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Gimenez-Alventosa, V., Gimenez, V., Ballester, F., Vijande, J., & Andreo, P. (2018). Correction factors for ionization chamber measurements with the 'Valencia' and 'large field Valencia' brachytherapy applicators. Phys. Med. Biol., 63(12), 125004–10pp.
Abstract: Treatment of small skin lesions using HDR brachytherapy applicators is a widely used technique. The shielded applicators currently available in clinical practice are based on a tungsten-alloy cup that collimates the source-emitted radiation into a small region, hence protecting nearby tissues. The goal of this manuscript is to evaluate the correction factors required for dose measurements with a plane-parallel ionization chamber typically used in clinical brachytherapy for the 'Valencia' and 'large field Valencia' shielded applicators. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed using the PENELOPE-2014 system to determine the absorbed dose deposited in a water phantom and in the chamber active volume with a Type A uncertainty of the order of 0.1%. The average energies of the photon spectra arriving at the surface of the water phantom differ by approximately 10%, being 384 keV for the 'Valencia' and 343 keV for the 'large field Valencia'. The ionization chamber correction factors have been obtained for both applicators using three methods, their values depending on the applicator being considered. Using a depth-independent global chamber perturbation correction factor and no shift of the effective point of measurement yields depth-dose differences of up to 1% for the 'Valencia' applicator. Calculations using a depth-dependent global perturbation factor, or a shift of the effective point of measurement combined with a constant partial perturbation factor, result in differences of about 0.1% for both applicators. The results emphasize the relevance of carrying out detailed Monte Carlo studies for each shielded brachytherapy applicator and ionization chamber.
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Rinaldi, M., & Vento, V. (2020). Scalar spectrum in a graviton soft wall model. J. Phys. G, 47(12), 125003–16pp.
Abstract: In this study we present a unified phenomenological analysis of the scalar glueball and scalar meson spectra within an AdS/QCD framework in the bottom up approach. For this purpose we generalize the recently developed graviton soft-wall (GSW) model, which has shown an excellent agreement with the lattice QCD glueball spectrum, to a description of glueballs and mesons with a unique energy scale. In this scheme, dilatonic effects, are incorporated in the metric as a deformation of the AdS space. We apply the model also to the heavy meson spectra with success. We obtain quadratic mass equations for all scalar mesons while the glueballs satisfy an almost linear mass equation. Besides their spectra, we also discuss the mixing of scalar glueball and light scalar meson states within a unified framework: the GSW model. To this aim, the light-front (LF) holographic approach, which connects the mode functions of AdS/QCD to the LF wave functions, is applied. This relation provides the probabilistic interpretation required to properly investigate the mixing conditions.
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Agullo, I., del Rio, A., & Navarro-Salas, J. (2018). Classical and quantum aspects of electric-magnetic duality rotations in curved spacetimes. Phys. Rev. D, 98(12), 125001–22pp.
Abstract: It is well known that the source-free Maxwell equations are invariant under electric-magnetic duality rotations, F -> F cos theta +*F sin theta. These transformations are indeed a symmetry of the theory in the Noether sense. The associated constant of motion is the difference in the intensity between self-dual and anti-self-dual components of the electromagnetic field or, equivalently, the difference between the right and left circularly polarized components. This conservation law holds even if the electromagnetic field interacts with an arbitrary classical gravitational background. After reexamining these results, we discuss whether this symmetry is maintained when the electromagnetic field is quantized. The answer is in the affirmative in the absence of gravity but not necessarily otherwise. As a consequence, the net polarization of the quantum electromagnetic field fails to be conserved in curved spacetimes. This is a quantum effect, and it can be understood as the generalization of the fermion chiral anomaly to fields of spin one.
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Marañon-Gonzalez, F. J., & Navarro-Salas, J. (2023). Adiabatic regularization for spin-1 fields. Phys. Rev. D, 108(12), 125001–11pp.
Abstract: We analyze the adiabatic regularization scheme to renormalize Proca fields in a four-dimensional Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker spacetime. The adiabatic method is well established for scalar and spin-1/2 fields, but is not yet fully understood for spin-1 fields. We give the details of the construction and show that, in the massless limit, the renormalized stress-energy tensor of the Proca field is closely related to that of a minimally coupled scalar field. Our result is in full agreement with other approaches, based on the effective action, which also show a discontinuity in the massless limit. The scalar field can be naturally regarded as a Stueckelberg-type field. We also test the consistency of our results in de Sitter space.
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Kasieczka, G. et al, & Sanz, V. (2021). The LHC Olympics 2020: a community challenge for anomaly detection in high energy physics. Rep. Prog. Phys., 84(12), 124201–64pp.
