Agullo, I., Navarro-Salas, J., Olmo, G. J., & Parker, L. (2010). Acceleration radiation, transition probabilities and trans-Planckian physics. New J. Phys., 12, 095017–18pp.
Abstract: An important question in the derivation of the acceleration radiation, which also arises in Hawking's derivation of black hole radiance, is the need to invoke trans-Planckian physics in describing the creation of quanta. We point out that this issue can be further clarified by reconsidering the analysis in terms of particle detectors, transition probabilities and local two-point functions. By writing down separate expressions for the spontaneous-and induced-transition probabilities of a uniformly accelerated detector, we show that the bulk of the effect comes from the natural (non-trans-Planckian) scale of the problem, which largely diminishes the importance of the trans-Planckian sector. This is so, at least, when trans-Planckian physics is defined in a Lorentz-invariant way. This analysis also suggests how one can define and estimate the role of trans-Planckian physics in the Hawking effect itself.
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Donini, A., Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., & Meloni, D. (2011). The tau-contamination of the golden muon sample at the Neutrino Factory. J. High Energy Phys., 02(2), 095–16pp.
Abstract: We study the contribution of nu(e) -> nu(tau) -> tau -> μtransitions to the wrong-sign muon sample of the golden channel of the Neutrino Factory. Muons from tau decays are not really a background, since they contain information from the oscillation signal, and represent a small fraction of the sample. However, if not properly handled they introduce serious systematic error, in particular if the detector/analysis are sensitive to muons of low energy. This systematic effect is particularly troublesome for large theta(13) >= 1 degrees and prevents the use of the Neutrino Factory as a precision facility for large theta(13). Such a systematic error disappears if the tau contribution to the golden muon sample is taken into account. The fact that the fluxes of the Neutrino Factory are exactly calculable permits the knowledge of the tau sample due to the nu(e) -> nu(tau) oscillation. We then compute the contribution to the muon sample arising from this sample in terms of the apparent muon energy. This requires the computation of a migration matrix M-ij which describes the contributions of the tau neutrinos of a given energy E-i, to the muon neutrinos of an apparent energy E-j. We demonstrate that applying M-ij to the data permits the full correction of the otherwise intolerable systematic error.
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Abgrall, N. et al, Cervera-Villanueva, A., Escudero, L., Monfregola, L., & Stamoulis, P. (2011). Time projection chambers for the T2K near detectors. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 637(1), 25–46.
Abstract: The T2K experiment is designed to study neutrino oscillation properties by directing a high intensity neutrino beam produced at J-PARC in Tokai, Japan, towards the large Super-Kamiokande detector located 295 km away, in Kamioka, Japan. The experiment includes a sophisticated near detector complex, 280 m downstream of the neutrino production target in order to measure the properties of the neutrino beam and to better understand neutrino interactions at the energy scale below a few GeV. A key element of the near detectors is the ND280 tracker, consisting of two active scintillator-bar target systems surrounded by three large time projection chambers (TPCs) for charged particle tracking. The data collected with the tracker are used to study charged current neutrino interaction rates and kinematics prior to oscillation, in order to reduce uncertainties in the oscillation measurements by the far detector. The tracker is surrounded by the former UA1/NOMAD dipole magnet and the TPCs measure the charges, momenta, and particle types of charged particles passing through them. Novel features of the TPC design include its rectangular box layout constructed from composite panels, the use of bulk micromegas detectors for gas amplification, electronics readout based on a new ASIC, and a photoelectron calibration system. This paper describes the design and construction of the TPCs, the micromegas modules, the readout electronics, the gas handling system, and shows the performance of the TPCs as deduced from measurements with particle beams, cosmic rays, and the calibration system.
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Aguilar, A. C., Binosi, D., & Papavassiliou, J. (2010). QCD effective charges from lattice data. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 002–24pp.
Abstract: We use recent lattice data on the gluon and ghost propagators, as well as the Kugo-Ojima function, in order to extract the non-perturbative behavior of two particular definitions of the QCD effective charge, one based on the pinch technique construction, and one obtained from the standard ghost-gluon vertex. The construction relies crucially on the definition of two dimensionful quantities, which are invariant under the renormalization group, and are built out of very particular combinations of the aforementioned Green's functions. The main non-perturbative feature of both effective charges, encoded in the infrared finiteness of the gluon propagator and ghost dressing function used in their definition, is the freezing at a common finite (non-vanishing) value, in agreement with a plethora of theoretical and phenomenological expectations. We discuss the sizable discrepancy between the freezing values obtained from the present lattice analysis and the corresponding estimates derived from several phenomenological studies, and attribute its origin to the difference in the gauges employed. A particular toy calculation suggests that the modifications induced to the non-perturbative gluon propagator by the gauge choice may indeed account for the observed deviation of the freezing values.
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Bordes, J., Chan, H. M., & Tsun, T. S. (2010). A solution to the strong CP problem transforming the theta angle to the KM CP-violating phase. Int. J. Mod. Phys. A, 25(32), 5897–5911.
Abstract: It is shown that in the scheme with a rotating fermion mass matrix (i.e. one with a scale-dependent orientation in generation space) suggested earlier for explaining fermion mixing and mass hierarchy, the theta angle term in the QCD action of topological origin can be eliminated by chiral transformations, while giving still nonzero masses to all quarks. Instead, the effects of such transformations get transmitted by the rotation to the CKM matrix as the KM phase giving, for theta of order unity, a Jarlskog invariant typically of order 10(-5), as experimentally observed. Strong and weak CP violations appear then as just two facets of the same phenomenon.
