Abstract: The process e(+)e(-) -> pi(+)pi(-)2 pi(0)gamma is investigated by means of the initial-state radiation technique, where a photon is emitted from the incoming electron or positron. Using 454.3 fb(-1) of data collected around a centerof- mass energy of root s = 10.58 GeV by the BABAR experiment at SLAC, approximately 150000 signal events are obtained. The corresponding nonradiative cross section is measured with a relative uncertainty of 3.6% in the energy region around 1.5 GeV, surpassing all existing measurements in precision. Using this new result, the channel's contribution to the leading order hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon is calculated as (g(mu)(pi+ pi-2 pi 0) – 2)/2 = (17.9 +/- 0.1(stat) +/- 0.6(syst)) x 10(-10) in the energy range 0.85 GeV < ECM < 1.8 GeV. In the same energy range, the impact on the running of the fine-structure constant at the Z(0)-pole is determined as Delta alpha(pi+ pi-2 pi 0) (M-Z(2)) = (4.44 +/- 0.02(stat) +/- 0.14(syst)) x 10(-4). Furthermore, intermediate resonances are studied and especially the cross section of the process e(+)e(-) -> omega pi(0) -> pi(+)pi(-)2 pi(0) is measured.

Abstract: In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of m(X) > 1.3 keV, or m(s) > 5.5 keV for the case of sterile neutrinos nonresonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90% confidence level.

Abstract: Using some of the latest cosmological data sets publicly available, we derive the strongest bounds in the literature on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, M-nu, within the assumption of a background flat Lambda CDM cosmology. In the most conservative scheme, combining Planck cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data, as well as the up-to-date constraint on the optical depth to reionization (tau), the tightest 95% confidence level upper bound we find is M-nu < 0.151 eV. The addition of Planck high-l polarization data, which, however, might still be contaminated by systematics, further tightens the bound to M-nu < 0.118 eV. A proper model comparison treatment shows that the two aforementioned combinations disfavor the inverted hierarchy at similar to 64% C.L. and similar to 71% C.L., respectively. In addition, we compare the constraining power of measurements of the full- shape galaxy power spectrum versus the BAO signature, from the BOSS survey. Even though the latest BOSS full-shape measurements cover a larger volume and benefit from smaller error bars compared to previous similar measurements, the analysis method commonly adopted results in their constraining power still being less powerful than that of the extracted BAO signal. Our work uses only cosmological data; imposing the constraint M-nu > 0.06 eV from oscillations data would raise the quoted upper bounds by O(0.1 sigma) and would not affect our conclusions.