XENON Collaboration(Aprile, E. et al), & Orrigo, S. E. A. (2017). Removing krypton from xenon by cryogenic distillation to the ppq level. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(5), 275–12pp.
Abstract: The XENON1T experiment aims for the direct detection of dark matter in a detector filled with 3.3 tons of liquid xenon. In order to achieve the desired sensitivity, the background induced by radioactive decays inside the detector has to be sufficiently low. One major contributor is the beta-emitter Kr-85 which is present in the xenon. For XENON1T a concentration of natural krypton in xenon Kr-nat/Xe < 200 ppq (parts per quadrillion, 1 ppq = 10(-15) mol/mol) is required. In this work, the design, construction and test of a novel cryogenic distillation column using the common McCabe-Thiele approach is described. The system demonstrated a krypton reduction factor of 6.4 . 10(5) with thermodynamic stability at process speeds above 3 kg/h. The resulting concentration of natKr/Xe < 26 ppq is the lowest ever achieved, almost one order of magnitude below the requirements for XENON1T and even sufficient for future dark matter experiments using liquid xenon, such as XENONnT and DARWIN.
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Alves, A., Arcadi, G., Dong, P. V., Duarte, L., Queiroz, F. S., & Valle, J. W. F. (2017). Matter-parity as a residual gauge symmetry: Probing a theory of cosmological dark matter. Phys. Lett. B, 772, 825–831.
Abstract: We discuss a non-supersymmetric scenario which addresses the origin of the matter-parity symmetry, P-M = (-1)(3(B-L)+2s), leading to a viable Dirac fermion dark matter candidate. Implications to electroweak precision, muon anomalous magnetic moment, flavor changing interactions, lepton flavor violation, dark matter and collider physics are discussed in detail. We show that this non-supersymmetric model is capable of generating the matter-parity symmetry in agreement with existing data with gripping implications to particle physics and cosmology.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), Barrios-Marti, J., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Illuminati, G., Lotze, M., Tönnis, C., et al. (2017). Results from the search for dark matter in the Milky Way with 9 years of data of the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Phys. Lett. B, 769, 249–254.
Abstract: Using data recorded with the ANTARES telescope from 2007 to 2015, a new search for dark matter annihilation in the Milky Way has been performed. Three halo models and five annihilation channels, WIMP + WIMP -> b (b) over bar, W+W-, tau(+)tau(-), mu(+)mu(-) and v (v) over bar, with WIMP masses ranging from 50 2 GeV/C-2 to 100 Tev/C-2, were considered. No excess over the expected background was found, and limits on the thermally averaged annihilation cross-section were set.
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NA48/2 Collaboration(Batley, J. R. et al), & Fiorini, L. (2017). Searches for lepton number violation and resonances in K-+/- -> pi μμdecays. Phys. Lett. B, 769, 67–76.
Abstract: The NA48/2 experiment at CERN collected a large sample of charged kaon decays to final states with multiple charged particles in 2003-2004. A new upper limit on the rate of the lepton number violating decay K-+/- -> pi(+/-)mu(+/-)mu(+/-) is reported: B( K-+/- -> pi(+/-)mu(+/-)mu(+/-)) < 8.6 x 10(-11) at 90% CL. Searches for two-body resonances X in K-+/- -> pi μμdecays (such as heavy neutral leptons N-4 and inflatons chi) are also presented. In the absence of signals, upper limits are set on the products of branching fractions B(K-+/- -> μN-+/-(4))B(N-4 -> pi mu) and B(K-+/- ->pi X-+/-)B(X -> mu(+),mu(-)) for ranges of assumed resonance masses and lifetimes. The limits are in the (10(-11),10(-9)) range for resonance lifetimes below 100 ps.
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Ortega, P. G., Segovia, J., Entem, D. R., & Fernandez, F. (2017). Threshold effects in P-wave bottom-strange mesons. Phys. Rev. D, 95(3), 034010–7pp.
Abstract: Using a nonrelativistic constituent quark model in which the degrees of freedom are quarkantiquark and meson- meson components, we have recently shown that the Dd((*))K thresholds play an important role in lowering the mass of the c (S) over bar states associated with the physical D-s0(*)(2317) and D-s1(2460) mesons. This observation is also supported by other theoretical approaches such as latticeregularized QCD or chiral unitary theory in coupled channels. Herein, we extend our computation to the lowest P- wave Bs mesons, taking into account the corresponding J(P) = 0(+), 1(-) and 2(+) bottomstrange states predicted by the naive quark model and the BK and B* K thresholds. We assume that mixing with B-s((*))eta and isospin-violating decays to B-s((*))pi are negligible. This computation is important because there is no experimental data in the b (S) over bar sector for the equivalent j(q)(p) = 1/2(+) (D-s0(*)(2317), D-s1 (2460)) heavy-quark multiplet and, as it has been seen in the c (s) over bar sector, the naive theoretical result can be wrong by more than 100 MeV. Our calculation allows us to introduce the coupling with the D-wave B*K channel and to compute the probabilities associated with the different Fock components of the physical state.
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