Abstract: We present a study of 649 +/- 35 e(+)e(-) -> c (c) over bar events produced at root s approximate to 10.6 GeV containing both Lambda(+)(c) baryon and a (Lambda) over bar (-)(c) antibaryon. The number observed is roughly 4 times that expected if the leading charmed hadron types are uncorrelated, confirming an observation by the CLEO Collaboration. We find a 2-jet topology in these events but very few additional baryons, demonstrating that the primary c and (c) over bar are predominantly contained in a correlated baryon-antibaryon system. In addition to the charmed baryons we observe on average 2.6 +/- 0.2 charged intermediate mesons, predominantly pions, carrying 65% of the remaining energy.

Abstract: We describe the measurement of the depth of maximum, X-max, of the longitudinal development of air showers induced by cosmic rays. Almost 4000 events above 10(18) eV observed by the fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory in coincidence with at least one surface detector station are selected for the analysis. The average shower maximum was found to evolve with energy at a rate of (106 +/- 35-21) g/cm(2)/decade below 10(18.24) +/- (0.05) eV, and d24 +/- 3 g/cm(2)/ecade above this energy. The measured shower-to-shower fluctuations decrease from about 55 to 26 g/cm(2). The interpretation of these results in terms of the cosmic ray mass composition is briefly discussed.

Abstract: We consider a model for quark and lepton masses and mixings based on S-4 flavor symmetry. The model contains six Higgs doublets where three of them give mass to the leptons, and the other three gives mass to the quarks. Charged fermion and quark masses arise from renormalizable interactions while neutrino Majorana masses are generated through effective dimension five Weinberg operator. From the study of the minimization of the scalar potential we found a residual μ<-> tau symmetry in the neutrino sector predicting zero reactor angle and maximal atmospheric angle and for the quark sector we found a four-zero texture. We give a fit of the mass hierarchies and mixing angles in the quark sector.

Abstract: We discuss the linearization of Einstein equations in the presence of a cosmological constant, by expanding the solution for the metric around a flat Minkowski space-time. We demonstrate that one can find consistent solutions to the linearized set of equations for the metric perturbations, in the Lorentz gauge, which are not spherically symmetric, but they rather exhibit a cylindrical symmetry. We find that the components of the gravitational field satisfying the appropriate Poisson equations have the property of ensuring that a scalar potential can be constructed, in which both contributions, from ordinary matter and Lambda > 0, are attractive. In addition, there is a novel tensor potential, induced by the pressure density, in which the effect of the cosmological constant is repulsive. We also linearize the Schwarzschild-de Sitter exact solution of Einstein's equations ( due to a generalization of Birkhoff's theorem) in the domain between the two horizons. We manage to transform it first to a gauge in which the 3-space metric is conformally flat and, then, make an additional coordinate transformation leading to the Lorentz gauge conditions. We compare our non-spherically symmetric solution with the linearized Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric, when the latter is transformed to the Lorentz gauge, and we find agreement. The resulting metric, however, does not acquire a proper Newtonian form in terms of the unique scalar potential that solves the corresponding Poisson equation. Nevertheless, our solution is stable, in the sense that the physical energy density is positive.

Abstract: We report a direct measurement of D-0-(D) over bar (0) mixing parameters through a time-dependent amplitude analysis of the Dalitz plots of D-0 -> K-S(0)pi(+)pi(-) and, for the first time, D-0 -> (KSK+K-)-K-0 decays. The low-momentum pion pi(+)(s) in the decay D*(+) -> D-0 pi(+)(s) identifies the flavor of the neutral D meson at its production. Using 468.5 fb(-1) of e(+)e(-) colliding-beam data recorded near root s = 10.6 by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy collider at SLAC, we measure the mixing parameters x = [1.6 + 2.3(stat) +/- 1.2(syst) +/- 0.8(model)] X 10(-3), and y = [5.7 +/- 2.0(stat) +/- 1.3(syst) +/- 0.7(model)] X 10(-3). These results provide the best measurement to date of x and y. The knowledge of the value of x, in particular, is crucial for understanding the origin of mixing.