Escrihuela, F. J., Forero, D. V., Miranda, O. G., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2015). On the description of nonunitary neutrino mixing. Phys. Rev. D, 92(5), 053009–16pp.
Abstract: Neutrino oscillations are well established and the relevant parameters determined with good precision, except for the CP phase, in terms of a unitary lepton mixing matrix. Seesaw extensions of the Standard Model predict unitarity deviations due to the admixture of heavy isosinglet neutrinos. We provide a complete description of the unitarity and universality deviations in the light-neutrino sector. Neutrino oscillation experiments involving electron or muon neutrinos and antineutrinos are fully described in terms of just three new real parameters and a new CP phase, in addition to the ones describing oscillations with unitary mixing. Using this formalism we describe the implications of nonunitarity for neutrino oscillations and summarize the model-independent constraints on heavy-neutrino couplings that arise from current experiments.
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Bernardoni, F., Blossier, B., Bulava, J., Della Morte, M., Fritzsch, P., Garron, N., et al. (2015). B-meson spectroscopy in HQET at order 1/m. Phys. Rev. D, 92(5), 054509–25pp.
Abstract: We present a study of the B spectrum performed in the framework of heavy quark effective theory expanded to next-to-leading order in 1/m(b) and nonperturbative in the strong coupling. Our analyses have been performed on N-f = 2 lattice gauge field ensembles corresponding to three different lattice spacings and a wide range of pion masses. We obtain the B-s-meson mass and hyperfine splittings of the B-and B-s-mesons that are in good agreement with the experimental values and examine the mass difference m(Bs) – m(B) as a further cross-check of our previous estimate of the b-quark mass. We also report on the mass splitting between the first excited state and the ground state in the B and B-s systems.
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Sekihara, T., & Oset, E. (2015). Investigating the nature of light scalar mesons with semileptonic decays of D mesons. Phys. Rev. D, 92(5), 054038–17pp.
Abstract: We study the semileptonic decays of D-s(+), D+, and D-0 mesons into the light scalar mesons [f(0)(500), K-0(*)(800), f(0)(980), and a(0)(980)] and the light vector mesons [rho(770), omega(782), K-*(892), and phi(1020)]. With the help of a chiral unitarity approach in coupled channels, we compute the branching fractions for scalar meson processes of the semileptonic D decays in a simple way. Using current known values of the branching fractions, we make predictions for the branching fractions of the semileptonic decay modes with other scalar and vector mesons. Furthermore, we calculate the pi(+)pi(-), pi eta, pi K, and K+K- invariant mass distributions in the semileptonic decays of D mesons, which will help us clarify the nature of the light scalar mesons.
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Helo, J. C., Hirsch, M., Ota, T., & Pereira dos Santos, F. A. (2015). Double beta decay and neutrino mass models. J. High Energy Phys., 05(5), 092–40pp.
Abstract: Neutrinoless double beta decay allows to constrain lepton number violating extensions of the standard model. If neutrinos are Majorana particles, the mass mechanism will always contribute to the decay rate, however, it is not a priori guaranteed to be the dominant contribution in all models. Here, we discuss whether the mass mechanism dominates or not from the theory point of view. We classify all possible (scalar-mediated) short-range contributions to the decay rate according to the loop level, at which the corresponding models will generate Majorana neutrino masses, and discuss the expected relative size of the different contributions to the decay rate in each class. Our discussion is general for models based on the SM group but does not cover models with an extended gauge. We also work out the phenomenology of one concrete 2-loop model in which both, mass mechanism and short-range diagram, might lead to competitive contributions, in some detail.
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Richart, J., Otal, A., Rodriguez, S., Nicolas, A. I., DePiaggio, M., Santos, M., et al. (2015). A practical MRI-based reconstruction method for a new endocavitary and interstitial gynaecological template. J. Contemp. Brachytherapy, 7(5), 407–414.
Abstract: Purpose: There are perineal templates for interstitial implants such as MUPIT and Syed applicators. Their limitations are the intracavitary component deficit and the necessity to use computed tomography (CT) for treatment planning since both applicators are non-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) compatibles. To overcome these problems, a new template named Template Benidorm (TB) has been recently developed. Titanium needles are usually reconstructed based on their own artifacts, mainly in T1-weighted sequence, using the void on the tip as the needle tip position. Nevertheless, patient tissues surrounding the needles present heterogeneities that complicate the accurate identification of these artifact patterns. The purpose of this work is to improve the titanium needle reconstruction uncertainty for the TB case using a simple method based on the free needle lengths and typical MRI pellets markers. Material and methods: The proposed procedure consists on the inclusion of three small A-vitamin pellets (hyper-intense on MRI images) compressed by both applicator plates defining the central plane of the plate's arrangement. The needles used are typically 20 cm in length. For each needle, two points are selected defining the straight line. From such line and the plane equations, the intersection can be obtained, and using the free length (knowing the offset distance), the coordinates of the needle tip can be obtained. The method is applied in both T1W and T2W acquisition sequences. To evaluate the inter-observer variation of the method, three implants of T1W and another three of T2W have been reconstructed by two different medical physicists with experience on these reconstructions. Results and conclusions: The differences observed in the positioning were significantly smaller than 1 mm in all cases. The presented algorithm also allows the use of only T2W sequence either for contouring or reconstruction purposes. The proposed method is robust and independent of the visibility of the artifact at the tip of the needle.
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