Abstract: We present measurements of galaxy clustering from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III). These use the Data Release 9 (DR9) CMASS sample, which contains 264 283 massive galaxies covering 3275 square degrees with an effective redshift z = 0.57 and redshift range 0.43 < z < 0.7. Assuming a concordance Lambda CDM cosmological model, this sample covers an effective volume of 2.2 Gpc(3), and represents the largest sample of the Universe ever surveyed at this density, (n) over bar approximate to 3 x 10(-4) h(-3) Mpc(3). We measure the angle-averaged galaxy correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of 5 sigma in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Combining with the SDSS-II luminous red galaxy sample, the detection significance increases to 6.7 sigma. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance to z = 0.57 relative to the sound horizon D-V/r(s) = 13.67 +/ 0.22 at z = 0.57. Assuming a fiducial sound horizon of 153.19 Mpc, which matches cosmic microwave background constraints, this corresponds to a distance D-V (z = 0.57) = 2094 +/- 34 Mpc. At 1.7 per cent, this is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. We place this result alongside previous BAO measurements in a cosmological distance ladder and find excellent agreement with the current supernova measurements. We use these distance measurements to constrain various cosmological models, finding continuing support for a flat Universe with a cosmological constant.

Abstract: The well-formulation and the well-posedness of the Cauchy problem are discussed for hybrid metric-Palatini gravity, a recently proposed modified gravitational theory consisting of adding to the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian an f(R)-term constructed a la Palatini. The theory can be recast as a scalar-tensor one predicting the existence of a light long-range scalar field that evades the local Solar System tests and is able to modify galactic and cosmological dynamics, leading to the late-time cosmic acceleration. In this work, adopting generalized harmonic coordinates, we show that the initial value problem can always be well-formulated and, furthermore, can be well-posed depending on the adopted matter sources.

Abstract: The Cosmology and Astrophysics with Machine Learning Simulations (CAMELS) project was developed to combine cosmology with astrophysics through thousands of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and machine learning. CAMELS contains 4233 cosmological simulations, 2049 N-body simulations, and 2184 state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations that sample a vast volume in parameter space. In this paper, we present the CAMELS public data release, describing the characteristics of the CAMELS simulations and a variety of data products generated from them, including halo, subhalo, galaxy, and void catalogs, power spectra, bispectra, Lya spectra, probability distribution functions, halo radial profiles, and X-rays photon lists. We also release over 1000 catalogs that contain billions of galaxies from CAMELS-SAM: a large collection of N-body simulations that have been combined with the Santa Cruz semianalytic model. We release all the data, comprising more than 350 terabytes and containing 143,922 snapshots, millions of halos, galaxies, and summary statistics. We provide further technical details on how to access, download, read, and process the data at .

Abstract: The use of C-Band structures for electron acceleration and production of high quality beams has been proposed and adopted in several linac projects all over the world. The two main projects that adopted such type of structures are the Japanese Free Electron Laser (FEL) project in Spring-8 and the SwissFEL project at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). Also the energy upgrade of the SPARC photo-injector at LNF-INFN (Italy) from 150 to more than 240 MeV will be done by replacing a low gradient S-Band accelerating structure with two C-band structures. The structures are Traveling Wave (TW) and Constant Impedance (CI), have symmetric axial input couplers and have been optimized to work with a SLED RF input pulse. The paper presents the design criteria of the structures, the realization procedure and the low and high power RF test results on a prototype. The high power tests have been carried out by the Frascati INFN Laboratories in close collaboration with the Japanese Laboratory KEK. Experimental results confirmed the feasibility of the operation of the prototype at 50 MV/m with about 10(6) breakdowns per pulse per meter. Such high gradients have not been reached before in C-Band systems and demonstrated the possibility to use C-band accelerators, if needed, at such high field level. The results of the internal inspection of the structure after the high power test are also presented.

Abstract: An upgrade of the successful asymmetric e(+)e(-) collider in KEK (Tsukuba, Japan) is foreseen by the fall of 2013. This new Super Flavor Factory will deliver an increased instantaneous luminosity of up to L = 8 x 10(35) cm(-2) s(-1), 40 times larger than the current KEKB machine. To exploit these new conditions and provide high precision measurements of the decay vertex of the B meson systems, a new silicon vertex detector will be operated in Belle. This new detector will consist of two layers of DEPFET Active Pixel Sensors as close as possible to the interaction point. DEPFET is a field effect transistor, with an additional deep implant underneath the channel's gate, integrated on a completely depleted bulk. This technology offers detection and an in-pixel amplification stage, while keeping low the power consumption. Under these conditions, thin sensors with small pixel size and low intrinsic noise are possible. In this article, an overview of the full system will be described, including the sensor, the front-end electronics and both the mechanical and thermal proposed solutions as well as the expected performance.