Abstract: In a well-established many-body framework, successful in modeling a great variety of nuclear processes, we analyze the role of the spectral functions (SFs) accounting for the modifications of the dispersion relation of nucleons embedded in a nuclear medium. We concentrate in processes mostly governed by one-body mechanisms, and study possible approximations to evaluate the particle hole propagator using SFs. We also investigate how to include together SFs and long-range RPA-correlation corrections in the evaluation of nuclear response functions, discussing the existing interplay between both type of nuclear effects. At low energy transfers (<= 50 MeV), we compare our predictions for inclusive muon and radiative pion captures in nuclei, and charge-current (CC) neutrino-nucleus cross sections with experimental results. We also present an analysis of intermediate energy quasi-elastic neutrino scattering for various targets and both neutrino and antineutrino CC driven processes. In all cases, we pay special attention to estimate the uncertainties affecting the theoretical predictions. In particular, we show that errors on the a,,sigma(mu)/sigma(e) ratio are much smaller than 5%, and also much smaller than the size of the SF+RPA nuclear corrections, which produce significant effects, not only in the individual cross sections, but also in their ratio for neutrino energies below 400 MeV. These latter nuclear corrections, beyond Pauli blocking, turn out to be thus essential to achieve a correct theoretical understanding of this ratio of cross sections of interest for appearance neutrino oscillation experiments. We also briefly compare our SF and RPA results to predictions obtained within other representative approaches.

Abstract: We study the strange vector meson (K*, (K) over bar*) dynamics in relativistic heavy-ion collisions based on the microscopic parton-hadron-string dynamics (PHSD) transport approach which incorporates partonic and hadronic degrees of freedom, a phase transition from hadronic to partonic matter-quark-gluon-plasma (QGP)-and a dynamical hadronization of quarks and antiquarks as well as final hadronic interactions. We investigate the role of in-medium effects on the K*, (K) over bar* meson dynamics by employing Breit-Wigner spectral functions for the K* with self-energies obtained from a self-consistent coupled-channelG-matrix approach. Furthermore, we confront the PHSD calculations with experimental data for p + p, Cu + Cu, and Au + Au collisions at energies up to root s(NN) = 200 GeV. Our analysis shows that, at relativistic energies, most of the final K* (observed experimentally) are produced during the late hadronic phase, dominantly by the K + pi -> K* channel, such that the fraction of the K* from the QGP is small and can hardly be reconstructed from the final observables. The influence of the in-medium effects on the K* dynamics at energies typical of the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider is rather modest due to their dominant production at low baryon densities (but high meson densities); however, it increases with decreasing beam energy. Moreover, we find that the additional cut on the invariant-mass region of the K* further influences the shape and the height of the final spectra. This imposes severe constraints on the interpretation of the experimental results.

Abstract: The phi-meson properties in cold nuclear matter are investigated by implementing resonant phi N interactions as described in effective approaches including the unitarization of scattering amplitudes. Several N*-like states are dynamically generated in these models around 2 GeV, in the vicinity of the phi N threshold. We find that both these states and the non-resonant part of the amplitude contribute sizably to the phi collisional self-energy at finite nuclear density. These contributions are of a similar strength as the widely studied medium effects from the KK cloud. Depending on model details (position of the resonances and strength of the coupling to phi N) we report a phi broadening up to about 40-50 MeV, to be added to the phi -> KK in-medium decay width, and an attractive optical potential at threshold up to about 35 MeV at normal matter density. The phi spectral function develops a double peak structure as a consequence of the mixing of resonance-hole modes with the phi quasiparticle peak. The former results point in the direction of making up for missing absorption as reported in phi nuclear production experiments.

Abstract: The first observation of the rare decay B-s(0) -> phi pi(+) pi(-) and evidence for B-0 -> phi pi(+) pi(-) are reported, using pp collision data recorded by the LHCb detector at center-of-mass energies root s = 7 and 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb(-1). The branching fractions in the pi(+) pi(-) invariant mass range 400 < m(pi(+) pi(-)) < 1600 MeV/c(2) are [3.48 +/- 0.23 +/- 0.17 +/- 0.35 +/- x 10(-6)] and [1.82 +/- 0.25 +/- 0.41 +/- 0.14 +/- x 10(-7) for B-s(0) -> phi pi(+) pi(-) and B-0 -> phi pi(+) pi(-) respectively, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic and from the normalization mode B-s(0)-> phi phi. A combined analysis of the pi(+) pi(-) mass spectrum and the decay angles of the final-state particles identifies the exclusive decays B-s(0) -> phi f(0)(980), B-s(0) -> phi f(2)(1270), and B-s(0) -> phi rho(0) with branching fractions of [1.12 +/- 0.16(-0.08)(+0.09) +/- 0.11] x 10(-6), [0.61 +/- 0.13(-0.05)(+0.12) +/- 0.06] x 10-6 and [2.7 +/- 0.7 +/- 0.2 +/- 0.2] x 10(-7), respectively.

Abstract: We evaluate the partial decay widths for the semileptonic Lambda(b) -> (nu) over bar (l) l Lambda(c)(2595) and Lambda(b) -> (nu) over bar (l)l Lambda(c)(2625) decays from the perspective that these two Lambda(c)* resonances are dynamically generated from the DN and D*N interaction with coupled channels. We find that the ratio of the rates obtained for these two reactions is compatible with present experimental data and is very sensitive to the D*N coupling, which becomes essential to obtain agreement with experiment. Together with the results obtained for the Lambda(b) -> pi(-)Lambda(c)* reactions, it gives strong support to the molecular picture of the two Lambda(c)* resonances arid the important role of the DN component neglected in prior studies of the Lambda(c)(2595) from the molecular perspective.