Brzezinski, K. et al. (2023). Detection of range shifts in proton beam therapy using the J-PET scanner: a patient simulation study. Phys. Med. Biol., 68(14), 145016–17pp.
Abstract: Objective. The Jagiellonian positron emission tomography (J-PET) technology, based on plastic scintillators, has been proposed as a cost effective tool for detecting range deviations during proton therapy. This study investigates the feasibility of using J-PET for range monitoring by means of a detailed Monte Carlo simulation study of 95 patients who underwent proton therapy at the Cyclotron Centre Bronowice (CCB) in Krakow, Poland. Approach. Discrepancies between prescribed and delivered treatments were artificially introduced in the simulations by means of shifts in patient positioning and in the Hounsfield unit to the relative proton stopping power calibration curve. A dual-layer, cylindrical J-PET geometry was simulated in an in-room monitoring scenario and a triple-layer, dual-head geometry in an in-beam protocol. The distribution of range shifts in reconstructed PET activity was visualized in the beam's eye view. Linear prediction models were constructed from all patients in the cohort, using the mean shift in reconstructed PET activity as a predictor of the mean proton range deviation. Main results. Maps of deviations in the range of reconstructed PET distributions showed agreement with those of deviations in dose range in most patients. The linear prediction model showed a good fit, with coefficient of determination r (2) = 0.84 (in-room) and 0.75 (in-beam). Residual standard error was below 1 mm: 0.33 mm (in-room) and 0.23 mm (in-beam). Significance. The precision of the proposed prediction models shows the sensitivity of the proposed J-PET scanners to shifts in proton range for a wide range of clinical treatment plans. Furthermore, it motivates the use of such models as a tool for predicting proton range deviations and opens up new prospects for investigations into the use of intra-treatment PET images for predicting clinical metrics that aid in the assessment of the quality of delivered treatment.
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Afonso, V. I., Bejarano, C., Ferraro, R., & Olmo, G. J. (2022). Determinantal Born-Infeld coupling of gravity and electromagnetism. Phys. Rev. D, 105(8), 084067–11pp.
Abstract: We study a Born-Infeld inspired model of gravity and electromagnetism in which both types of fields are treated on an equal footing via a determinantal approach in a metric-aft me formulation. Though this formulation is a priori in conflict with the postulates of metric theories of gravity, we find that the resulting equations can also be obtained from an action combining the Einstein-Hilbert action with a minimally coupled nonlinear electrodynamics. As an example, the dynamics is solved for the charged static black hole.
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Dalla Brida, M., Hollwieser, R., Knechtli, F., Korzec, T., Nada, A., Ramos, A., et al. (2022). Determination of a(s )(mZ) by the non-perturbative decoupling method. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(12), 1092–38pp.
Abstract: We present the details and first results of a new strategy for the determination of alpha s(mZ) (ALPHA Collaboration et al. in Phys. Lett. B 807:135571, 2020). By simultaneously decoupling 3 fictitious heavy quarks we establish a relation between the A-parameters of three-flavor QCD and pure gauge theory. Very precise recent results in the pure gauge theory (Dalla Brida and Ramos in Eur. Phys. J. C 79(8):720, 2019; Nada and Ramos in Eur Phys J C 81(1):1, 2021) can thus be leveraged to obtain the three flavour A-parameter in units of a common decoupling scale. Connecting this scale to hadronic physics in 3-flavour QCD leads to our result in physical units, A(3)/MS = 336(12) MeV, which translates to alpha s(m(Z)) = 0.11823(84). This is compatible with both the FLAG average (Aoki et al. in FLAG review 2021. arXiv:2111.09849 [hep-lat]) and the previous ALPHA result (ALPHA Collaboration et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119(10):102001, 2017), with a comparable, yet still statistics dominated, error. This constitutes a highly non-trivial check, as the decoupling strategy is conceptually very different from the 3-flavour QCD step-scaling method, and so are their systematic errors. These include the uncertainties of the combined decoupling and continuum limits, which we discuss in some detail. We also quantify the correlation between both results, due to some common elements, such as the scale determination in physical units and the definition of the energy scale where we apply decoupling.
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Guadilla, V. et al, Tain, J. L., Algora, A., Agramunt, J., Jordan, D., Monserrate, M., et al. (2020). Determination of beta-decay ground state feeding of nuclei of importance for reactor applications. Phys. Rev. C, 102(6), 064304–12pp.
Abstract: In beta-decay studies the determination of the decay probability to the ground state (g.s.) of the daughter nucleus often suffers from large systematic errors. The difficulty of the measurement is related to the absence of associated delayed gamma-ray emission. In this work we revisit the 4 pi gamma – beta method proposed by Greenwood and collaborators in the 1990s, which has the potential to overcome some of the experimental difficulties. Our interest is driven by the need to determine accurately the beta-intensity distributions of fission products that contribute significantly to the reactor decay heat and to the antineutrinos emitted by reactors. A number of such decays have large g.s. branches. The method is relevant for nuclear structure studies as well. Pertinent formulas are revised and extended to the special case of beta-delayed neutron emitters, and the robustness of the method is demonstrated with synthetic data. We apply it to a number of measured decays that serve as test cases and discuss the features of the method. Finally, we obtain g.s. feeding intensities with reduced uncertainty for four relevant decays that will allow future improvements in antineutrino spectrum and decay heat calculations using the summation method.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Bailey, A. J., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo, F. L., et al. (2020). Determination of jet calibration and energy resolution in proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(12), 1104–81pp.
