NA64 Collaboration(Andreev, Y. M. et al), & Molina Bueno, L. (2021). Search for pseudoscalar bosons decaying into e(+)e(-) pairs in the NA64 experiment at the CERN SPS. Phys. Rev. D, 104(11), L111102–5pp.
Abstract: We report the results of a search for a light pseudoscalar particle a that couples to electrons and decays to e(+) e(-) perfbnned using the high-energy CERN SPS H4 electron beam. If such light pseudoscalar exists, it could explain the ATOMKI anomaly (an excess of e(+) e(-) pairs in the nuclear transitions of Be-8 and 4 He nuclei at the invariant mass similar or equal to 17 MeV observed by the experiment at the 5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator at ATOMKI, Hungary). We used the NA64 data collected in the “visible mode” configuration with a total statistics corresponding to 8.4 x 10(10) electrons on target (EOT) in 2017 and 2018. In order to increase sensitivity to small coupling parameter epsilon we also used the data collected in 2016-2018 in the “invisible mode” configuration of NA64 with a total statistics corresponding to 2.84 x 10(11) EOT. The background and efficiency estimates for these two configurations were retained from our previous analyses searching for light vector bosons and axionlike particles (ALP) (the latter were assumed to couple predominantly to gamma). In this work we recalculate the signal yields, which are different due to different cross section and lifetime of a pseudoscalar particle a, and perform a new statistical analysis. As a result, the region of the two dimensional parameter space m(a) – epsilon in the mass range from 1 to 17.1 MeV is excluded. At the mass of the central value of the ATOMKI anomaly (the first result obtained on the beryllium nucleus, 16.7 MeV) the values of epsilon in the range 2.1 x 10(-4) < epsilon < 3.2 x 10(-4) are excluded.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., Castillo, F. L., et al. (2022). Performance of the ATLAS Level-1 topological trigger in Run 2. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(1), 7–26pp.
Abstract: During LHC Run 2 (2015-2018) the ATLAS Level-1 topological trigger allowed efficient data-taking by the ATLAS experiment at luminosities up to 2.1 x10(34) cm(-2) s(-1), which exceeds the design value by a factor of two. The system was installed in 2016 and operated in 2017 and 2018. It uses Field Programmable Gate Array processors to select interesting events by placing kinematic and angular requirements on electromagnetic clusters, jets, tau-leptons, muons and the missing transverse energy. It allowed to significantly improve the background event rejection and signal event acceptance, in particular for Higgs and B-physics processes.
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Khachatryan, M. et al, Coloma, P. (2021). Electron-beam energy reconstruction for neutrino oscillation measurements. Nature, 599(7886), 565–570.
Abstract: Neutrinos exist in one of three types or 'flavours'-electron, muon and tau neutrinos-and oscillate from one flavour to another when propagating through space. This phenomena is one of the few that cannot be described using the standard model of particle physics (reviewed in ref. (1)), and so its experimental study can provide new insight into the nature of our Universe (reviewed in ref. (2)). Neutrinos oscillate as a function of their propagation distance (L) divided by their energy (E). Therefore, experiments extract oscillation parameters by measuring their energy distribution at different locations. As accelerator-based oscillation experiments cannot directly measure E, the interpretation of these experiments relies heavily on phenomenological models of neutrino-nucleus interactions to infer E. Here we exploit the similarity of electron-nucleus and neutrino-nucleus interactions, and use electron scattering data with known beam energies to test energy reconstruction methods and interaction models. We find that even in simple interactions where no pions are detected, only a small fraction of events reconstruct to the correct incident energy. More importantly, widely used interaction models reproduce the reconstructed energy distribution only qualitatively and the quality of the reproduction varies strongly with beam energy. This shows both the need and the pathway to improve current models to meet the requirements of next-generation, high-precision experiments such as Hyper-Kamiokande (Japan)(3) and DUNE (USA)(4). Electron scattering measurements are shown to reproduce only qualitatively state-of-the-art lepton-nucleus energy reconstruction models, indicating that improvements to these particle-interaction models are required to ensure the accuracy of future high-precision neutrino oscillation experiments.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Henry, L., Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., et al. (2022). Precise determination of the B-s(0)-B-s(-0) oscillation frequency. Nat. Phys., 18, 54–58.
