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Abgrall, N. et al, Cervera-Villanueva, A., Escudero, L., Monfregola, L., & Stamoulis, P. (2011). Time projection chambers for the T2K near detectors. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 637(1), 25–46.
Abstract: The T2K experiment is designed to study neutrino oscillation properties by directing a high intensity neutrino beam produced at J-PARC in Tokai, Japan, towards the large Super-Kamiokande detector located 295 km away, in Kamioka, Japan. The experiment includes a sophisticated near detector complex, 280 m downstream of the neutrino production target in order to measure the properties of the neutrino beam and to better understand neutrino interactions at the energy scale below a few GeV. A key element of the near detectors is the ND280 tracker, consisting of two active scintillator-bar target systems surrounded by three large time projection chambers (TPCs) for charged particle tracking. The data collected with the tracker are used to study charged current neutrino interaction rates and kinematics prior to oscillation, in order to reduce uncertainties in the oscillation measurements by the far detector. The tracker is surrounded by the former UA1/NOMAD dipole magnet and the TPCs measure the charges, momenta, and particle types of charged particles passing through them. Novel features of the TPC design include its rectangular box layout constructed from composite panels, the use of bulk micromegas detectors for gas amplification, electronics readout based on a new ASIC, and a photoelectron calibration system. This paper describes the design and construction of the TPCs, the micromegas modules, the readout electronics, the gas handling system, and shows the performance of the TPCs as deduced from measurements with particle beams, cosmic rays, and the calibration system.
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Peris, J. B., Davis, P., Cuevas, J. M., Nebot, M., & Sanjuan, R. (2010). Distribution of Fitness Effects Caused by Single-Nucleotide Substitutions in Bacteriophage f1. Genetics, 185(2), 603–U308.
Abstract: Empirical knowledge of the fitness effects of mutations is important for understanding many evolutionary processes, yet this knowledge is often hampered by several sources of measurement error and bias. Most of these problems can be solved using site-directed mutagenesis to engineer single mutations, an approach particularly suited for viruses due to their small genomes. Here, we used this technique to measure the fitness effect of 100 single-nucleotide substitutions in the bacteriophage f1, a filamentous single-strand DNA virus. We found that approximately one-fifth of all mutations are lethal. Viable ones reduced fitness by 11% on average and were accurately described by a log-normal distribution. More than 90% of synonymous substitutions were selectively neutral, while those affecting intergenic regions reduced fitness by 14% on average. Mutations leading to amino acid substitutions had an overall mean deleterious effect of 37%, which increased to 45% for those changing the amino acid polarity. Interestingly, mutations affecting early steps of the infection cycle tended to be more deleterious than those affecting late steps. Finally, we observed at least two beneficial mutations. Our results confirm that high mutational sensitivity is a general property of viruses with small genomes, including RNA and single-strand DNA viruses infecting animals, plants, and bacteria.
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Aguilar, A. C., Binosi, D., & Papavassiliou, J. (2010). QCD effective charges from lattice data. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 002–24pp.
Abstract: We use recent lattice data on the gluon and ghost propagators, as well as the Kugo-Ojima function, in order to extract the non-perturbative behavior of two particular definitions of the QCD effective charge, one based on the pinch technique construction, and one obtained from the standard ghost-gluon vertex. The construction relies crucially on the definition of two dimensionful quantities, which are invariant under the renormalization group, and are built out of very particular combinations of the aforementioned Green's functions. The main non-perturbative feature of both effective charges, encoded in the infrared finiteness of the gluon propagator and ghost dressing function used in their definition, is the freezing at a common finite (non-vanishing) value, in agreement with a plethora of theoretical and phenomenological expectations. We discuss the sizable discrepancy between the freezing values obtained from the present lattice analysis and the corresponding estimates derived from several phenomenological studies, and attribute its origin to the difference in the gauges employed. A particular toy calculation suggests that the modifications induced to the non-perturbative gluon propagator by the gauge choice may indeed account for the observed deviation of the freezing values.
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CDF Collaboration(Aaltonen, T. et al), & Cabrera, S. (2010). Measurement of the Ratio sigma(t(t)over-bar)/sigma(Z/gamma*-> ll) and Precise Extraction of the t(t)over-bar Cross Section. Phys. Rev. Lett., 105(1), 012001–7pp.
Abstract: We report a measurement of the ratio of the t (t) over bar to Z/gamma* production cross sections in root s = 1.96 TeV p (p) over bar collisions using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of up to 4.6 fb(-1), collected by the CDF II detector. The t (t) over bar cross section ratio is measured using two complementary methods, a b-jet tagging measurement and a topological approach. By multiplying the ratios by the well-known theoretical Z/gamma* -> ll cross section predicted by the standard model, the extracted t (t) over bar cross sections are effectively insensitive to the uncertainty on luminosity. A best linear unbiased estimate is used to combine both measurements with the result sigma(t (t) over bar) = 7.70 +/- 0.52 pb, for a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV/c(2).
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Bordes, J., Chan, H. M., & Tsun, T. S. (2010). A solution to the strong CP problem transforming the theta angle to the KM CP-violating phase. Int. J. Mod. Phys. A, 25(32), 5897–5911.
