Abstract: Developing sustainable software for the scientific community requires expertise in software engineering and domain science. This can be challenging due to the unique needs of scientific software, the insufficient resources for software engineering practices in the scientific community, and the complexity of developing for evolving scientific contexts. While open-source software can partially address these concerns, it can introduce complicating dependencies and delay development. These issues can be reduced if scientists and software developers collaborate. We present a case study wherein scientists from the SuperNova Early Warning System collaborated with software developers from the Scalable Cyberinfrastructure for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics project. The collaboration addressed the difficulties of open-source software development, but presented additional risks to each team. For the scientists, there was a concern of relying on external systems and lacking control in the development process. For the developers, there was a risk in supporting a user-group while maintaining core development. These issues were mitigated by creating a second Agile Scrum framework in parallel with the developers' ongoing Agile Scrum process. This Agile collaboration promoted communication, ensured that the scientists had an active role in development, and allowed the developers to evaluate and implement the scientists' software requirements. The collaboration provided benefits for each group: the scientists actuated their development by using an existing platform, and the developers utilized the scientists' use-case to improve their systems. This case study suggests that scientists and software developers can avoid scientific computing issues by collaborating and that Agile Scrum methods can address emergent concerns.

Abstract: We present a detailed analysis of the spectral data of Borexino Phase II, with the aim of exploiting its full potential to constrain scenarios beyond the Standard Model. In particular, we quantify the constraints imposed on neutrino magnetic moments, neutrino non-standard interactions, and several simplified models with light scalar, pseudoscalar or vector mediators. Our analysis shows perfect agreement with those performed by the collaboration on neutrino magnetic moments and neutrino non-standard interactions in the same restricted cases and expands beyond those, stressing the interplay between flavour oscillations and flavour non-diagonal interaction effects for the correct evaluation of the event rates. For simplified models with light mediators we show the power of the spectral data to obtain robust limits beyond those previously estimated in the literature.

Abstract: We present an approach that allows one to obtain information on the compositeness of molecular states from combined information of the scattering length of the hadronic components, the effective range, and the binding energy. We consider explicitly the range of the interaction in the formalism and show it to be extremely important to improve on the formula of Weinberg obtained in the limit of very small binding and zero range interaction. The method allows obtaining good information also in cases where the binding is not small. We explicitly apply it to the case of the deuteron and the D-s0* (2317) and D-s1* (2460) states and determine simultaneously the value of the compositeness within a certain range, as well as get qualitative information on the range of the interaction.

Abstract: This article presents the results of two studies of Higgs boson properties using the WW*(-> e nu μnu)jj final state, based on a dataset corresponding to 36.1fb(-1) of root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The first study targets Higgs boson production via gluon-gluon fusion and constrains the CP properties of the effective Higgs-gluon interaction. Using angular distributions and the overall rate, a value of tan (alpha) = 0.0 +/- 0.4(stat.) +/- 0.3(syst.) is obtained for the tangent of the mixing angle for CP-even and CP-odd contributions. The second study exploits the vector-boson fusion production mechanism to probe the Higgs boson couplings to longitudinally and transversely polarised W and Z bosons in both the production and the decay of the Higgs boson; these couplings have not been directly constrained previously. The polarisation-dependent coupling-strength scale factors are defined as the ratios of the measured polarisation-dependent coupling strengths to those predicted by the Standard Model, and are determined using rate and kinematic information to be a(L) = 0.91(-0.18)(+0.10)(stat.)(-0.17)(+0.09)(syst.) and a(T) = 1.2 +/- 0.4(stat.)(-0.3)(+0.2)(syst.). These coupling strengths are translated into pseudo-observables, resulting in kappa(VV) = 0.91(-0.18)(+0.10)(stat.)(-0.17)(+0.09)(syst.) and epsilon(VV) = 0.13(-0.20)(+0.28)(stat.)(-0.10)(+0.08)(syst.). All results are consistent with the Standard Model predictions.

Abstract: The ss decays of the ground state (gs) and isomeric state (m) of Y-96 have been studied with the total absorption gamma-ray spectroscopy technique at the Ion Guide Isotope Separator On-Line facility. The separation of the 8(+) isomeric state from the 0(-) ground state was achieved thanks to the purification capabilities of the JYFLTRAP double Penning trap system. The ss-intensity distributions of both decays have been independently determined. In the analyses the deexcitation of the 1581.6 keV level in Zr-96, in which conversion electron emission competes with pair production, has been carefully considered and found to have significant impact on the ss-detector efficiency, influencing the ss-intensity distribution obtained. Our results for Y-96gs (0(-)) confirm the large ground state to ground state ss-intensity probability, although a slightly larger value than reported in previous studies was obtained, amounting to 96.6(-2.1)(+0.3) % of the total ss intensity. Given that the decay of Y-96gs is the second most important contributor to the reactor antineutrino spectrum between 5 and 7 MeV, the impact of the present results on reactor antineutrino summation calculations has been evaluated. In the decay of Y-96m (8(+)), previously undetected ss intensity in transitions to states above 6 MeV has been observed. This shows the importance of total absorption gamma-ray spectroscopy measurements of ss decays with highly fragmented deexcitation patterns. Y-96m (8(+)) is a major contributor to reactor decay heat in uranium-plutonium and thorium-uranium fuels around 10 s after fission pulses, and the newly measured average ss and gamma energies differ significantly from the previous values in evaluated databases. The discrepancy is far above the previously quoted uncertainties. Finally, we also report on the successful implementation of an innovative total absorption gamma-ray spectroscopy analysis of the module-multiplicity gated spectra, as a first proof of principle to distinguish between decaying states with very different spin-parity values.