Abstract: The study of pion production in nuclei is important for signal and background determinations in current and future neutrino oscillation experiments. The first step, however, is to understand the pion production reactions at the free nucleon level. We present an exhaustive study of the charged-current and neutral-current neutrino and antineutrino pion production off nucleons, paying special attention to the angular distributions of the outgoing pion. We show, using general arguments, that parity violation and time-reversal odd correlations in the weak differential cross sections are generated from the interference between different contributions to the hadronic current that are not relatively real. Next, we present a detailed comparison of three state-of-the-art, microscopic models for electroweak pion production off nucleons, and we also confront their predictions with polarized electron data, as a test of the vector content of these models. We also illustrate the importance of carrying out a comprehensive test at the level of outgoing pion angular distributions, going beyond comparisons done for partially integrated cross sections, where model differences cancel to a certain extent. Finally, we observe that all charged and neutral current distributions show sizable anisotropies, and identify channels for which parity-violating effects are clearly visible. Based on the above results, we conclude that the use of isotropic distributions for the pions in the center of mass of the final pion-nucleon system, as assumed by some of the Monte Carlo event generators, needs to be improved by incorporating the findings of microscopic calculations.

Abstract: We consider the supersymmetric inverse seesaw mechanism for neutrino mass generation within the context of a low-energy effective theory where supersymmetry is broken geometrically in an extra dimensional theory. It is shown that the effective scale characterizing the resulting compact supersymmetric spectrum can be as low as 500-600 GeV for moderate values of tan beta. The potentially large neutrino Yukawa couplings, naturally present in inverse seesaw schemes, enhance the Higgs mass and allow the superpartners to be lighter than in compact supersymmetry without neutrino masses. The inverse seesaw structure also implies a novel spectrum profile and couplings, in which the lightest supersymmetric particle can be an admixture of isodoublet and isosinglet sneutrinos. Dedicated collider as well as dark matter studies should take into account such specific features.

Abstract: Effective neutrino-quark generalized interactions are entirely determined by Lorentz invariance, so they include all possible four-fermion nonderivative Lorentz structures. They contain neutrino-quark nonstandard interactions as a subset, but span over a larger set that involves effective scalar, pseudoscalar, axial and tensor operators. Using recent COHERENT data, we derive constraints on the corresponding couplings by considering scalar, vector and tensor quark currents and assuming no lepton flavor dependence. We allow for mixed neutrino-quark Lorentz couplings and consider two types of scenarios in which: (i) one interaction at the nuclear level is present at a time, (ii) two interactions are simultaneously present. For scenarios (i) our findings show that scalar interactions are the most severely constrained, in particular for pseudoscalar-scalar neutrino-quark couplings. In contrast, tensor and nonstandard vector interactions still enable for sizable effective parameters. We find as well that an extra vector interaction improves the data fit when compared with the result derived assuming only the standard model contribution. In scenarios (ii) the presence of two interactions relaxes the bounds and opens regions in parameter space that are otherwise closed, with the effect being more pronounced in the scalar-vector and scalar-tensor cases. We point out that barring the vector case, our results represent the most stringent bounds on effective neutrino-quark generalized interactions for mediator masses of order similar to 1 GeV. They hold as well for larger mediator masses, case in which they should be compared with limits from neutrino deep-inelastic scattering data.

Abstract: The first observation of the B-s(0) -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K- decay is reported, together with the most precise branching fraction measurement of the mode B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K- The results are obtained from an analysis of pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 fb(-1). The data were collected with the LHCb detector at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, The branching fraction of the B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K- decay is measured relative to that of the decay B-0 -> (D) over bar (0)pi (+) pi(-) to be B(B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K-)/B(B-0 -> (D) over bar (0)pi (+) pi(-)) =(69 +/- 0.4 +/- 0.3)%, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The measured branching fraction of the B-s(0) -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K- decay mode relative to that of the corresponding B-0 decay is B(B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K-)/B(B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K-) = (93.0 +/- 809 +/- 6.9)%. Using the known branching fraction of B-0 -> (D) over bar (0)pi (+) pi(-), the values of B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K- = (6.1 +/- 0.4 +/- 0.3 +/- 0.3) x 10(-5) and B(B-s(0) -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K- = (5.7 +/- 0.5 +/- 0.4 +/- 0.5) x 10(-5) are obtained, where the third uncertainties arise from the branching fraction of the decay modes B-0 -> (D) over bar (0)pi (+) pi(-) and B-0 -> (D) over bar K-0 (+) K-, respectively.

Abstract: The (33)(n , alpha)Si-30 cross section has been measured at the neutron time-of-flight (n_TOF) facility at CERN in the neutron energy range from 10 to 300 keV relative to the B-10(n, alpha)(7) Li cross-section standard. Both reactions were measured simultaneously with a set of micromegas detectors. The flight path of 185 m has allowed us to obtain the cross section with high-energy resolution. An accurate description of the resonances has been performed by means of the multilevel multichannel R-matrix code SAMMY. The results show a significantly higher area of the biggest resonance (13.45 keV) than the unique high-resolution (n , alpha) measurement. The new parametrization of the 13.45-keV resonance is similar to that of the unique transmission measurement. This resonance is a matter of research in neutron-capture therapy. The S-33(n, alpha)Si-30 cross section has been studied in previous works because of its role in the production of S-36 in stars, which is currently overproduced in stellar models compared to observations.