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Pierre Auger Collaboration(Abreu, P. et al), & Pastor, S. (2011). Anisotropy and chemical composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using arrival directions measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 022–17pp.
Abstract: The Pierre Auger Collaboration has reported. evidence for anisotropy in the distribution of arrival directions of the cosmic rays with energies E > E-th = 5.5 x 10(19) eV. These show a correlation with the distribution of nearby extragalactic objects, including an apparent excess around the direction of Centaurus A. If the particles responsible for these excesses at E > E-th are heavy nuclei with charge Z, the proton component of the sources should lead to excesses in the same regions at energies E/Z. We here report the lack of anisotropies in these directions at energies above E-th/Z (for illustrative values of Z = 6, 13, 26). If the anisotropies above E-th are due to nuclei with charge Z, and under reasonable assumptions about the acceleration process, these observations imply stringent constraints on the allowed proton fraction at the lower energies.
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Villaescusa-Navarro, F., Miralda-Escude, J., Pena-Garay, C., & Quilis, V. (2011). Neutrino halos in clusters of galaxies and their weak lensing signature. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 06(6), 027–14pp.
Abstract: We study whether non-linear gravitational effects of relic neutrinos on the development of clustering and large-scale structure may be observable by weak gravitational lensing. We compute the density profile of relic massive neutrinos in a spherical model of a cluster of galaxies, for several neutrino mass schemes and cluster masses. Relic neutrinos add a small perturbation to the mass profile, making it more extended in the outer parts. In principle, this non-linear neutrino perturbation is detectable in an all-sky weak lensing survey such as EUCLID by averaging the shear profile of a large fraction of the visible massive clusters in the universe, or from its signature in the general weak lensing power spectrum or its cross-spectrum with galaxies. However, correctly modeling the distribution of mass in baryons and cold dark matter and suppressing any systematic errors to the accuracy required for detecting this neutrino perturbation is severely challenging.
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Olmo, G. J. (2011). Palatini actions and quantum gravity phenomenology. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 10(10), 018–15pp.
Abstract: We show that an invariant an universal length scale can be consistently introduced in a generally covariant theory through the gravitational sector using the Palatini approach. The resulting theory is able to capture different aspects of quantum gravity phenomenology in a single framework. In particular, it is found that in this theory field excitations propagating with different energy-densities perceive different background metrics, which is a fundamental characteristic of the DSR and Rainbow Gravity approaches. We illustrate these properties with a particular gravitational model and explicitly show how the soccer ball problem is avoided in this framework. The isotropic and anisotropic cosmologies of this model also avoid the big bang singularity by means of a big bounce.
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Agarwalla, S. K., Blennow, M., Fernandez-Martinez, E., & Mena, O. (2011). Neutrino probes of the nature of light dark matter. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 09(9), 004–19pp.
Abstract: Dark matter particles gravitationally trapped inside the Sun may annihilate into Standard Model particles, producing a flux of neutrinos. The prospects of detecting these neutrinos in future multi-kt neutrino detectors designed for other physics searches are explored here. We study the capabilities of a 34/100 kt liquid argon detector and a 100 kt magnetized iron calorimeter detector. These detectors are expected to determine the energy and the direction of the incoming neutrino with unprecedented precision allowing for tests of the dark matter nature at very low dark matter masses, in the range of 10-25 GeV. By suppressing the atmospheric background with angular cuts, these techniques would be sensitive to dark matter-nucleon spin-dependent cross sections at the fb level, reaching down to a few ab for the most favorable annihilation channels and detector technology.
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Pierre Auger Collaboration(Abreu, P. et al), & Pastor, S. (2011). The effect of the geomagnetic field on cosmic ray energy estimates and large scale anisotropy searches on data from the Pierre Auger Observatory. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 022.
Abstract: We present a comprehensive study of the influence of the geomagnetic field on the energy estimation of extensive air showers with a zenith angle smaller than 60 degrees, detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory. the geomagnetic field induces an azimuthal modulation of the estimated energy of cosmic rays up to the similar to 2% level at large zenith angles. We present a method to account for this modulation of the reconstructed energy. We analyse the effect of the modulation on large scale anisotropy searches in the arrival direction distributions of cosmic rays. At a given energy, the geomagnetic effect is shown to induce a pseudo-dipolar pattern at the percent level in the declination distribution that needs to be accounted for.
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Semikoz, V. B., & Valle, J. W. F. (2011). Chern-Simons anomaly as polarization effect. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 048.
