Abstract: A search for the supersymmetric partners of quarks and gluons (squarks and gluinos) in final states containing hadronic jets and missing transverse momentum, but no electrons or muons, is presented. The data used in this search were recorded in 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS experiment in root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1). The results are interpreted in the context of various models where squarks and gluinos are pair produced and the neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 2.03 TeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino, assuming the lightest neutralino is massless. For a simplified model involving the strong production of mass-degenerate first-and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 1.55 TeVare excluded if the lightest neutralino is massless. These limits substantially extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space previously excluded by searches with the ATLAS detector.

Abstract: A deep understanding of the epoch of reionization is still missing in our knowledge of the universe. While future probes will allow us to test the precise evolution of the free electron fraction from redshifts between z similar or equal to 6 and z similar or equal to 20, at present one could ask what kind of reionization processes are allowed by present cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization measurements. An early contribution to reionization could imply a departure from the standard picture where star formation determines the reionization onset. By considering a broad class of possible reionization parameterizations, we find that current data do not require an early reionization component in our universe and that only one marginal class of models, based on a particular realization of reionization, may point to that. In addition, the frequentist Akaike information criterion (AIC) provides strong evidence against alternative reionization histories, favoring the most simple reionization scenario, which describes reionization by means of only one (constant) reionization optical depth tau.

Abstract: We report measurements of charm-mixing parameters based on the decay-time-dependent ratio of D-0 -> K+pi(-) to D-0 -> K-pi(+) rates. The analysis uses a data sample of proton-proton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb(-1) recorded by the LHCb experiment from 2011 through 2016. Assuming charge-parity (CP) symmetry, the mixing parameters are determined to be x'(2) = (3.9 +/- 2.7) x 10(-5), y' = (5.28 +/- 0.52) x 10(-3), and R-D = (3.454 +/- 0.031) x 10(-3). Without this assumption, the measurement is performed separately for D-0 and (D) over bar (0) mesons, yielding a direct CP-violating asymmetry A(D) = (-0.1 +/- 9.1) x 10(-3), and magnitude of the ratio of mixing parameters 1.00 < vertical bar q/p vertical bar < 1.35 at the 68.3% confidence level. All results include statistical and systematic uncertainties and improve significantly upon previous single-measurement determinations. No evidence for CP violation in charm mixing is observed.

Abstract: It is well known that certain special classes of self-gravitating point-like defects, such as global (non gauged) monopoles, give rise to non-asymptotically flat space-times characterized by solid angle deficits, whose size depends on the details of the underlying microscopic models. The scattering of electrically neutral particles on such space-times is described by amplitudes that exhibit resonant behaviour when thescattering and deficit angles coincide. This, in turn, leads to ring-like structures where the cross sections are formally divergent (“singular lensing”). In this work, we revisit this particular phenomenon, with the twofold purpose of placing it in a contemporary and more general context, in view of renewed interest in the theory and general phenomenology of such defects, and, more importantly, of addressing certain subtleties that appear in the particular computation that leads to the aforementioned effect. In particular, by adopting a specific regularization procedure for the formally infinite Legendre series encountered, we manage to ensure the recovery of theMinkowski space-time, and thus the disappearance of the lensing phenomenon, in the nodefect limit, and the validity of the optical theorem for the elastic total cross section. In addition, the singular nature of the phenomenon is confirmed by means of an alternative calculation, which, unlike the original approach, makes no use of the generating function of the Legendre polynomials, but rather exploits the asymptotic properties of the Fresnel integrals.

Abstract: A search is performed in the invariant mass spectrum of the B-c(+)pi(+) pi(-) system for the excited B-c(+) states B-c (2(1)S(0)) + and B-c(2(3)S(1)) + using a data sample of p p collisions collected by the LHCb experiment at the centre- of- mass energy of root s = 8TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2 fb(-1). No evidence is seen for either state. Upper limits on the ratios of the production cross- sections of the Bc (2(1)S(0)) + and B-c(2(3)S(1)) + states times the branching fractions of Bc (2(1)S(0))(+) -> B-c(+)pi(+) pi(-) and B-c (2(3) S-1)(+) -> B-c*(+)pi(+) pi(-) over the production cross- section of the B-c(+) state are given as a function of their masses. They are found to be between 0.02 and 0.14 at 95% con fi dence level for B-c (2(1)S(0)) + and B-c (2(3)S(1)) + in the mass ranges [6830; 6890] MeV/c(2) and [6795; 6890] MeV/c(2), respectively.