Abstract: The answer is yes. We indeed find that interacting dark energy can alleviate the current tension on the value of the Hubble constant H-0 between the cosmic microwave background anisotropies constraints obtained from the Planck satellite and the recent direct measurements reported by Riess et al. 2016. The combination of these two data sets points toward a nonzero dark matter-dark energy coupling. at more than two standard deviations, with xi = -0.26(-0.12)(+0.16) at 95% C.L., i.e. with a moderate evidence for interacting dark energy with an odds ratio of 6:1 respect to a non interacting cosmological constant. However the H-0 tension is better solved when the equation of state of the interacting dark energy component is allowed to freely vary, with a phantomlike equation of state w = -1.185 +/- 0.064 (at 68% C.L.), ruling out the pure cosmological constant case, w = -1, again at more than two standard deviations. When Planck data are combined with external datasets, as BAO, JLA Supernovae Ia luminosity distances, cosmic shear or lensing data, we find perfect consistency with the cosmological constant scenario and no compelling evidence for a dark matter-dark energy coupling.

Abstract: Employing background-field method and super-heat-kernel expansion, we compute the complete oneloop renormalization of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian with a light Higgs boson. Earlier results from purely scalar fluctuations are confirmed as a special case. We also recover the one-loop renormalization of the conventional Standard Model in the appropriate limit.

Abstract: The inclusive cross-section for the associated production of a W boson and top quark is measured using data from proton-proton collisions at root s = 13TeV. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb(-1), and was collected in 2015 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Events are selected requiring two opposite sign isolated leptons and at least one jet; they are separated into signal and control regions based on their jet multiplicity and the number of jets that are identified as containing b hadrons. The Wt signal is then separated from the t ($) over bar background using boosted decision tree discriminants in two regions. The cross-section is extracted by fitting templates to the data distributions, and is measured to be sigma(Wt) = 94 +/- 10 (stat:)(-22)(+28) (syst:) +/- 2 (lumi:) pb. The measured value is in good agreement with the SM prediction of sigma(theory) = 71: 7 +/- 1: 8 (scale) +/- 3: 4 (PDF) pb [1].

Abstract: We report the discovery of four Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) in the ongoing SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts at the Parkes Radio Telescope: FRBs 150610, 151206, 151230 and 160102. Our real-time discoveries have enabled us to conduct extensive, rapid multimessenger follow-up at 12 major facilities sensitive to radio, optical, X-ray, gamma-ray photons and neutrinos on time-scales ranging from an hour to a few months post-burst. No counterparts to the FRBs were found and we provide upper limits on afterglow luminosities. None of the FRBs were seen to repeat. Formal fits to all FRBs show hints of scattering while their intrinsic widths are unresolved in time. FRB 151206 is at low Galactic latitude, FRB 151230 shows a sharp spectral cut-off, and FRB 160102 has the highest dispersion measure (DM = 2596.1 +/- 0.3 pc cm(-3)) detected to date. Three of the FRBs have high dispersion measures (DM > 1500 pc cm(-3)), favouring a scenario where the DMis dominated by contributions from the intergalactic medium. The slope of the Parkes FRB source counts distribution with fluences > 2 Jy ms is alpha = – 2.2(-1.2)(+0.6) and still consistent with a Euclidean distribution (alpha = -3/2). We also find that the all-sky rate is 1.7(-0.9)(+1.5) x 10(3)FRBs/(4 pi sr)/day above similar to 2 Jy ms and there is currently no strong evidence for a latitude- dependent FRB sky rate.

Abstract: The spent fuel of current nuclear reactors contains fissile plutonium isotopes that can be combined with uranium to make mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. In this way the Pu from spent fuel is used in a new reactor cycle, contributing to the long-term sustainability of nuclear energy. However, an extensive use of MOX fuels, in particular in fast reactors, requires more accurate capture and fission cross sections for some Pu isotopes. In the case of Pu-242 there are sizable discrepancies among the existing capture cross-section measurements included in the evaluations (all from the 1970s) resulting in an uncertainty as high as 35% in the fast energy region. Moreover, postirradiation experiments evaluated with JEFF-3.1 indicate an overestimation of 14% in the capture cross section in the fast neutron energy region. In this context, the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) requested an accuracy of 8% in this cross section in the energy region between 500 meV and 500 keV. This paper presents a new time-of-flight capture measurement on Pu-242 carried out at nTOF-EAR1 (CERN), focusing on the analysis and statistical properties of the resonance region, below 4 keV. The Pu-242(n, gamma) reaction on a sample containing 95(4) mg enriched to 99.959% was measured with an array of four C6D6 detectors and applying the total energy detection technique. The high neutron energy resolution of nTOF-EAR1 and the good statistics accumulated have allowed us to extend the resonance analysis up to 4 keV, obtaining new individual and average resonance parameters from a capture cross section featuring a systematic uncertainty of 5%, fulfilling the request of the NEA.