ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., et al. (2017). Performance of the ATLAS track reconstruction algorithms in dense environments in LHC Run 2. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(10), 673–30pp.
Abstract: With the increase in energy of the Large Hadron Collider to a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV for Run 2, events with dense environments, such as in the cores of highenergy jets, became a focus for new physics searches as well as measurements of the Standard Model. These environments are characterized by charged-particle separations of the order of the tracking detectors sensor granularity. Basic track quantities are compared between 3.2 fb(-1) of data collected by the ATLAS experiment and simulation of protonproton collisions producing high-transverse-momentum jets at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. The impact of chargedparticle separations and multiplicities on the track reconstruction performance is discussed. The track reconstruction efficiency in the cores of jets with transverse momenta between 200 and 1600 GeV is quantified using a novel, datadriven, method. The method uses the energy loss, dE/ dx, to identify pixel clusters originating from two charged particles. Of the charged particles creating these clusters, themeasured fraction that fail to be reconstructed is 0.061 +/- 0.006 (stat.) +/- 0.014 (syst.) and 0.093 +/- 0.017 (stat.) +/- 0.021 (syst.) for jet transverse momenta of 200-400GeV and 1400-1600GeV, respectively.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), Barrios-Marti, J., Coleiro, A., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Illuminati, G., Lotze, M., et al. (2017). All-sky search for high-energy neutrinos from gravitational wave event GW170104 with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(12), 911–7pp.
Abstract: Advanced LIGO detected a significant gravitational wave signal (GW170104) originating from the coalescence of two black holes during the second observation run on January 4th, 2017. Anall-sky high-energy neutrino follow-up search has been made using data from the Antares neutrino telescope, including both upgoing and downgoing events in two separate analyses. No neutrino candidates were found within +/- 500 s around the GW event time nor any time clustering of events over an extended time window of +/- 3 months. The non-detection is used to constrain isotropic-equivalent high-energy neutrino emission from GW170104 to less than similar to 1.2 x 10(55) erg for a E-2 spectrum. This constraint is valid in the energy range corresponding to the 5-95% quantiles of the neutrino flux [3.2 TeV; 3.6 PeV], if the GW emitter was below the Antares horizon at the alert time.
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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 direct top squark pair production in final states with two leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(12), 898–41pp.
Abstract: The results of a search for direct pair production of top squarks in events with two opposite-charge leptons (electrons or muons) are reported, using 36.1 fb(-1) of integrated luminosity from proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. To cover a range of mass differences between the top squark (t) over tilde and lighter supersymmetric particles, four possible decay modes of the top squark are targeted with dedicated selections: the decay (t) over tilde -> b (chi) over tilde (+/-)(1) into a b-quark and the lightest chargino with (chi) over tilde (+/-)(1) W (chi) over tilde (0)(1),the decay (t) over tilde -> t (chi) over tilde (0)(1) into an on-shell top quark and the lightest neutralino, the three-body decay (t) over tilde -> bW (chi) over tilde (0)(1) and the four-body decay (t) over tilde -> bl nu(chi) over tilde (0)(1). No significant excess of events is observed above the Standard Model background for any selection, and limits on top squarks are set as a function of the (t) over tilde and (chi) over tilde (0)(1) masses. The results exclude at 95% confidence level (t) over tilde masses up to about 720 GeV, extending the exclusion region of supersymmetric parameter space covered by previous searches.
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Heavy Flavor Averaging Group(Amhis, Y. et al), & Oyanguren, A. (2017). Averages of b-hadron, c-hadron, and tau-lepton properties as of summer 2016. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(12), 895–335pp.
Abstract: This article reports world averages of measurements of b-hadron, c-hadron, and tau-lepton properties obtained by the Heavy Flavor Averaging Group using results available through summer 2016. For the averaging, common input parameters used in the various analyses are adjusted (rescaled) to common values, and known correlations are taken into account. The averages include branching fractions, lifetimes, neutral meson mixing parameters, CP violation parameters, parameters of semileptonic decays, and Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements.
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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). Determination of the strong coupling constant alpha(s) from transverse energy-energy correlations in multijet events at root s=8 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(12), 872–34pp.
Abstract: Measurements of transverse energy-energy correlations and their associated asymmetries in multi-jet events using the ATLAS detector at the LHC are presented. The data used correspond to vs = 8 TeV proton-proton collisions with an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb(-1). The results are presented in bins of the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of the two leading jets, unfolded to the particle level and compared to the predictions from Monte Carlo simulations. A comparison with next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD is also performed, showing excellent agreement within the uncertainties. From this comparison, the value of the strong coupling constant is extracted for different energy regimes, thus testing the running of alpha(s)(mu) predicted in QCD up to scales over 1 TeV. A global fit to the transverse energy-energy correlation distributions yields alpha(s)(m(Z)) = 0.1162 +/- 0.0011 (exp.)(-0.0070)(+0.0084) (theo.), while a global fit to the asymmetry distributions yields a value of alpha(s)(m(Z)) = 0.1196 +/- 0.0013 (exp.)(-0.0045)(+0.0075) (theo.).
