ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amoros, G., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Ferrer, A., et al. (2012). Combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 86(3), 032003–31pp.
Abstract: A combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented. The data sets used correspond to integrated luminosities from 4.6 fb(-1) to 4.9 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions collected at root s = 7 TeV in 2011. The Higgs boson mass ranges of 111.4 GeV to 116.6 GeV, 119.4 GeV to 122.1 GeV, and 129.2 GeV to 541 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level, while the range 120 GeV to 560 GeV is expected to be excluded in the absence of a signal. An excess of events is observed at Higgs boson mass hypotheses around 126 GeV with a local significance of 2.9 standard deviations (sigma). The global probability for the background to produce an excess at least as significant anywhere in the entire explored Higgs boson mass range of 110-600 GeV is estimated to be similar to 15%, corresponding to a significance of approximately 1 sigma.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Amoros, G., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Ferrer, A., et al. (2012). Combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson using up to 4.9 fb(-1) of pp collision data at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Phys. Lett. B, 710(1), 49–66.
Abstract: A combined search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC using datasets corresponding to integrated luminosities from 1.04 fb(-1) to 4.9 fb(-1) of pp collisions collected at root s = 7 TeV is presented. The Higgs boson mass ranges 112.9-115.5 GeV, 131-238 GeV and 251-466 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level (CL), while the range 124-519 GeV is expected to be excluded in the absence of a signal. An excess of events is observed around m(H) similar to 126 GeV with a local significance of 3.5 standard deviations (sigma). The local significances of H -> gamma, H -> ZZ(()*()) -> l(+)l(-)l'(+)l'(-) and H -> WW(*()) l(+)nu l'(-)(nu) over bar, the three most sensitive channels in this mass range, are 2.8 sigma, 2.1 sigma and 1.4 sigma. respectively. The global probability for the background to produce such a fluctuation anywhere in the explored Higgs boson mass range 110-600 GeV is estimated to be similar to 1.4% or, equivalently, 2.2 sigma.
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Bakulev, A. P., Mikhailov, S. V., Pimikov, A. V., & Stefanis, N. G. (2012). Comparing antithetic trends of data for the pion-photon transition form factor. Phys. Rev. D, 86(3), 031501–5pp.
Abstract: We perform a comparative theoretical study of the data at spacelike momentum transfer for the gamma*gamma -> pi(0) transition form factor, just reported by the Belle Collaboration, vs. those published before by BABAR, also including the older CLEO and CELLO data. Various implications for the structure of the pi(0) distribution amplitude vis-a-vis those data are discussed and the existing theoretical predictions are classified into three distinct categories. We argue that the actual bifurcation of the data with antithetic trends is artificial and reason that the Belle data are the better option.
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Cabello, J., & Rafecas, M. (2012). Comparison of basis functions for 3D PET reconstruction using a Monte Carlo system matrix. Phys. Med. Biol., 57(7), 1759–1777.
Abstract: In emission tomography, iterative statistical methods are accepted as the reconstruction algorithms that achieve the best image quality. The accuracy of these methods relies partly on the quality of the system response matrix (SRM) that characterizes the scanner. The more physical phenomena included in the SRM, the higher the SRM quality, and therefore higher image quality is obtained from the reconstruction process. High-resolution small animal scanners contain as many as 10(3)-10(4) small crystal pairs, while the field of view (FOV) is divided into hundreds of thousands of small voxels. These two characteristics have a significant impact on the number of elements to be calculated in the SRM. Monte Carlo (MC) methods have gained popularity as a way of calculating the SRM, due to the increased accuracy achievable, at the cost of introducing some statistical noise and long simulation times. In the work presented here the SRM is calculated using MC methods exploiting the cylindrical symmetries of the scanner, significantly reducing the simulation time necessary to calculate a high statistical quality SRM and the storage space necessary. The use of cylindrical symmetries makes polar voxels a convenient basis function. Alternatively, spherically symmetric basis functions result in improved noise properties compared to cubic and polar basis functions. The quality of reconstructed images using polar voxels, spherically symmetric basis functions on a polar grid, cubic voxels and post-reconstruction filtered polar and cubic voxels is compared from a noise and spatial resolution perspective. This study demonstrates that polar voxels perform as well as cubic voxels, reducing the simulation time necessary to calculate the SRM and the disk space necessary to store it. Results showed that spherically symmetric functions outperform polar and cubic basis functions in terms of noise properties, at the cost of slightly degraded spatial resolution, larger SRM file size and longer reconstruction times. However, we demonstrate that post-reconstruction smoothing, usually applied in emission imaging to reduce the level of noise, can produce a spatial resolution degradation of similar to 50%, while spherically symmetric basis functions produce a degradation of only similar to 6%, compared to polar and cubic voxels, at the same noise level. Therefore, the image quality trade-off obtained with blobs is higher than that obtained with cubic or polar voxels.
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Bertone, G., Cerdeño, D. G., Fornasa, M., Pieri, L., Ruiz de Austri, R., & Trotta, R. (2012). Complementarity of indirect and accelerator dark matter searches. Phys. Rev. D, 85(5), 055014–10pp.
Abstract: Even if supersymmetric particles are found at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), it will be difficult to prove that they constitute the bulk of the dark matter (DM) in the Universe using LHC data alone. We study the complementarity of LHC and DM indirect searches, working out explicitly the reconstruction of the DM properties for a specific benchmark model in the coannihilation region of a 24-parameters supersymmetric model. Combining mock high-luminosity LHC data with presentday null searches for gamma rays from dwarf galaxies with the Fermi Large Area Telescope, we show that current Fermi Large Area Telescope limits already have the capability of ruling out a spurious wino-like solution which would survive using LHC data only, thus leading to the correct identification of the cosmological solution. We also demonstrate that upcoming Planck constraints on the reionization history will have a similar constraining power and discuss the impact of a possible detection of gamma rays from DM annihilation in the Draco dwarf galaxy with a Cherenkov-Telescope-Array-like experiment. Our results indicate that indirect searches can be strongly complementary to the LHC in identifying the DM particles, even when astrophysical uncertainties are taken into account.
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