Abstract: Mesons comprising a beauty quark and strange quark can oscillate between particle (B-s(0)) and antiparticle (B-s(-0)) flavour eigenstates, with a frequency given by the mass difference between heavy and light mass eigenstates, Delta m(s). Here we present a measurement of Delta m(s) using B-s(0) -> D-s(-)pi(+) decays produced in proton-proton collisions collected with the LHCb detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The oscillation frequency is found to be Delta m(s) = 17.7683 +/- 0.0051 +/- 0.0032 ps(-1), where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. This measurement improves on the current Delta m(s) precision by a factor of two. We combine this result with previous LHCb measurements to determine Delta m(s) = 17.7656 +/- 0.0057 ps(-1), which is the legacy measurement of the original LHCb detector.
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KM3NeT Collaboration(Aiello, S. et al), Alves Garre, S., Calvo, D., Carretero, V., Colomer, M., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., et al. (2022). Determining the neutrino mass ordering and oscillation parameters with KM3NeT/ORCA. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(1), 26–16pp.
Abstract: The next generation of water Cherenkov neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean Sea are under construction offshore France (KM3NeT/ORCA) and Sicily (KM3NeT/ARCA). The KM3NeT/ORCA detector features an energy detection threshold which allows to collect atmospheric neutrinos to study flavour oscillation. This paper reports the KM3NeT/ORCA sensitivity to this phenomenon. The event reconstruction, selection and classification are described. The sensitivity to determine the neutrino mass ordering was evaluated and found to be 4.4 sigma if the true ordering is normal and 2.3 sigma if inverted, after 3 years of data taking. The precision to measure Delta m(32)(2) and theta(23) were also estimated and found to be 85.10(-6) eV(2) and (<b>(+1.9)(-3.1))degrees for normal neutrino mass ordering and, 75.10(-6) eV(2) and ((+2.0)(-7.0))degrees for inverted ordering. Finally, a unitarity test of the leptonic mixing matrix by measuring the rate of tau neutrinos is described. Three years of data taking were found to be sufficient to exclude (nu)over-left-right-arrow tau event rate variations larger than 20% at 3 sigma level.
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Cui, Z. F., Ding, M., Morgado, J. M., Raya, K., Binosi, D., Chang, L., et al. (2022). Concerning pion parton distributions. Eur. Phys. J. A, 58(1), 10–14pp.
Abstract: Analyses of the pion valence-quark distribution function (DF), u(pi) (x; sigma), which explicitly incorporate the behaviour of the pion wave function prescribed by quantum chromodynamics (QCD), predict u(pi) (x similar or equal to 1; sigma) similar to (1 – x)(beta(sigma)), beta(sigma greater than or similar to m(p)) > 2, where mp is the proton mass. Nevertheless, more than forty years after the first experiment to collect data suitable for extracting the x similar or equal to 1 behaviour of up, the empirical status remains uncertain because some methods used to fit existing data return a result for up that violates this constraint. Such disagreement entails one of the following conclusions: the analysis concerned is incomplete; not all data being considered are a true expression of qualities intrinsic to the pion; or QCD, as it is currently understood, is not the theory of strong interactions. New, precise data are necessary before a final conclusion is possible. In developing these positions, we exploit a single proposition, viz. there is an effective charge which defines an evolution scheme for parton DFs that is all-orders exact. This proposition has numerous corollaries, which can be used to test the character of any DF, whether fitted or calculated.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., Castillo, F. L., et al. (2021). Search for charginos and neutralinos in final states with two boosted hadronically decaying bosons and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 104(11), 112010–42pp.