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Motohashi, H., & Starobinsky, A. A. (2017). Constant-roll inflation: Confrontation with recent observational data. EPL, 117(3), 39001–3pp.
Abstract: The previously proposed class of phenomenological inflationary models in which the assumption of inflaton slow-roll is replaced by the more general, constant-roll condition is compared with the most recent cosmological observational data, mainly the Planck ones. Models in this two-parametric class which remain viable appear to be close to the slow-roll ones, and their inflaton potentials are close to (but still different from) that of the natural inflation model. The permitted regions for the two model parameters are presented.
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Cai, Y., Herrero-Garcia, J., Schmidt, M. A., Vicente, A., & Volkas, R. R. (2017). From the Trees to the Forest: A Review of Radiative Neutrino Mass Models. Front. Physics, 5, 63–56pp.
Abstract: A plausible explanation for the lightness of neutrino masses is that neutrinos are massless at tree level, with their mass (typically Majorana) being generated radiatively at one or more loops. The new couplings, together with the suppression coming from the loop factors, imply that the new degrees of freedom cannot be too heavy (they are typically at the TeV scale). Therefore, in these models there are no large mass hierarchies and they can be tested using different searches, making their detailed phenomenological study very appealing. In particular, the new particles can be searched for at colliders and generically induce signals in lepton-flavor and lepton-number violating processes (in the case of Majorana neutrinos), which are not independent from reproducing correctly the neutrino masses and mixings. The main focus of the review is on Majorana neutrinos. We order the allowed theory space from three different perspectives: (i) using an effective operator approach to lepton number violation, (ii) by the number of loops at which the Weinberg operator is generated, (iii) within a given loop order, by the possible irreducible topologies. We also discuss in more detail some popular radiative models which involve qualitatively different features, revisiting their most important phenomenological implications. Finally, we list some promising avenues to pursue.
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Marco-Hernandez, R., Bau, M., Ferrari, M., Ferrari, V., Pedersen, F., & Soby, L. (2017). A Low-Noise Charge Amplifier for the ELENA Trajectory, Orbit, and Intensity Measurement System. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 64(9), 2465–2473.
Abstract: A low-noise head amplifier has been developed for the extra low energy antiproton ring beam trajectory, orbit, and intensity measurement system at CERN. This system is based on 24 double-electrode electrostatic beam position monitors installed around the ring. A head amplifier is placed close to each beam position monitor to amplify the electrode signals and generate a difference and a sum signal. These signals are sent to the digital acquisition system, about 50 m away from the ring, where they are digitized and further processed. The beam position can be measured by dividing the difference signal by the sum signal while the sum signal gives information relative to the beam intensity. The head amplifier consists of two discrete charge preamplifiers with junction field effect transistor (JFET) inputs, a sum and a difference stage, and two cable drivers. Special attention has been paid to the amplifier printed circuit board design to minimize the parasitic capacitances and inductances at the charge amplifier stages to meet the gain and noise requirements. The measurements carried out on the head amplifier showed a gain of 40.5 and 46.5 dB for the sum and difference outputs with a bandwidth from 200 Hz to 75 MHz and an input voltage noise density lower than 400 pV/v Hz. Twenty head amplifiers have been already installed in the ring and they have been used to detect the first beam signals during the first commissioning stage in November 2016.
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Aliaga, R. J. (2017). Real-Time Estimation of Zero Crossings of Sampled Signals for Timing Using Cubic Spline Interpolation. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 64(8), 2414–2422.
Abstract: A scheme is proposed for hardware estimation of the location of zero crossings of sampled signals with subsample resolution for timing applications, which consists of interpolating the signal with a cubic spline near the zero crossing and then finding the root of the resulting polynomial. An iterative algorithm based on the bisection method is presented that obtains one bit of the result per step and admits an efficient digital implementation using fixed-point representation. In particular, the root estimation iteration involves only two additions, and the initial values can be obtained from finite impulse response (FIR) filters with certain symmetry properties. It is shown that this allows online real-time estimation of timestamps in free-running sampling detector systems with improved accuracy with respect to the more common linear interpolation. The method is evaluated with simulations using ideal and real timing signals, and estimates are given for the resource usage and speed of its implementation.
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Sepehri, A., Pincak, R., & Olmo, G. J. (2017). M-theory, graphene-branes and superconducting wormholes. Int. J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys., 14(11), 1750167–32pp.
Abstract: Exploiting an M-brane system whose structure and symmetries are inspired by those of graphene (what we call a graphene-brane), we propose here a similitude between two layers of graphene joined by a nanotube and wormholes scenarios in the brane world. By using the symmetries and mathematical properties of the M-brane system, we show here how to possibly increase its conductivity, to the point of making it as a superconductor. The questions of whether and under which condition this might point to the corresponding real graphene structures becoming superconducting are briefly outlined.
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