Abstract: The jet energy scale, jet energy resolution, and their systematic uncertainties are measured for jets reconstructed with the ATLAS detector in 2012 using proton-proton data produced at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with an integrated luminosity of 20 fb-1. Jets are reconstructed from clusters of energy depositions in the ATLAS calorimeters using the anti-kt algorithm. A jet calibration scheme is applied in multiple steps, each addressing specific effects including mitigation of contributions from additional proton-proton collisions, loss of energy in dead material, calorimeter non-compensation, angular biases and other global jet effects. The final calibration step uses several in situ techniques and corrects for residual effects not captured by the initial calibration. These analyses measure both the jet energy scale and resolution by exploiting the transverse momentum balance in gamma + jet, Z + jet, dijet, and multijet events. A statistical combination of these measurements is performed. In the central detector region, the derived calibration has a precision better than 1% for jets with transverse momentum 150 GeV<pT< 1500 GeV, and the relative energy resolution is (8.4 +/- 0.6)% for pT=100 GeV and (23 +/- 2)% for pT=20 GeV. The calibration scheme for jets with radius parameter R=1.0, for which jets receive a dedicated calibration of the jet mass, is also discussed.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Garcia Martin, L. M., Henry, L., Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., et al. (2020). Determination of quantum numbers for several excited charmed mesons observed in B- -> D*(+)pi(-) pi(-) decays. Phys. Rev. D, 101(3), 032005–24pp.
Abstract: A four-body amplitude analysis of the B- -> D*(+)pi(-) pi(-) decay is performed, where fractions and relative phases of the various resonances contributing to the decay are measured. Several quasi-model-independent analyses are performed aimed at searching for the presence of new states and establishing the quantum numbers of previously observed charmed meson resonances. In particular the resonance parameters and quantum numbers are determined for the D-1 (2420), D-1 (2430), D-0 (2550), D-1* (2600), D-2 (2740) and D-3*(2750) states. The mixing between the D-1 (2420) and D-1 (2430) resonances is studied and the mixing parameters are measured. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb(-1), collected in proton-proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV with the LHCb detector.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., Castillo, F. L., et al. (2021). Determination of the parton distribution functions of the proton from ATLAS measurements of differential W-+/- and Z boson production in association with jets. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 223–44pp.
Abstract: This article presents a new set of proton parton distribution functions, AT-LASepWZVjet20, produced in an analysis at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD. The new data sets considered are the measurements of W+ and W- boson and Z boson production in association with jets in pp collisions at root s = 8 TeV performed by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC with integrated luminosities of 20.2 fb(-1) and 19.9 fb(-1), respectively. The analysis also considers the ATLAS measurements of differential W-+/- and Z boson production at root s = 7 TeV with an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) and deep-inelastic-scattering data from e(+/-) p collisions at the HERA accelerator. An improved determination of the sea-quark densities at high Bjorken x is shown, while confirming a strange-quark density similar in size to the up- and down-sea-quark densities in the range x less than or similar to 0.02 found by previous ATLAS analyses.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Cardillo, F., et al. (2022). Determination of the parton distribution functions of the proton using diverse ATLAS data from pp collisions at root s=7, 8 and 13 TeV. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(5), 438–70pp.
Abstract: This paper presents an analysis at next-to-next-to-leading order in the theory of quantum chromodynamics for the determination of a new set of proton parton distribution functions using diverse measurements in pp collisions at root s = 7, 8 and 13 TeV, performed by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, together with deep inelastic scattering data from ep collisions at the HERA collider. The ATLAS data sets considered are differential cross-section measurements of inclusive W-+/- and Z/gamma* boson production, W-+/- and Z boson production in association with jets, t (t) over bar production, inclusive jet production and direct photon production. In the analysis, particular attention is paid to the correlation of systematic uncertainties within and between the various ATLAS data sets and to the impact of model, theoretical and parameterisation uncertainties. The resulting set of parton distribution functions is called ATLASpdf21.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amos, K. R., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Bouchhar, N., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2023). Determination of the strong coupling constant from transverse energy-energy correlations in multijet events at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 085–54pp.
Abstract: Measurements of transverse energy-energy correlations and their associated azimuthal asymmetries in multijet events are presented. The analysis is performed using a data sample corresponding to 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 13TeV, collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are presented in bins of the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of the two leading jets and unfolded to particle level. They are then compared to next-to-next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations for the first time, which feature a significant reduction in the theoretical uncertainties estimated using variations of the renormalisation and factorisation scales. The agreement between data and theory is good, thus providing a precision test of QCD at large momentum transfers Q. The strong coupling constant alpha(s) is extracted as a function of Q, showing a good agreement with the renormalisation group equation and with previous analyses. A simultaneous fit to all transverse energy-energy correlation distributions across different kinematic regions yields a value of alpha(s)( mZ) = 0.1175 +/- 0.0006 (exp.)(+0.0034) (-0.0017) (theo.), while the global fit to the asymmetry distributions yields alpha(s)(m(Z)) = 0.1185 +/- 0.0009 (exp.)(+0.0025)(-0.0012)(theo.).
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de los Rios, M., Petac, M., Zaldivar, B., Bonaventura, N. R., Calore, F., & Iocco, F. (2023). Determining the dark matter distribution in simulated galaxies with deep learning. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 525(4), 6015–6035.
Abstract: We present a novel method of inferring the dark matter (DM) content and spatial distribution within galaxies, using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained within state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations (Illustris-TNG100). Within the controlled environment of the simulation, the framework we have developed is capable of inferring the DM mass distribution within galaxies of mass similar to 10(11)-10(13)M(circle dot) from the gravitationally baryon-dominated internal regions to the DM-rich, baryon-depleted outskirts of the galaxies, with a mean absolute error always below approximate to 0.25 when using photometrical and spectroscopic information. With respect to traditional methods, the one presented here also possesses the advantages of not relying on a pre-assigned shape for the DM distribution, to be applicable to galaxies not necessarily in isolation, and to perform very well even in the absence of spectroscopic observations.
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