Abstract: In a well-established many-body framework, successful in modeling a great variety of nuclear processes, we analyze the role of the spectral functions (SFs) accounting for the modifications of the dispersion relation of nucleons embedded in a nuclear medium. We concentrate in processes mostly governed by one-body mechanisms, and study possible approximations to evaluate the particle hole propagator using SFs. We also investigate how to include together SFs and long-range RPA-correlation corrections in the evaluation of nuclear response functions, discussing the existing interplay between both type of nuclear effects. At low energy transfers (<= 50 MeV), we compare our predictions for inclusive muon and radiative pion captures in nuclei, and charge-current (CC) neutrino-nucleus cross sections with experimental results. We also present an analysis of intermediate energy quasi-elastic neutrino scattering for various targets and both neutrino and antineutrino CC driven processes. In all cases, we pay special attention to estimate the uncertainties affecting the theoretical predictions. In particular, we show that errors on the a,,sigma(mu)/sigma(e) ratio are much smaller than 5%, and also much smaller than the size of the SF+RPA nuclear corrections, which produce significant effects, not only in the individual cross sections, but also in their ratio for neutrino energies below 400 MeV. These latter nuclear corrections, beyond Pauli blocking, turn out to be thus essential to achieve a correct theoretical understanding of this ratio of cross sections of interest for appearance neutrino oscillation experiments. We also briefly compare our SF and RPA results to predictions obtained within other representative approaches.

Abstract: We have studied the meson-baryon S-wave interaction in the isoscalar hidden-charm strange sector with the coupled-channels, eta(c)Lambda, J/psi Lambda, (D) over bar Xi(c), (D) over bar (s)Lambda(c), (D) over bar Xi(c)', (D) over bar*Lambda(c), (D) over bar*Xi(c)', (D) over bar*Xi*(c) in J(p) = 1/2(-), J/psi Lambda, (D) over bar*Xi(c), (D) over bar (s)*Lambda(c), (D) over bar*Xi(c)', (D) over bar Xi(c)*, (D) over bar*Xi(c)* in 3/2(-) and (D) over bar*Xi(c)* in 5/2(-). We impose constraints of heavy quark spin symmetry in the interaction and obtain the non vanishing matrix elements from an extension of the local hidden gauge approach to the charm sector. The ultraviolet divergences are renormalized using the same meson-baryon-loops regulator previously employed in the non-strange hidden charm sector, where a good reproduction of the properties of the newly discovered pentaquark states is obtained. We obtain five states of 1/2(-), four of 3/2(-) and one of 5/2(-), which could be compared in the near future with forthcoming LHCb experiments. The 5/2(-), three of the 3/2(-) and another three of the 1/2(-) resonances are originated from isoscalar (D) over bar (()*())Xi(c)' and (D) over bar (()*()) Xi(c)* interactions. They should be located just few MeV below the corresponding thresholds (4446, 4513, 4588 and 4655 MeV), and would be SU(3)-siblings of the isospin 1/2 (D) over bar (()*())Sigma(()(c)*()) quasi-bound states previously found, and that provided a robust theoretical description of the P-c(4440), P-c(4457) and P-c(4312) LHCb exotic states. The another two 1/2(-) and 3/2(-) states obtained in this work are result of the (D) over bar (()*())Xi(c)- D-s(()*()) Lambda(c) coupled-channels isoscalar interaction, are significantly broader than the others, with widths of the order of 15 MeV, being (D) over bar (()(s)*())Lambda(c) the dominant decay channel.

Abstract: Since the upsilon(tau) ((upsilon) over bar (tau))A(Z) -> tau(-/+) X reaction is notoriously difficult to be directly measured, the information on the dynamics of this nuclear process should be extracted from the analysis of the energy and angular distributions of the tau decay visible products. These distributions depend, in addition to d(2)sigma / (dE(tau)d cos theta(tau)), on the components of the tau-polarization vector. We give, for the first time, the general expression for the outgoing hadron (pion or rho meson) energy and angular differential cross section for the sequential upsilon(tau) A(Z) -> tau(-) (pi(-)upsilon(tau,) rho(-)upsilon(tau))X and (upsilon) over bar (tau)A(Z) -> tau(+) (pi(+)(upsilon) over bar (tau), rho(+)(upsilon) over bar (tau)) X reactions. Though all possible nuclear reaction mechanisms contribute to the distribution, it may be possible to isolate/enhance one of them by implementing appropriate selection criteria. For the case of the quasi-elastic reaction off oxygen and neutrino energies below 6 GeV, we show that the pion distributions are quite sensitive to the details of the tau-polarization components. We find significant differences between the full calculation, where the longitudinal and transverse components of the tau polarization vector vary with the energy and the scattering angle of the produced tau, and the simplified scheme in which the polarizations are set to one and zero, being the latter their respective asymptotic values reached in the high energy regime. In addition to its potential impact on neutrino oscillation analyses, this result can be used to further test different nuclear models, since these observables provide complementary information to that obtained by means of the inclusive nuclear weak charged-current differential cross section. We also study the effects on the cross section of the W-4 and W-5 nuclear structure functions, which contributions are proportional to the charged lepton mass, and therefore difficult to constrain in muon and electron neutrino experiments.