Abstract: Using the ATLAS detector, a centrality-dependent suppression has been observed in the yield of J/psi mesons produced in the collisions of lead ions at the Large Hadron Collider. In a sample of minimum-bias lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre of mass energy root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 6.7 μb(-1), J/psi mesons are reconstructed via their decays to mu(+)mu(-) pairs. The measured J/psi yield, normalized to the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions, is found to significantly decrease from peripheral to central collisions. The centrality dependence is found to be qualitatively similar to the trends observed at previous, lower energy experiments. The same sample is used to reconstruct Z bosons in the mu(+)mu(-) final state, and a total of 38 candidates are selected in the mass window of 66 to 116 GeV. The relative Z yields as a function of centrality are also presented, although no conclusion can be inferred about their scaling with the number of binary collisions, because of limited statistics. This analysis provides the first results on J/psi and Z production in lead-lead collisions at the LHC.

Abstract: The duality relation between one-loop integrals and phase-space integrals, developed in a previous work, is extended to higher-order loops. The duality relation is realized by a modification of the customary +i0 prescription of the Feynman propagators, which compensates for the absence of the multiple-cut contributions that appear in the Feynman tree theorem. We rederive the duality theorem at one-loop order in a form that is more suitable for its iterative extension to higher-loop orders. We explicitly show its application to two-and three-loop scalar master integrals, and we discuss the structure of the occurring cuts and the ensuing results in detail.

Abstract: We study the phenomenology of a supersymmetric left-right model, assuming minimal supergravity boundary conditions. Both left-right and (B-L) symmetries are broken at an energy scale close to, but significantly below the GUT scale. Neutrino data is explained via a seesaw mechanism. We calculate the RGEs for superpotential and soft parameters complete at 2-loop order. At low energies lepton flavour violation (LFV) and small, but potentially measurable mass splittings in the charged scalar lepton sector appear, due to the RGE running. Different from the supersymmetric “pure seesaw” models, both, LFV and slepton mass splittings, occur not only in the left-but also in the right slepton sector. Especially, ratios of LFV slepton decays, such as Br((tau) over bar (R) -> μchi(0)(1))/Br((tau) over bar (L) -> μchi(0)(1)) are sensitive to the ratio of (B-L) and left-right symmetry breaking scales. Also the model predicts a polarization asymmetry of the outgoing positrons in the decay mu(+) -> e(+)gamma, A similar to [0, 1], which differs from the pure seesaw “prediction” A = 1. Observation of any of these signals allows to distinguish this model from any of the three standard, pure (mSugra) seesaw setups.

Abstract: Hawking's prediction of thermal radiation by black holes has been shown by Unruh to be expected also in condensed matter systems. We show here that in a black hole-like configuration realized in a BEC this particle-creation does indeed take place and can be unambiguously identified via a characteristic pattern in the density-density correlations. This opens the concrete possibility of the experimental verification of this effect.

Abstract: The energies and widths of several D-0 meson bound states for different nuclei are obtained using a D-meson selfenergy in the nuclear medium, which is evaluated in a selfconsistent manner using techniques of unitarized coupled-channel theory. The kernel of the meson-baryon interaction is based on a model that treats heavy pseudoscalar and heavy vector mesons on equal footing, as required by heavy quark symmetry. We find D-0 bound states in all studied nuclei, from C-12 up to Pb-208. The inclusion of vector mesons is the keystone for obtaining an attractive D-nucleus interaction that leads to the existence of D-0-nucleus bound states, as compared to previous studies based on SU(4) flavor symmetry. In some cases, the half widths are smaller than the separation of the levels, what makes possible their experimental observation by means of a nuclear reaction. This can be of particular interest for the future PANDA@FAIR physics program. We also find a D+ bound state in C-12, but it is too broad and will have a significant overlap with the energies of the continuum.