Abstract: The parity violating, Chern-Simons term in the epoch before the electroweak phase transition can be interpreted as a polarization effect associated to massless right-handed electrons (positrons) in the presence of a large-scale seed hypermagnetic field. We reconfirm the viability of a unified seed field scenario relating the cosmological baryon asymmetry and the origin of the protogalactic large-scale magnetic fields observed in astronomy.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amoros, G., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Escobar, C., et al. (2011). Study of jet shapes in inclusive jet production in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 83(5), 052003–29pp.
Abstract: Jet shapes have been measured in inclusive jet production in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV using 3 pb(-1) of data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Jets are reconstructed using the anti-k(t) algorithm with transverse momentum 30 GeV < p(T) < 600 GeV and rapidity in the region vertical bar y vertical bar < 2.8. The data are corrected for detector effects and compared to several leading-order QCD matrix elements plus parton shower Monte Carlo predictions, including different sets of parameters tuned to model fragmentation processes and underlying event contributions in the final state. The measured jets become narrower with increasing jet transverse momentum and the jet shapes present a moderate jet rapidity dependence. Within QCD, the data test a variety of perturbative and nonperturbative effects. In particular, the data show sensitivity to the details of the parton shower, fragmentation, and underlying event models in the Monte Carlo generators. For an appropriate choice of the parameters used in these models, the data are well described.
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Constantinou, M., Dimopoulos, P., Frezzotti, R., Jansen, K., Gimenez, V., Lubicz, V., et al. (2011). B-K-parameter from N-f=2 twisted mass lattice QCD. Phys. Rev. D, 83(1), 014505–20pp.
Abstract: We present an unquenched N-f = 2 lattice computation of the B-K parameter which controls K-0 – (K) over bar (0) oscillations. A partially quenched setup is employed with two maximally twisted dynamical (sea) light Wilson quarks, and valence quarks of both the maximally twisted and the Osterwalder-Seiler variety. Suitable combinations of these two kinds of valence quarks lead to a lattice definition of the B-K parameter which is both multiplicatively renormalizable and O(a) improved. Employing the nonperturbative RI-MOM scheme, in the continuum limit and at the physical value of the pion mass we get B-K(RGI) = 0.729 +/- 0.030, a number well in line with the existing quenched and unquenched determinations.
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BABAR Collaboration(Lees, J. P. et al), Martinez-Vidal, F., & Oyanguren, A. (2011). Observation of the baryonic B decay (B)over-bar(0) -> Lambda(+)(c)(Lambda)over-barK(-). Phys. Rev. D, 84(7), 071102–7pp.
Abstract: We report the observation of the baryonic B decay (B) over bar (0) -> Lambda(+)(c)Lambda K(-) with a significance larger than 7 standard deviations based on 471 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring at SLAC. We measure the branching fraction for the decay (B) over bar (0) -> Lambda(+)(c)Lambda K(-) to be (3.8 +/- 0.8(stat) +/- 0.2(sys) +/- 1.0(Lambda c)(+)) x 10(-5). The uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and due to the uncertainty in the Lambda(+)(c) branching fraction. We find that the Lambda(+)(c)K(-) invariant-mass distribution shows an enhancement above 3.5 GeV/c(2).
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Li, X. Q., Su, F., & Yang, Y. D. (2011). Determination of the strong coupling gB*B pi from semileptonic B -> pi l nu decay. Phys. Rev. D, 83(5), 054019–8pp.
Abstract: According to heavy-meson chiral perturbation theory, the vector form factor f+(q(2)) of exclusive semileptonic decay B -> pi l nu is closely related, at least in the soft-pion region ( i.e., q(2) similar to (m(B) – m(pi))(2)), to the strong coupling g(B*B pi) or the normalized coupling (g)over-cap. Combining the precisely measured q2 spectrum of B -> pi l nu decay by the BABAR and Belle collaborations with several parametrizations of the form factor f +(q(2)), we can extract these couplings from the residue of the form factor at the B* pole, which relies on an extrapolation of the form factor from the semileptonic region to the unphysical point q(2) = m(B*)(2). Comparing the extracted values with the other experimental and theoretical estimates, we can test these various form-factor parametrizations, which differ from each other by the amount of physical information embedded in. It is found that the extracted values based on the Becirevic-Kaidalov, Ball-Zwicky and Bourrely-Caprini-Lellouch parametrizations are consistent with each other and roughly in agreement with the other theoretical and lattice estimates, while the Boyd-Grinstein-Lebed ansatz, featured by a spurious, unwanted pole at the threshold of the cut, gives a neatly larger value.
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