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Edelhauser, L., Porod, W., & Singh, R. K. (2010). Spin discrimination in three-body decays. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 053–31pp.
Abstract: The identification of the correct model for physics beyond the Standard Model requires the determination of the spin of new particles. We investigate to which extent the spin of a new particle X can be identified in scenarios where it decays dominantly in three-body decays X -> f (f) over barY. Here we assume that Y is a candidate for dark matter and escapes direct detection at a high energy collider such as the LHC. We show that in the case that all intermediate particles are heavy, one can get information on the spins of X and Y at the LHC by exploiting the invariant mass distribution of the two standard model fermions. We develop a model-independent strategy to determine the spins without prior knowledge of the unknown couplings and test it in a series of Monte Carlo studies.
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Cervera-Villanueva, A., Laing, A., Martin-Albo, J., & Soler, F. J. P. (2010). Performance of the MIND detector at a Neutrino Factory using realistic muon reconstruction. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 624(3), 601–614.
Abstract: A Neutrino Factory producing an intense beam composed of v(e)((v) over bar (e)) and (v) over bar (mu)(v(mu)) from muon decays has been shown to have the greatest sensitivity to the two currently unmeasured neutrino mixing parameters theta(13) and delta(CP) Using the wrong-sign muon signal to measure v(e)-> v(mu)((v) over bar (e) ->(v) over bar (mu)) oscillations in a 50kt Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector (MIND) sensitivity to delta(CP) could be maintained down to small values of theta(13) However the detector efficiencies used in these previous studies were calculated assuming perfect pattern recognition In this paper MIND is reassessed taking into account for the first time a realistic pattern recognition for the muon candidate Reoptimisation of the analysis utilises a combination of methods including a multivariate analysis similar to the one used in MINOS to maintain high efficiency while suppressing backgrounds ensuring that the signal selection efficiency and the background levels are comparable or better than the ones in previous analyses As a result MIND remains the most sensitive future facility for the discovery of CP violation from neutrino oscillations.
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Carbone, C., Mena, O., & Verde, L. (2010). Cosmological parameters degeneracies and non-Gaussian halo bias. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 07(7), 020–17pp.
Abstract: We study the impact of the cosmological parameters uncertainties on the measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity through the large-scale non-Gaussian halo bias effect. While this is not expected to be an issue for the standard Lambda CDM model, it may not be the case for more general models that modify the large-scale shape of the power spectrum. We consider the so-called local non-Gaussianity model, parametrized by the f(NL) non-Gaussianity parameter which is zero for a Gaussian case, and make forecasts on f(NL) from planned surveys, alone and combined with a Planck CMB prior. In particular, we consider EUCLID- and LSST-like surveys and forecast the correlations among f(NL) and the running of the spectral index alpha(s), the dark energy equation of state w, the effective sound speed of dark energy perturbations c(s)(2), the total mass of massive neutrinos M-nu = Sigma m(nu), and the number of extra relativistic degrees of freedom N-nu(rel). Neglecting CMB information on f(NL) and scales k > 0.03h/Mpc, we find that, if N-nu(rel) is assumed to be known, the uncertainty on cosmological parameters increases the error on f(NL) by 10 to 30% depending on the survey. Thus the f(NL) constraint is remarkable robust to cosmological model uncertainties. On the other hand, if N-nu(rel) is simultaneously constrained from the data, the f(NL) error increases by similar to 80%. Finally, future surveys which provide a large sample of galaxies or galaxy clusters over a volume comparable to the Hubble volume can measure primordial non-Gaussianity of the local form with a marginalized 1-sigma error of the order Delta f(NL) similar to 2 – 5, after combination with CMB priors for the remaining cosmological parameters. These results are competitive with CMB bispectrum constraints achievable with an ideal CMB experiment.
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Baron, R., Boucaud, P., Dimopoulos, P., Frezzotti, R., Palao, D., Rossi, G., et al. (2010). Light meson physics from maximally twisted mass lattice QCD. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 097–41pp.
Abstract: We present a comprehensive investigation of light meson physics using maximally twisted mass fermions for N-f = 2 mass-degenerate quark flavours. By employing four values of the lattice spacing, spatial lattice extents ranging from 2.0 fm to 2.5 fm and pseudo scalar masses in the range 280 less than or similar to m(PS) less than or similar to 650MeV we control the major systematic effects of our calculation. This enables us to confront our N-f = 2 data with SU(2) chiral perturbation theory and extract low energy constants of the effective chiral Lagrangian and derived quantities, such as the light quark mass.
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de Azcarraga, J. A., Izquierdo, J. M., & Picon, M. (2011). Contractions of Filippov algebras. J. Math. Phys., 52(1), 013516–24pp.
Abstract: We introduce in this paper the contractions B-c of n-Lie (or Filippov) algebras B and show that they have a semidirect structure as their n = 2 Lie algebra counterparts. As an example, we compute the nontrivial contractions of the simple A(n+1) Filippov algebras. By using the. Inonu-Wigner and the generalized Weimar-Woods contractions of ordinary Lie algebras, we compare (in the B = A(n+1) simple case) the Lie algebras Lie B-c (the Lie algebra of inner endomorphisms of B-c) with certain contractions (Lie B)(IW) and (Lie B)(W-W) of the Lie algebra Lie B associated with B.
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