Abstract: A search for charginos and neutralinos at the Large Hadron Collider using fully hadronic final states and missing transverse momentum is reported. Pair-produced charginos or neutralinos are explored, each decaying into a high-pT Standard Model weak boson. Fully hadronic final states are studied to exploit the advantage of the large branching ratio, and the efficient rejection of backgrounds by identifying the high-pT bosons using large-radius jets and jet substructure information. An integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV is used. No significant excess is found beyond the Standard Model expectation. Exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are set on wino or higgsino production with various assumptions about the decay branching ratios and the type of lightest supersymmetric particle. A wino (higgsino) mass up to 1060 (900) GeV is excluded when the lightest supersymmetry particle mass is below 400 (240) GeV and the mass splitting is larger than 400 (450) GeV. The sensitivity to high-mass winos and higgsinos is significantly extended relative to previous LHC searches using other final states.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., & Ruiz Vidal, J. (2021). Observation of the suppressed Lambda(0)(b) -> DpK(-) decay with D -> K+ pi(-) and measurement of its CP asymmetry. Phys. Rev. D, 104(11), 112008–14pp.
Abstract: A study of A(b)(0) baryon decays to the DpK(-) final state is presented based on a proton-proton collision data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb(-1) collected with the LHCb detector. Two A(b)(0) decays are considered, A(b)(0) -> DpK(-) with D -> K-pi(+) and D -> K+pi(-), where D represents a superposition of D-0 and over bar D-0 states. The latter process is expected to be suppressed relative to the former, and is observed for the first time. The ratio of branching fractions of the two decays is measured, and the CP asymmetry of the suppressed mode, which is sensitive to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa angle gamma, is also reported.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., Castillo Gimenez, V., et al. (2021). Search for new phenomena in pp collisions in final states with tau leptons, b-jets, and missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 104(11), 112005–35pp.
Abstract: A search for new phenomena in final states with hadronically decaying tau leptons, b-jets, and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analyzed dataset comprises pp collision data at a center-of-mass energy of root s = 13 TeV with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb(-1), delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector from 2015 to 2018. The observed data are compatible with the expected Standard Model background. The results are interpreted in simplified models for two different scenarios. The first model is based on supersymmetry and considers pair production of top squarks, each of which decays into a b-quark, a neutrino and a tau slepton. Each tau slepton in turn decays into a tau lepton and a nearly massless gravitino. Within this model, top-squark masses up to 1.4 TeV can be excluded at the 95% confidence level over a wide range of tau-slepton masses. The second model considers pair production of leptoquarks with decays into third-generation leptons and quarks. Depending on the branching fraction into charged leptons, leptoquarks with masses up to around 1.25 TeV can be excluded at the 95% confidence level for the case of scalar leptoquarks and up to 1.8 TeV (1.5 TeV) for vector leptoquarks in a Yang-Mills (minimal-coupling) scenario. In addition, model-independent upper limits are set on the cross section of processes beyond the Standard Model.
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NA64 Collaboration(Andreev, Y. M. et al), & Molina Bueno, L. (2021). Improved exclusion limit for light dark matter from e(+) e(-) annihilation in NA64. Phys. Rev. D, 104(9), L091701–7pp.
Abstract: The current most stringent constraints for the existence of sub-GeV dark matter coupling to Standard Model via a massive vector boson A' were set by the NA64 experiment for the mass region m(A') less than or similar to 250 MeV, by analyzing data from the interaction of 2.84 x 10(11) 100-GeV electrons with an active thick target and searching for missing-energy events. In this work, by including A' production via secondary positron annihilation with atomic electrons, we extend these limits in the 200-300 MeV region by almost an order of magnitude, touching for the first time the dark matter relic density constrained parameter combinations. Our new results demonstrate the power of the resonant annihilation process in missing energy dark-matter searches, paving the road to future dedicated e(+) beam efforts.
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