheme.

Abstract: We present a strategy how to match the full set of components of the heavy-light axial and vector currents in Heavy Quark Effective Theory (HQET), up to and including 1/m (h) -corrections, to QCD. While the ultimate goal is to apply these matching conditions non-perturbatively, in this study we first have implemented them at tree-level, in order to find good choices of the matching observables with small contributions. They can later be employed in the non-perturbative matching procedure which is a crucial part of precision HQET computations of semileptonic decay form factors in lattice QCD.

Abstract: First observations of the rare decays B (+) -> K (+)pi (+) pi (-) μ(+) μ(-) and B (+)-> phi K+ mu(+)mu(-) are presented using 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. The branching fractions of the decays are B(B (+) -> K (+)pi (+) pi (-) μ(+) μ(-) ) = (4.36 (-0.27) (+0.29) (stat) +/- 0.21 (syst) +/- (norm)) x 10(-7), B(B (+)-> phi K+ mu(+)mu(-)) = (0.82 (+0.19)(-0.17) (stat) (+0.10)(-0.04) (syst) +/- 0.27 (norm)) x 10(-7) where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and due to the uncertainty on the branching fractions of the normalisation modes. A measurement of the differential branching fraction in bins of the invariant mass squared of the dimuon system is also presented for the decay B (+) -> K (+)pi (+) pi (-) μ(+) μ(-)