Garani, R., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2022). Evaporation of dark matter from celestial bodies. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 042–53pp.
Abstract: Scatterings of galactic dark matter (DM) particles with the constituents of celestial bodies could result in their accumulation within these objects. Nevertheless, the finite temperature of the medium sets a minimum mass, the evaporation mass, that DM particles must have in order to remain trapped. DM particles below this mass are very likely to scatter to speeds higher than the escape velocity, so they would be kicked out of the capturing object and escape. Here, we compute the DM evaporation mass for all spherical celestial bodies in hydrostatic equilibrium, spanning the mass range [10(-)(10) – 10(2)] M-circle dot, for constant scattering cross sections and s-wave annihilations. We illustrate the critical importance of the exponential tail of the evaporation rate, which has not always been appreciated in recent literature, and obtain a robust result: for the geometric value of the scattering cross section and for interactions with nucleons, at the local galactic position, the DM evaporation mass for all spherical celestial bodies in hydrostatic equilibrium is approximately given by E-c/T-chi similar to 30, where E-c is the escape energy of DM particles at the core of the object and T-chi is their temperature. In that case, the minimum value of the DM evaporation mass is obtained for super-Jupiters and brown dwarfs, m(ev)(ap) similar or equal to 0.7 GeV. For other values of the scattering cross section, the DM evaporation mass only varies by a factor smaller than three within the range 10(-41) cm(2) <= sigma(p) <= 10(-31) cm(2), where sigma(p) is the spin-independent DM-nucleon scattering cross section. Its dependence on parameters such as the galactic DM density and velocity, or the scattering and annihilation cross sections is only logarithmic, and details on the density and temperature profiles of celestial bodies have also a small impact.
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Briz, J. A., Nerio, A. N., Ballesteros, C., Borge, M. J. G., Martinez, P., Perea, A., et al. (2022). Proton Radiographs Using Position-Sensitive Silicon Detectors and High-Resolution Scintillators. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 69(4), 696–702.
Abstract: Proton therapy is a cancer treatment technique currently in growth since it offers advantages with respect to conventional X-ray and gamma-ray radiotherapy. In particular, better control of the dose deposition allowing to reach higher conformity in the treatments causing less secondary effects. However, in order to take full advantage of its potential, improvements in treatment planning and dose verification are required. A new prototype of proton computed tomography scanner is proposed to design more accurate and precise treatment plans for proton therapy. Our prototype is formed by double-sided silicon strip detectors and scintillators of LaBr3(Ce) with high energy resolution and fast response. Here, the results obtained from an experiment performed using a 100-MeV proton beam are presented. Proton radiographs of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) samples of 50-mm thickness with spatial patterns in aluminum were taken. Their properties were studied, including reproduction of the dimensions, spatial resolution, and sensitivity to different materials. Structures of up to 2 mm are well resolved and the sensitivity of the system was enough to distinguish the thicknesses of 10 mm of aluminum or PMMA. The spatial resolution of the images was 0.3 line pairs per mm (MTF-10%). This constitutes the first step to validate the device as a proton radiography scanner.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2022). Search for neutral long-lived particles in pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV that decay into displaced hadronic jets in the ATLAS calorimeter. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 005–49pp.
Abstract: A search for decays of pair-produced neutral long-lived particles (LLPs) is presented using 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015-2018 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Dedicated techniques were developed for the reconstruction of displaced jets produced by LLPs decaying hadronically in the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter. Two search regions are defined for different LLP kinematic regimes. The observed numbers of events are consistent with the expected background, and limits for several benchmark signals are determined. For a SM Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV, branching ratios above 10% are excluded at 95% confidence level for values of c times LLP mean proper lifetime in the range between 20 mm and 10 m depending on the model. Upper limits are also set on the cross-section times branching ratio for scalars with a mass of 60 GeV and for masses between 200 GeV and 1 Tev.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., & Ruiz Vidal, J. (2022). Tests of Lepton Universality Using B-0 -> K(S)(0)l(+) l(-) and B+ -> K*(+)l(+)l(-) Decays. Phys. Rev. Lett., 128(19), 191802–15pp.
Abstract: Tests of lepton universality in B-0 -> K(S)(0)l(+)l(-) and B+ -> K*(+)l(+)l(-) decays where l is either an electron or a muon are presented. The differential branching fractions of B-0 -> K(S)(0)e(+)e(-) and B+ -> K*(+)e(+)e(-) decays are measured in intervals of the dilepton invariant mass squared. The measurements are performed using proton-proton collision data recorded by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb(-1). The results are consistent with the standard model and previous tests of lepton universality in related decay modes. The first observation of B-0 -> K(S)(0)e(+)e(-) and B+ -> K*(+)e(+)e(-) decays is reported.
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Di Valentino, E., Gariazzo, S., Giunti, C., Mena, O., Pan, S., & Yang, W. Q. (2022). Minimal dark energy: Key to sterile neutrino and Hubble constant tensions? Phys. Rev. D, 105(10), 103511–15pp.
Abstract: Minimal dark energy models, described by the same number of free parameters of the standard cosmological model with cold dark matter plus a cosmological constant to parametrize the dark energy component, constitute very appealing scenarios which may solve long-standing, pending tensions. On the one hand, they alleviate significantly the tension between cosmological observations and the presence of one sterile neutrino motivated by the short-baseline anomalies: we obtain a 95% CL cosmological bound on the mass of a fully thermalized fourth sterile neutrino (N-eff = 4) equal to m(s) < 0.65(1.3) eV within the Phenomenologically Emergent Dark Energy (PEDE) and Vacuum Metamorphosis (VM) scenarios under consideration. Interestingly, these limits are in agreement with the observations at short-baseline experiments, and the PEDE scenario is favored with respect to the Lambda CDM case when the full data combination is considered. On the other hand, the Hubble tension is satisfactorily solved in almost all the minimal dark energy schemes explored here. These phenomenological scenarios may therefore shed light on differences arising from near and far Universe probes, and also on discrepancies between cosmological and laboratory sterile neutrino searches.
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