Abstract: In this article we study in detail the prospects of determining the infrared finite QCD effective charge from a special kinematic limit of the vertex function corresponding to three background gluons. This particular Green's function satisfies a QED-like Ward identity, relating it to the gluon propagator, with no reference to the ghost sector. Consequently, its longitudinal form factors may be expressed entirely in terms of the corresponding gluon wave function, whose inverse is proportional to the effective charge. After reviewing certain important theoretical properties, we consider a typical lattice quantity involving this vertex, and derive its exact dependence on the various form factors, for arbitrary momenta. We then focus on the particular momentum configuration that eliminates any dependence on the (unknown) transverse form factors, projecting out only the desired quantity. A preliminary numerical analysis indicates that the effective charge is relatively insensitive to the numerical uncertainties that may afflict future simulations of the aforementioned lattice quantity. The numerical difficulties associated with a parallel determination of the dynamical gluon mass are briefly discussed.

Abstract: The nature of dark matter is one of the most thrilling riddles for both cosmology and particle physics nowadays. While in the typical models the dark sector is composed only by weakly interacting massive particles, an arguably more natural scenario would include a whole set of gauge interactions which are invisible for the standard model but that are in contact with the dark matter. We present a method to constrain the number of massless gauge bosons and other relativistic particles that might be present in the dark sector using current and future cosmic microwave background data, and provide upper bounds on the size of the dark sector. We use the fact that the dark matter abundance depends on the strength of the interactions with both sectors, which allows one to relate the freeze-out temperature of the dark matter with the temperature of this cosmic background of dark gauge bosons. This relation can then be used to calculate how sizable is the impact of the relativistic dark sector in the number of degrees of freedom of the early Universe, providing an interesting and testable connection between cosmological data and direct/indirect detection experiments. The recent Planck data, in combination with other cosmic microwave background experiments and baryonic acoustic oscillations data, constrains the number of relativistic dark gauge bosons, when the freeze-out temperature of the dark matter is larger than the top mass, to be N less than or similar to 14 for the simplest scenarios, while those limits are slightly relaxed for the combination with the Hubble constant measurements to N less than or similar to 20. Future releases of Planck data are expected to reduce the uncertainty by approximately a factor of 3, which will reduce significantly the parameter space of allowed models.

Abstract: We study 1 pi production in both charged and neutral current neutrino-nucleus scattering for neutrino energies below 2 GeV. We use a theoretical model for one pion production at the nucleon level that we correct for medium effects. The results are incorporated into a cascade program that apart from production also includes the pion final state interaction inside the nucleus. Besides, in some specific channels coherent pi production is also possible and we evaluate its contribution as well. Our results for total and differential cross sections are compared with recent data from the MiniBooNE Collaboration. The model provides an overall acceptable description of the data, better for neutral-current than for charged-current channels, although the theory is systematically below the data. Differential cross sections, folded with the full neutrino flux, show that most of the missing pions lie in the forward direction and at high energies.

Abstract: We study an approximate version of the Schwinger-Dyson equation that controls the nonperturbative behavior of the ghost-gluon vertex in the Landau gauge. In particular, we focus on the form factor that enters in the dynamical equation for the ghost dressing function, in the same gauge, and derive its integral equation, in the “one-loop dressed” approximation. We consider two special kinematic configurations, which simplify the momentum dependence of the unknown quantity; in particular, we study the soft gluon case and the well-known Taylor limit. When coupled with the Schwinger-Dyson equation of the ghost dressing function, the contribution of this form factor provides considerable support to the relevant integral kernel. As a consequence, the solution of this coupled system of integral equations furnishes a ghost dressing function that reproduces the standard lattice results rather accurately, without the need to artificially increase the value of the gauge coupling.

Abstract: The decays B-c(+) -> J/ psi D-s(+) and B-c(+) -> J/ psi D-s*(+) are observed for the first time using a dataset, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb(-1), collected by the LHCb experiment in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of root s = 7 and 8 TeV. The statistical significance for both signals is in excess of 9 standard deviations. The following ratios of branching fractions are measured to be 'B(B-c(+) -> J/ psi D-s(+))/B(B-c(+) -> J/ psi pi(+)) = 2.90 +/- 0.57 +/- 0.24, B(B-c(+) -> J/psi D-s*(+))/B(B-c(+) -> J/ psi D-s(+)) = 2.37 +/- 0.56 +/- 0.10, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. The mass of the B-c(+) meson is measured to be m(Bc+) = 6276.28 +/- 1.44(stat) +/- 0.36(syst) MeV/c(2), using the B-c(+) -> J/ psi D-s(+) decay mode.