Abstract: Pseudorapidity gap distributions in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV are studied using a minimum bias data sample with an integrated luminosity of 7.1 μb(-1). Cross sections are measured differentially in terms of Delta eta(F), the larger of the pseudorapidity regions extending to the limits of the ATLAS sensitivity, at eta = +/- 4.9, in which no final state particles are produced above a transverse momentum threshold p(T)(cut). The measurements span the region 0 < Delta eta(F) < 8 for 200 MeV < p(T)(cut) < 800 MeV. At small Delta eta(F), the data test the reliability of hadronisation models in describing rapidity and transverse momentum fluctuations in final state particle production. The measurements at larger gap sizes are dominated by contributions from the single diffractive dissociation process (pp -> Xp), enhanced by double dissociation (pp -> XY) where the invariant mass of the lighter of the two dissociation systems satisfies M-Y less than or similar to 7 GeV. The resulting cross section is ds sigma/d Delta eta(F) approximate to 1 mb for Delta eta(F) greater than or similar to 3. The large rapidity gap data are used to constrain the value of the Pomeron intercept appropriate to triple Regge models of soft diffraction. The cross section integrated over all gap sizes is compared with other LHC inelastic cross section measurements.

Abstract: NEXT is a new experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using a 100 kg radio-pure high-pressure gaseous xenon TPC with electroluminescence readout. A large-scale prototype with a SiPM tracking plane has been built. The primary electron paths can be reconstructed from time-resolved measurements of the light that arrives to the SiPM plane. Our approach is to measure how many photons have reached each SiPM sensor each microsecond with a gated integrator. We have designed and tested a 16-channel front-end board that includes the analog paths and a digital section. Each analog path consists of three different stages: a transimpedance amplifier, a gated integrator and an offset and gain control stage. Measurements show good linearity and the ability to detect single photoelectrons.

Abstract: We study static, spherically symmetric solutions with an electric field in an extension of general relativity containing a Ricci-squared term and formulated in the Palatini formalism. We find that all the solutions present a central core whose area is proportional to the Planck area times the number of charges. Far from the core, curvature invariants quickly tend to those of the usual Reissner-Nordstrom solution, though the structure of horizons may be different. In fact, besides the structures found in the Reissner-Nordstrom solution of general relativity, we find black hole solutions with just one nondegenerate horizon (Schwarzschild-like) and nonsingular black holes and naked cores. The charge-to-mass ratio of the nonsingular solutions implies that the core matter density is independent of the specific amounts of charge and mass and of order the Planck density. We discuss the physical implications of these results for astrophysical and microscopic black holes, construct the Penrose diagrams of some illustrative cases, and show that the maximal analytical extension of the nonsingular solutions implies a bounce of the radial coordinate.