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Gomez-Cadenas, J. J., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J. M., & Ferrario, P. (2017). Monte Carlo study of the coincidence resolving time of a liquid xenon PET scanner, using Cherenkov radiation. J. Instrum., 12, P08023–13pp.
Abstract: In this paper we use detailed Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate that liquid xenon (LXe) can be used to build a Cherenkov-based TOF-PET, with an intrinsic coincidence resolving time (CRT) in the vicinity of 10 ps. This extraordinary performance is due to three facts: a) the abundant emission of Cherenkov photons by liquid xenon; b) the fact that LXe is transparent to Cherenkov light; and c) the fact that the fastest photons in LXe have wavelengths higher than 300 nm, therefore making it possible to separate the detection of scintillation and Cherenkov light. The CRT in a Cherenkov LXe TOF-PET detector is, therefore, dominated by the resolution (time jitter) introduced by the photosensors and the electronics. However, we show that for sufficiently fast photosensors (e.g, an overall 40 ps jitter, which can be achieved by current micro-channel plate photomultipliers) the overall CRT varies between 30 and 55 ps, depending on the detection efficiency. This is still one order of magnitude better than commercial CRT devices and improves by a factor 3 the best CRT obtained with small laboratory prototypes.
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NEXT Collaboration(Cebrian, S. et al), Perez, J., Alvarez, V., Benlloch-Rodriguez, J., Botas, A., Carcel, S., et al. (2017). Radiopurity assessment of the energy readout for the NEXT double beta decay experiment. J. Instrum., 12, T08003–20pp.
Abstract: The “Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon Time-Projection Chamber” (NEXT) experiment intends to investigate the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe-136, and therefore requires a severe suppression of potential backgrounds. An extensive material screening and selection process was undertaken to quantify the radioactivity of the materials used in the experiment. Separate energy and tracking readout planes using different sensors allow us to combine the measurement of the topological signature of the event for background discrimination with the energy resolution optimization. The design of radiopure readout planes, in direct contact with the gas detector medium, was especially challenging since the required components typically have activities too large for experiments demanding ultra-low background conditions. After studying the tracking plane, here the radiopurity control of the energy plane is presented, mainly based on gamma-ray spectroscopy using ultra-low background germanium detectors at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (Spain). All the available units of the selected model of photomultiplier have been screened together with most of the components for the bases, enclosures and windows. According to these results for the activity of the relevant radioisotopes, the selected components of the energy plane would give a contribution to the overall background level in the region of interest of at most 2.4 x 10(-4) counts keV(-1) kg(-1) y(-1), satisfying the sensitivity requirements of the NEXT experiment.
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Du, M. L., Guo, F. K., Meissner, U. G., & Yao, D. L. (2017). Study of open-charm 0(+) states in unitarized chiral effective theory with one-loop potentials. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(11), 728–16pp.
Abstract: Chiral potentials are derived for the interactions between Goldstone bosons and pseudo-scalar charmed mesons up to next-to-next-to-leading order in a covariant chiral effective field theory with explicit vector charmed-meson degrees of freedom. Using the extended-on-mass-shell scheme, we demonstrate that the ultraviolet divergences and the so-called power counting breaking terms can be properly absorbed by the low-energy constants of the chiral Lagrangians. We calculate the scattering lengths by unitarizing the one-loop potentials and fit them to the data extracted from lattice QCD. The obtained results are compared to the ones without an explicit contribution of vector charmed mesons given previously. It is found that the difference is negligible for 5-wave scattering in the threshold region. This validates the use of D-*-less one-loop potentials in the study of the pertinent scattering lengths. We search for dynamically generated open-charm states with J(P) = 0(+) as poles of the 5-matrix on various Riemann sheets. The trajectories of those poles for varying pion masses are presented as well.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Garcia Martin, L. M., Henry, L., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., et al. (2017). Search for Baryon-Number Violating Xi(0)(b) Oscillations. Phys. Rev. Lett., 119(18), 181807–9pp.
Abstract: A search for baryon-number violating Xi(0)(b) oscillations is performed with a sample of pp collision data recorded by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb(-1). The baryon number at the moment of production is identified by requiring that the Xi(0)(b) come from the decay of a resonance Xi(b)*(-) -> Xi(0)(b)pi(-) or Xi(b)'(-) -> Xi(0)(b)pi(-) and the baryon number at the moment of decay is identified from the final state using the decays Xi(0)(b) -> Xi(0)(c)pi(-) , Xi(+-)(c) -> pK(-)pi(+). No evidence of baryon-number violation is found, and an upper limit at the 95% confidence level is set on the oscillation rate of omega < 0.08 ps(-1), where. is the associated angular frequency.
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Agullo, I., del Rio, A., & Navarro-Salas, J. (2017). Gravity and handedness of photons. Int. J. Mod. Phys. D, 26(12), 1742001–5pp.