Abstract: A new paradigm for data-driven, model-agnostic new physics searches at colliders is emerging, and aims to leverage recent breakthroughs in anomaly detection and machine learning. In order to develop and benchmark new anomaly detection methods within this framework, it is essential to have standard datasets. To this end, we have created the LHC Olympics 2020, a community challenge accompanied by a set of simulated collider events. Participants in these Olympics have developed their methods using an R&D dataset and then tested them on black boxes: datasets with an unknown anomaly (or not). Methods made use of modern machine learning tools and were based on unsupervised learning (autoencoders, generative adversarial networks, normalizing flows), weakly supervised learning, and semi-supervised learning. This paper will review the LHC Olympics 2020 challenge, including an overview of the competition, a description of methods deployed in the competition, lessons learned from the experience, and implications for data analyses with future datasets as well as future colliders.
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Geng, L. S., Molina, R., & Oset, E. (2017). On the chiral covariant approach to rho rho scattering. Chin. Phys. C, 41(12), 124101–9pp.
Abstract: We examine in detail a recent work (D. Gulmez, U. G. Meibner and J. A. Oller, Eur. Phys. J. C, 77: 460 (2017)), where improvements to make rho rho scattering relativistically covariant are made. The paper has the remarkable conclusion that the J=2 state disappears with a potential which is much more attractive than for J=0, where a bound state is found. We trace this abnormal conclusion to the fact that an “on-shell” factorization of the potential is done in a region where this potential is singular and develops a large discontinuous and unphysical imaginary part. A method is developed, evaluating the loops with full rho propagators, and we show that they do not develop singularities and do not have an imaginary part below threshold. With this result for the loops we define an effective potential, which when used with the Bethe-Salpeter equation provides a state with J=2 around the energy of the f(2)(1270). In addition, the coupling of the state to is evaluated and we find that this coupling and the T matrix around the energy of the bound state are remarkably similar to those obtained with a drastic approximation used previously, in which the q(2) terms of the propagators of the exchanged rho mesons are dropped, once the cut-off in the rho rho loop function is tuned to reproduce the bound state at the same energy.
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Bombacigno, F., Boudet, S., Olmo, G. J., & Montani, G. (2021). Big bounce and future time singularity resolution in Bianchi I cosmologies: The projective invariant Nieh-Yan case. Phys. Rev. D, 103(12), 124031.
Abstract: We extend the notion of the Nieh-Yan invariant to generic metric-affine geometries, where both torsion and nonmetricity are taken into account. Notably, we show that the properties of projective invariance and topologicity can be independently accommodated by a suitable choice of the parameters featuring this new Nieh-Yan term. We then consider a special class of modified theories of gravity able to promote the Immirzi parameter to a dynamical scalar field coupled to the Nieh-Yan form, and we discuss in more detail the dynamics of the effective scalar tensor theory stemming from such a revised theoretical framework. We focus, in particular, on cosmological Bianchi I models and we derive classical solutions where the initial singularity is safely removed in favor of a big bounce, which is ultimately driven by the nonminimal coupling with the Immirzi field. These solutions, moreover, turn out to be characterized by finite time singularities, but we show that such critical points do not spoil the geodesic completeness and wave regularity of these spacetimes.
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Rosa, J. L., Lobo, F. S. N., & Olmo, G. J. (2021). Weak-field regime of the generalized hybrid metric-Palatini gravity. Phys. Rev. D, 104(12), 124030–11pp.
Abstract: In this work we explore the dynamics of the generalized hybrid metric-Palatini theory of gravity in the weak-field, slow-motion regime. We start by introducing the equivalent scalar-tensor representation of the theory, which contains two scalar degrees of freedom, and perform a conformal transformation to the Einstein frame. Linear perturbations of the metric in a Minkowskian background are then studied for the metric and both scalar fields. The effective Newton constant and the PPN parameter. of the theory are extracted after transforming back to the (original) Jordan frame. Two particular cases where the general method ceases to be applicable are approached separately. A comparison of these results with observational constraints is then used to impose bounds on the masses and coupling constants of the scalar fields.
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Dudley, R. A., Anderson, P. R., Balbinot, R., & Fabbri, A. (2018). Correlation patterns from massive phonons in 1+1 dimensional acoustic black holes: A toy model. Phys. Rev. D, 98(12), 124011–18pp.
Abstract: Transverse excitations in analogue black holes induce a masslike term in the longitudinal mode equation. With a simple toy model we show that correlation functions display a rather rich structure characterized by groups of approximately parallel peaks. For the most part the structure is completely different from that found in the massless case.
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Middeldorf-Wygas, M. M., Oldengott, I. M., Bödeker, D., & Schwarz, D. J. (2022). Cosmic QCD transition for large lepton flavor asymmetries. Phys. Rev. D, 105, 123533–10pp.
Abstract: We study the impact of large lepton flavor asymmetries on the cosmic QCD transition. Scenarios of unequal lepton flavor asymmetries are observationally almost unconstrained and therefore open up a whole new parameter space for the cosmic QCD transition. We find that for large asymmetries, the formation of a Bose-Einstein condensate of pions can occur and identify the corresponding parameter space. In the vicinity of the QCD transition scale, we express the pressure in terms of a Taylor expansion with respect to the complete set of chemical potentials. The Taylor coefficients rely on input from lattice QCD calculations from the literature. The domain of applicability of this method is discussed.
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