Abstract: By introducing three Higgs fields that are SU(2) doublets and a flavor permutational symmetry, S(3), in the theory, we extend the concepts of flavor and generations to the Higgs sector and formulate a Minimal S(3)-Invariant Extension of the Standard Model. The mass matrices of the neutrinos and charged leptons are re-parameterized in terms of their eigenvalues, then the neutrino mixing matrix, V(PMNS), is computed and exact, explicit analytical expressions for the neutrino mixing angles as functions of the masses of neutrinos and charged leptons are obtained in excellent agreement with the latest experimental data. We also compute the branching ratios of some selected flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) processes, as well as the contribution of the exchange of neutral flavor-changing scalars to the anomaly of the magnetic moment of the muon, as functions of the masses of charged leptons and the neutral Higgs bosons. We find that the S(3) x Z(2) flavor symmetry and the strong mass hierarchy of the charged leptons strongly suppress the FCNC processes in the leptonic sector, well below the present experimental bounds by many orders of magnitude. The contribution of FCNC's to the anomaly of the muon's magnetic moment is small, but not negligible.

Abstract: Shell structure and magic numbers in atomic nuclei were generally explained by pioneering work(1) that introduced a strong spin-orbit interaction to the nuclear shell model potential. However, knowledge of nuclear forces and the mechanisms governing the structure of nuclei, in particular far from stability, is still incomplete. In nuclei with equal neutron and proton numbers (N = Z), enhanced correlations arise between neutrons and protons (two distinct types of fermions) that occupy orbitals with the same quantum numbers. Such correlations have been predicted to favour an unusual type of nuclear superfluidity, termed isoscalar neutron-proton pairing(2-6), in addition to normal isovector pairing. Despite many experimental efforts, these predictions have not been confirmed. Here we report the experimental observation of excited states in the N = Z = 46 nucleus Pd-92. Gamma rays emitted following the Ni-58(Ar-36,2n)Pd-92 fusion-evaporation reaction were identified using a combination of state-of-the-art high-resolution c-ray, charged-particle and neutron detector systems. Our results reveal evidence for a spin-aligned, isoscalar neutron-proton coupling scheme, different from the previous prediction(2-6). We suggest that this coupling scheme replaces normal superfluidity (characterized by seniority coupling(7,8)) in the ground and low-lying excited states of the heaviest N = Z nuclei. Such strong, isoscalar neutron-proton correlations would have a considerable impact on the nuclear level structure and possibly influence the dynamics of rapid proton capture in stellar nucleosynthesis.

Abstract: In this paper we propose several methods of constructing the system matrix (SM) of a Computed Tomography (CT) scanner with two objectives: (1) to construct SMs in the shortest possible time and store them in an ordinary PC without losing quality, (2) to analyze the possible applications of the proposed method to 3D, taking into account SMs' sizes, computing time and reconstructed image quality. In order to build the SM, we propose two new field of view (FOV) pixellation schemes, based on a polar coordinate system (polar grid) by taking advantage of the polar rotation symmetries of CT devices. Comparisons between the SMs proposed are performed using two phantom and a real CT-simulator images. Global error, contrast, noise and homogeneity of the reconstructed images are discussed.

Abstract: We study theoretically the formation spectra of deeply bound pionic atoms expected to be observed by experiments with high energy resolution at RIBF/RIKEN, and we discuss in detail the possibilities to extract new information on the pion properties at finite density from the observed spectra, which may provide information on partial restoration of chiral symmetry in medium. We find that the non-yrast pionic states such as 2s are expected to be seen in the (d,(3)He) spectra, which will be helpful to reduce uncertainties of the theoretical calculations in the neutron wave functions in nucleus. The observation of the 2s state with the ground is state is also helpful to reduce the experimental uncertainties associated in the calibration of the absolute excitation energy. We find that the nuclear densities probed by atomic pions are quite stable and almost constant for various atomic states and various nuclei. Effects of the pion wave function renormalization to the formation spectra are also evaluated.

Abstract: We perform the baseline and energy optimization of the Neutrino Factory including the latest simulation results on the magnetized iron detector (MIND). We also consider the impact of tau decays, generated by v(mu) -> v(tau) or v(e) -> v(tau) appearance, on the mass hierarchy, CP violation, and theta(13) discovery reaches, which we find to be negligible for the considered detector. For the baseline-energy optimization for small sin(2) 2 theta(13), we qualitatively recover the results with earlier simulations of the MIND detector. We find optimal baselines of about 2 500km to 5 000km for the CP violation measurement, where now values of E-mu as low as about 12 GeV may be possible. However, for large sin(2) 2 theta(13), we demonstrate that the lower threshold and the backgrounds reconstructed at lower energies allow in fact for muon energies as low as 5 GeV at considerably shorter baselines, such as FNAL-Homestake. This implies that with the latest MIND analysis, low-and high-energy versions of the Neutrino Factory are just two different versions of the same experiment optimized for different parts of the parameter space. Apart from a green-field study of the updated detector performance, we discuss specific implementations for the two-baseline Neutrino Factory, where the considered detector sites are taken to be currently discussed underground laboratories. We find that reasonable setups can be found for the Neutrino Factory source in Asia, Europe, and North America, and that a triangular-shaped storage ring is possible in all cases based on geometrical arguments only.