Abstract: Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in the presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a nontrivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum electromagnetic radiation, in such a way that the state of polarization of radiation changes in time, even in the absence of electromagnetic sources. This is a quantum effect, and is a consequence of an anomaly related to the classical invariance under electric-magnetic duality rotations in Maxwell theory.
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Alfonso, V. I., Bejarano, C., Beltran Jimenez, J., Olmo, G. J., & Orazi, E. (2017). The trivial role of torsion in projective invariant theories of gravity with non-minimally coupled matter fields. Class. Quantum Gravity, 34(23), 235003–20pp.
Abstract: We study a large family of metric-affine theories with a projective symmetry, including non-minimally coupled matter fields which respect this invariance. The symmetry is straightforwardly realised by imposing that the connection only enters through the symmetric part of the Ricci tensor, even in the matter sector. We leave the connection completely free (including torsion), and obtain its general solution as the Levi-Civita connection of an auxiliary metric, showing that the torsion only appears as a projective mode. This result justifies the widely used condition of setting vanishing torsion in these theories as a simple gauge choice. We apply our results to some particular cases considered in the literature, including the so-called Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld theories among others. We finally discuss the possibility of imposing a gauge fixing where the connection is metric compatible, and comment on the genuine character of the non-metricity in theories where the two metrics are not conformally related.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Search for Heavy Higgs Bosons A/H Decaying to a Top Quark Pair in pp Collisions at root s=8 TeV with the ATLAS Detector. Phys. Rev. Lett., 119(19), 191803–20pp.
Abstract: A search for heavy pseudoscalar (A) and scalar (H) Higgs bosons decaying into a top quark pair (t (t) over bar) has been performed with 20.3 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy root s = 8 TeV. Interference effects between the signal process and standard model t (t) over bar production, which are expected to distort the signal shape from a single peak to a peak-dip structure, are taken into account. No significant deviation from the standard model prediction is observed in the t (t) over bar invariant mass spectrum in final states with an electron or muon, large missing transverse momentum, and at least four jets. The results are interpreted within the context of a type-II two-Higgs-doublet model. Exclusion limits on the signal strength are derived as a function of the mass m(A/H) and the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of the two Higgs fields, tan beta, for m(A/H) > 500 GeV.
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De Romeri, V., Fernandez-Martinez, E., Gehrlein, J., Machado, P. A. N., & Niro, V. (2017). Dark Matter and the elusive Z' in a dynamical Inverse Seesaw scenario. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 169–21pp.
Abstract: The Inverse Seesaw naturally explains the smallness of neutrino masses via an approximate B-L symmetry broken only by a correspondingly small parameter. In this work the possible dynamical generation of the Inverse Seesaw neutrino mass mechanism from the spontaneous breaking of a gauged U(1) B-L symmetry is investigated. Interestingly, the Inverse Seesaw pattern requires a chiral content such that anomaly cancellation predicts the existence of extra fermions belonging to a dark sector with large, non-trivial, charges under the U(1) B-L. We investigate the phenomenology associated to these new states and find that one of them is a viable dark matter candidate with mass around the TeV scale, whose interaction with the Standard Model is mediated by the Z' boson associated to the gauged U(1) B-L symmetry. Given the large charges required for anomaly cancellation in the dark sector, the B-L Z' interacts preferentially with this dark sector rather than with the Standard Model. This suppresses the rate at direct detection searches and thus alleviates the constraints on Z'-mediated dark matter relic abundance. The collider phenomenology of this elusive Z' is also discussed.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Search for new high-mass phenomena in the dilepton final state using 36 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 182–61pp.
Abstract: A search is conducted for new resonant and non-resonant high-mass phenomena in dielectron and dimuon fi nal states. The search uses 36 : 1 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data, collected at root s = 13TeV by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2015 and 2016. No signi fi cant deviation from the Standard Model prediction is observed. Upper limits at 95% credibility level are set on the cross-section times branching ratio for resonances decaying into dileptons, which are converted to lower limits on the resonance mass, up to 4.1 TeV for the E-6 -motivated Z(X)'. Lower limits on the qqll contact interaction scale are set between 2.4 TeV and 40 TeV, depending on the model.
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Dias, J. M., Debastiani, V. R., Roca, L., Sakai, S., & Oset, E. (2017). Binding of the BD(D)over-bar and BDD systems. Phys. Rev. D, 96(9), 094007–6pp.
Abstract: We study theoretically the BD (D) over bar and BDD systems to see if they allow for possible bound or resonant states. The three-body interaction is evaluated implementing the fixed center approximation to the Faddeev equations which considers the interaction of a D or (D) over bar particle with the components of a BD cluster, previously proved to form a bound state. We find an I(J(P)) = 1/2(0(-)) bound state for the BD (D) over bar system at an energy around 8925-8985 MeV within uncertainties, which would correspond to a bottom hidden-charm meson. In contrast, for the BDD system, which would be bottom double-charm and hence manifestly exotic, we have found hints of a bound state in the energy region 8935-8985 MeV, but the results are not stable under the uncertainties of the model, and we cannot assure, nor rule out, the possibility of a BDD three-body state.
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