Montani, G., De Angelis, M., Bombacigno, F., & Carlevaro, N. (2024). Metric f(R) gravity with dynamical dark energy as a scenario for the Hubble tension. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 527, L156–L161.
Abstract: We introduce a theoretical framework to interpret the Hubble tension, based on the combination of a metric f(R) gravity with a dynamical dark energy contribution. The modified gravity provides the non-minimally coupled scalar field responsible for the proper scaling of the Hubble constant, in order to accommodate for the local SNIa pantheon+ data and Planck measurements. The dynamical dark energy source, which exhibits a phantom divide line separating the low redshift quintessence regime (−1 < w < −1/3) from the phantom contribution (w < −1) in the early Universe, guarantees the absence of tachyonic instabilities at low redshift. The resulting H0(z) profile rapidly approaches the Planck value, with a plateau behaviour for z ≳ 5. In this scenario, the Hubble tension emerges as a low redshift effect, which can be in principle tested by comparing SNIa predictions with far sources, like QUASARS and gamma ray bursts.
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Barenboim, G., Del Debbio, L., Hirn, J., & Sanz, V. (2024). Exploring how a generative AI interprets music. Neural Comput. Appl., 36, 17007–17022.
Abstract: We aim to investigate how closely neural networks (NNs) mimic human thinking. As a step in this direction, we study the behavior of artificial neuron(s) that fire most when the input data score high on some specific emergent concepts. In this paper, we focus on music, where the emergent concepts are those of rhythm, pitch and melody as commonly used by humans. As a black box to pry open, we focus on Google’s MusicVAE, a pre-trained NN that handles music tracks by encoding them in terms of 512 latent variables. We show that several hundreds of these latent variables are “irrelevant” in the sense that can be set to zero with minimal impact on the reconstruction accuracy. The remaining few dozens of latent variables can be sorted by order of relevance by comparing their variance. We show that the first few most relevant variables, and only those, correlate highly with dozens of human-defined measures that describe rhythm and pitch in music pieces, thereby efficiently encapsulating many of these human-understandable concepts in a few nonlinear variables.
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Martin-Luna, P., Bonatto, A., Bontoiu, C., Xia, G., & Resta-Lopez, J. (2024). Plasmonic excitations in double-walled carbon nanotubes. Results Phys., 60, 107698–11pp.
Abstract: The interactions of charged particles moving paraxially in multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) may excite electromagnetic modes. This wake effect has recently been proposed as a potential novel method of short-wavelength high-gradient particle acceleration. In this work, the excitation of wakefields in double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) is studied by means of the linearized hydrodynamic theory. General expressions have been derived for the excited longitudinal and transverse wakefields and related to the resonant wavenumbers which can be obtained from the dispersion relation. In the absence of friction, the stopping power of the wakefield driver, modelled here as a charged macroparticle, can be written solely as a function of these resonant wavenumbers. The dependencies of the wakefields on the radii of the DWCNT and the driving velocity have been studied. DWCNTs with inter-wall distances much smaller than the internal radius may be a potential option to obtain higher wakefields for particle acceleration compared to single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).
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Gonzalez-Iglesias, D., Gimeno, B., Esperante, D., Martinez-Reviriego, P., Martin-Luna, P., Pedraza, L. K., et al. (2024). A rapid method for prediction of the non-resonant ultra-fast multipactor regime in high gradient RF accelerating structures. Results Phys., 64, 107921–9pp.
Abstract: The purpose of this work is to present an analytical method that allows to estimate in an approximate and fast way the presence of the non-resonant and ultra-fast multipactor effect in RF accelerating structures in the presence of high gradient electromagnetic fields. This single-surface multipactor regime, which has been little studied in the scientific literature, is characterised by appearing only under conditions of very strong RF electric fields (of the order of tens or hundreds of MV/m), where it is predominant over other types of single- or dual-surface resonance described in classical multipactor theory. This type of multipactor causes a rapid growth of the electron population and poses a serious drawback in the operation of RF accelerator components operating under high gradient conditions. Specifically, in dielectric-assist accelerating structures (DAA) it has been experimentally found that the presence of multipactor limits the maximum operating gradient of these components due to a significant increase in the reflected power due to the discharge, being this phenomenon the main problem to overcome. In a previous work, we found and described in detail by means of numerical simulations the presence of this non-resonant and ultra-fast multipactor regime in a DAA structure design for hadrontherapy. Here we aim to present a simple and fast method to predict the presence of this non-resonant and ultra-fast multipactor regime in RF accelerator structures with cylindrical revolution symmetry around the acceleration axis. This method is especially useful in the design stages of accelerating structures as it provides much faster results than numerical simulations of the multipactor, with quite good accuracy in a wide range of cases as shown in this paper.
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DUNE Collaboration(Abud, A. A. et al), Amar Es-Sghir, H., Amedo, P., Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Benitez Montiel, C., et al. (2024). Performance of a modular ton-scale pixel-readout liquid argon time projection chamber. Instruments, 8, 41–45pp.
