Abstract: We investigate the sensitivity of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to the anisotropies of the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background (SGWB). We first discuss the main astrophysical and cosmological sources of SGWB which are characterized by anisotropies in the GW energy density, and we build a Signal-to-Noise estimator to quantify the sensitivity of LISA to different multipoles. We then perform a Fisher matrix analysis of the prospects of detectability of anisotropic features with LISA for individual multipoles, focusing on a SGWB with a power-law frequency profile. We compute the noise angular spectrum taking into account the specific scan strategy of the LISA detector. We analyze the case of the kinematic dipole and quadrupole generated by Doppler boosting an isotropic SGWB. We find that beta Omega(GW) similar to 2 x 10(-11) is required to observe a dipolar signal with LISA. The detector response to the quadrupole has a factor similar to 10(3) beta relative to that of the dipole. The characterization of the anisotropies, both from a theoretical perspective and from a map-making point of view, allows us to extract information that can be used to understand the origin of the SGWB, and to discriminate among distinct superimposed SGWB sources.

Abstract: A search for a new heavy scalar particle X decaying into a Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson and a new singlet scalar particle S is presented. The search uses a proton-proton (pp) collision data sample with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb(-1) recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The most sensitive mass parameter space is explored in X mass ranging from 500 to 1500 GeV, with the corresponding S mass in the range 200-500 GeV. The search selects events with two hadronically decaying tau-lepton candidates from H -> tau(+)tau(-) decays and one or two light leptons (l = e, mu) from S -> VV (V = W, Z) decays while the remaining V boson decays hadronically or to neutrinos. A multivariate discriminant based on event kinematics is used to separate the signal from the background. No excess is observed beyond the expected SM background and 95% confidence level upper limits between 72 fb and 542 fb are derived on the cross-section sigma(pp -> X -> SH) assuming the same SM-Higgs boson-like decay branching ratios for the S -> VV decay. Upper limits on the visible cross-sections sigma(pp -> X -> SH -> WW tau tau) and sigma(pp -> X -> SH -> ZZ tau tau) are also set in the ranges 3-26 fb and 6-33 fb, respectively.

Abstract: Analyses of the pion valence-quark distribution function (DF), u(pi) (x; sigma), which explicitly incorporate the behaviour of the pion wave function prescribed by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), predict u(pi) (x similar or equal to 1; sigma) similar to (1 – x)(beta(sigma)), beta(sigma greater than or similar to m(p)) > 2, where mp is the proton mass. Nevertheless, more than forty years after the first experiment to collect data suitable for extracting the x similar or equal to 1 behaviour of up, the empirical status remains uncertain because some methods used to fit existing data return a result for up that violates this constraint. Such disagreement entails one of the following conclusions: the analysis concerned is incomplete; not all data being considered are a true expression of qualities intrinsic to the pion; or QCD, as it is currently understood, is not the theory of strong interactions. New, precise data are necessary before a final conclusion is possible. In developing these positions, we exploit a single proposition, viz. there is an effective charge which defines an evolution scheme for parton DFs that is all-orders exact. This proposition has numerous corollaries, which can be used to test the character of any DF, whether fitted or calculated.