Abstract: It is shown that in the scheme with a rotating fermion mass matrix (i.e. one with a scale-dependent orientation in generation space) suggested earlier for explaining fermion mixing and mass hierarchy, the theta angle term in the QCD action of topological origin can be eliminated by chiral transformations, while giving still nonzero masses to all quarks. Instead, the effects of such transformations get transmitted by the rotation to the CKM matrix as the KM phase giving, for theta of order unity, a Jarlskog invariant typically of order 10(-5), as experimentally observed. Strong and weak CP violations appear then as just two facets of the same phenomenon.
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BABAR Collaboration(del Amo Sanchez, P. et al), Lopez-March, N., Martinez-Vidal, F., & Oyanguren, A. (2011). Measurement of the B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu and B+ -> eta(l)l(+)nu branching fractions, the B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu and B+ -> eta l(+)nu form- factor shapes, and determination of |Vub|. Phys. Rev. D, 83(5), 052011–16pp.
Abstract: We report the results of a study of the exclusive charmless semileptonic decays, B+ -> eta(l)l(+)nu and B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu undertaken with approximately 464 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected at the Y(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector. The analysis uses events in which the signal B decays are reconstructed with a loose neutrino reconstruction technique. We obtain partial branching fractions for B+ -> eta l(+)nu and B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu decays in three and 12 bins of q(2), respectively, from which we extract the f (+)(q(2)) form-factor shapes and the total branching fractions B(B+ -> eta l(+)nu)= (0.36 +/- 0.05(stat) +/- 0.04(syst)) x 10(-4) and B(B-0 -> pi(-)l(+)nu) = (1.42 +/- 0.05(stat) +/- 0.07(syst)) x 10(-4). We also measure B(B+ -> eta'l(+)nu) = (0.24 +/- 0.08(stat) +/- 0.03(syst)) x 10(-4). We obtain values for the magnitude of the CKM matrix element |V-ub| using three different QCD calculations.
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Martin Camalich, J., Geng, L. S., & Vicente Vacas, M. J. (2010). Lowest-lying baryon masses in covariant SU(3)-flavor chiral perturbation theory. Phys. Rev. D, 82(7), 074504–7pp.
Abstract: We present an analysis of the baryon-octet and -decuplet masses using covariant SU(3)-flavor chiral perturbation theory up to next-to-leading order. Besides the description of the physical masses we address the problem of the lattice QCD extrapolation. Using the PACS-CS Collaboration data we show that a good description of the lattice points can be achieved at next-to-leading order with the covariant loop amplitudes and phenomenologically determined values for the meson-baryon couplings. Moreover, the extrapolation to the physical point up to this order is found to be better than the linear one given at leading-order by the Gell-Mann-Okubo approach. The importance that a reliable combination of lattice QCD and chiral perturbation theory may have for hadron phenomenology is emphasized with the prediction of the pion-baryon and strange-baryon sigma terms.
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Xie, J. J., & Nieves, J. (2010). Role of the N * (2080) resonance in the (gamma)over-right-arrowp -> K+ Lambda(1520) reaction. Phys. Rev. C, 82(4), 045205–8pp.
Abstract: We investigate the Lambda (1520) photoproduction in the (gamma) over right arrowp -> K+ Lambda(1520) reaction within the effective Lagrangian method near threshold. In addition to the “background” contributions from the contact, t-channel K-exchange, and s-channel nucleon pole terms, which were already considered in previous studies, the contribution from the nucleon resonance N*(2080) (spin-parity J(P) = 3/2(-)) is also considered. We show that the inclusion of the nucleon resonance N*(2080) leads to a fairly good description of the new LEPS differential cross-section data, and that these measurements can be used to determine some of the properties of this latter resonance. However, serious discrepancies appear when the predictions of the model are compared to the photon-beam asymmetry, which was also measured by the LEPS Collaboration.
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Mateo, D., Barranco, M., & Navarro, J. (2010). Elementary excitations in superfluid He-3-He-4 mixtures. Phys. Rev. B, 82(13), 134529–13pp.
Abstract: We have studied the dynamic structure function of superfluid He-3-He-4 mixtures at zero temperature as a function of pressure and He-3 concentration. Results obtained in the full random-phase approximation (RPA) plus density-functional theory and in a generalized Landau-Pomeranchuk approach are presented and compared with experiment. Analytic expressions for several sum rules of the dynamic structure functions have been determined, and have been used to obtain average energies of the collective excitations. In the RPA approach, the dispersion relation of the collective modes shows typical features of level repulsion between zero-soundlike and phonon-rotonlike excitations. The structure of the coupled RPA equations for the mixture leads in a natural way to the hybridization of the collective modes. The mixed He-3-He-4 dynamic structure function quenches the zero-soundlike mode before it crosses the phonon-roton branch, causing that the former mode only appears with enough strength after the crossing.
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Edelhauser, L., Porod, W., & Singh, R. K. (2010). Spin discrimination in three-body decays. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 053–31pp.
Abstract: The identification of the correct model for physics beyond the Standard Model requires the determination of the spin of new particles. We investigate to which extent the spin of a new particle X can be identified in scenarios where it decays dominantly in three-body decays X -> f (f) over barY. Here we assume that Y is a candidate for dark matter and escapes direct detection at a high energy collider such as the LHC. We show that in the case that all intermediate particles are heavy, one can get information on the spins of X and Y at the LHC by exploiting the invariant mass distribution of the two standard model fermions. We develop a model-independent strategy to determine the spins without prior knowledge of the unknown couplings and test it in a series of Monte Carlo studies.
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