Abstract: The Module-0 Demonstrator is a single-phase 600 kg liquid argon time projection chamber operated as a prototype for the DUNE liquid argon near detector. Based on the ArgonCube design concept, Module-0 features a novel 80k-channel pixelated charge readout and advanced high-coverage photon detection system. In this paper, we present an analysis of an eight-day data set consisting of 25 million cosmic ray events collected in the spring of 2021. We use this sample to demonstrate the imaging performance of the charge and light readout systems as well as the signal correlations between the two. We also report argon purity and detector uniformity measurements and provide comparisons to detector simulations.
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Aristizabal Sierra, D., Bazzocchi, F., de Medeiros Varzielas, I., Merlo, L., & Morisi, S. (2010). Tri/Bi-maximal lepton mixing and leptogenesis. Nucl. Phys. B, 827(1-2), 34–58.
Abstract: In models with flavour symmetries added to the gauge group of the Standard Model the CP-violating asymmetry necessary for leptogenesis may be related with low-energy parameters. A particular case of interest is when the flavour symmetry produces exact Tri/Bi-maximal lepton mixing leading to a vanishing CP-violating asymmetry. In this paper we present a model-independent discussion that confirms this always occurs for unflavoured leptogenesis in type I see-saw scenarios, noting however that Tri/Bi-maximal mixing does not imply a vanishing asymmetry in general scenarios where there is interplay between type I and other see-saws. We also consider a specific model where the exact Tri/Bi-maximal mixing is lifted by corrections that can be parametrised by a small number of degrees of freedom and analyse in detail the existing link between low and high-energy parameters – focusing on how the deviations from Tri/Bi-maximal are connected to the parameters governing leptogenesis.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Aguilar, J. A. et al), Bigongiari, C., Emanuele, U., Gomez-Gonzalez, J. P., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Mangano, S., et al. (2010). Measurement of the atmospheric muon flux with a 4 GeV threshold in the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Astropart Phys., 33(2), 86–90.
Abstract: A new method for the measurement of the muon flux in the deep-sea ANTARES neutrino telescope and its dependence on the depth is presented. The method is based oil the observation of coincidence signals in adjacent storeys of the detector. This yields an energy threshold of about 4 GeV. The main sources of optical background are the decay of K-40 and the bioluminescence in the sea water. The K-40 background is used to calibrate the efficiency of the photo-multiplier tubes.
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Choi, K. Y., Lopez-Fogliani, D. E., Muñoz, C., & Ruiz de Austri, R. (2010). Gamma-ray detection from gravitino dark matter decay in the μnu SSM. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 028–14pp.
Abstract: The μnu SSM provides a solution to the mu-problem of the MSSM and explains the origin of neutrino masses by simply using right-handed neutrino superfields. Given that R-parity is broken in this model, the gravitino is a natural candidate for dark matter since its lifetime becomes much longer than the age of the Universe. We consider the implications of gravitino dark matter in the μnu SSM, analyzing in particular the prospects for detecting gamma rays from decaying gravitinos. If the gravitino explains the whole dark matter component, a gravitino mass larger than 20 GeV is disfavored by the isotropic diffuse photon background measurements. On the other hand, a gravitino with a mass range between 0.1 – 20 GeV gives rise to a signal that might be observed by the FERMI satellite. In this way important regions of the parameter space of the μnu SSM can be checked.
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Bazzocchi, F., Cerdeño, D. G., Muñoz, C., & Valle, J. W. F. (2010). Calculable inverse-seesaw neutrino masses in supersymmetry. Phys. Rev. D, 81(5), 051701–5pp.
Abstract: We provide a scenario where naturally small and calculable neutrino masses arise from a supersymmetry-breaking renormalization-group-induced vacuum expectation value. The construction consists of an extended version of the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model and the mechanism is illustrated for a universal choice of the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters. The lightest supersymmetric particle can be an isosinglet scalar neutrino state, potentially viable as WIMP dark matter through its Higgs new boson coupling. The scenario leads to a plethora of new phenomenological implications at accelerators including the Large Hadron Collider.
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Fileviez Perez, P., Iminniyaz, H., Rodrigo, G., & Spinner, S. (2010). Gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking via seesaw mechanisms. Phys. Rev. D, 81(9), 095013–12pp.
Abstract: We present a simple scenario for gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (GMSB) where the messengers are also the fields that generate neutrino masses. We show that the simplest such scenario corresponds to the case where neutrino masses are generated through the type I and type III seesaw mechanisms. The entire supersymmetric spectrum and Higgs masses are calculable from only four input parameters. Since the electroweak symmetry is broken through a doubly radiative mechanism, meaning a nearly zero B term at the messenger scale which runs down to acceptable values, one obtains quite a constrained spectrum for the supersymmetric particles whose properties we describe. We refer to this mechanism as "nu GMSB.''
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