Abstract: The energy centroids and integrated strengths of Gamow-Teller transitions in the beta(+) and electron-capture decay are analyzed for nuclei whose proton number Z and neutron number N are restricted to 44 <= Z <= 50 and 50 <= N <= 58. The analysis is based on data measured both with high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry and total gamma-ray absorption techniques. The dependence of the considered quantities on the relative neutron excess are established after taking into account the effects due to the Coulomb interaction and mean-field level occupancies. An extrapolation of this dependence to the lightest known tin isotopes is used to estimate the decay characteristics of Sn-100 and Sn-101. The values extrapolated for the half-lives of Sn-100 and Sn-101 agree with experimental data. Using the extrapolated values together with shell model predictions, the Q values for the electron-capture decay of Sn-100 is evaluated. The quenching factor for beta(+) and the electron-capture decay of the nuclei under consideration here is established to be 0.56(2) with a possible weak dependence on N – Z.

Abstract: In the harsh environment of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (design luminosity of 10(34) cm(-2) s(-1)) efficient reconstruction of vertices is crucial for many physics analyses. Described in this paper is the expected performance of the vertex reconstruction used in the ATLAS experiment. The algorithms for the reconstruction of primary and secondary vertices as well as for finding photon conversions and vertex reconstruction in jets are described. The implementation of vertex algorithms which follows a very modular design based on object-oriented C++ is presented. A user-friendly concept allows event reconstruction and physics analyses to compare and optimize their choice among different vertex reconstruction strategies. The performance of implemented algorithms has been studied on a variety of Monte Carlo samples and results are presented.

Abstract: We report a measurement of the flux-averaged neutral-current elastic differential cross section for neutrinos scattering on mineral oil (CH2) as a function of four-momentum transferred squared, Q(2). It is obtained by measuring the kinematics of recoiling nucleons with kinetic energy greater than 50 MeV which are readily detected in MiniBooNE. This differential cross-section distribution is fit with fixed nucleon form factors apart from an axial mass M-A that provides a best fit for M-A = 1.39 +/- 0.11 GeV. Using the data from the charged-current neutrino interaction sample, a ratio of neutral-current to charged-current quasielastic cross sections as a function of Q(2) has been measured. Additionally, single protons with kinetic energies above 350 MeV can be distinguished from neutrons and multiple nucleon events. Using this marker, the strange quark contribution to the neutral-current axial vector form factor at Q(2) – 0, Delta s, is found to be Delta s = 0.08 +/- 0.26.