Abstract: Light neutralinos could be copiously produced from the decays of mesons generated in cosmic-ray air showers. These neutralinos can be long-lived particles in the context of R-parity violating (RPV) supersymmetric models, implying that they could be capable of reaching the surface of the earth and decay within the instrumental volume of large neutrino detectors. In this article, we use atmospheric neutrino data from the Super-Kamiokande experiment to derive novel constraints for the RPV couplings involved in the production of long-lived light neutralinos from the decays of charged D-mesons and kaons. Our results highlight the potential of neutrino detectors to search for long-lived particles, by demonstrating that it is possible to explore regions of parameter space that are not yet constrained by any fixed-target nor collider experiments.

Abstract: We investigate, within the framework of quantum field theory in curved space, the correlations across the horizon of a black hole in order to highlight the particle-partner pair creation mechanism at the origin of Hawking radiation. The analysis concerns both acoustic black holes, formed by Bose-Einstein condensates, and gravitational black holes. More precisely, we have considered a typical acoustic black hole metric with two asymptotic homogeneous regions and the Schwarzschild metric as describing a gravitational black hole. By considering equal-time correlation functions, we find a striking disagreement between the two cases: the expected characteristic peak centered along the trajectories of the Hawking particles and their partners seems to appear only for the acoustic black hole and not for the gravitational Schwarzschild one. The reason for that is the existence of a quantum atmosphere displaced from the horizon as the locus of origin of Hawking radiation together, and this is the crucial aspect, with the presence of a central singularity in the gravitational case swallowing everything is trapped inside the horizon. Correlations, however, are not absent in the gravitational case; to see them, one simply has to consider correlation functions at unequal times, which indeed display the expected peak.

Abstract: We study the processes gamma gamma -> eta(c )-> eta'K+K-, eta'pi(+)pi(-), and eta pi(+)pi(-) using a data sample of 519 fb(-1) recorded with the BABAR detector operating at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy e(+)e(-) collider at center-of-mass energies at and near the Upsilon(nS) (n = 2, 3, 4) resonances. This is the first observation of the decay eta(c)-> eta'K+K- and we measure the branching fraction Gamma (eta(c) -> eta' K+K- )/(Gamma(eta(c) -> eta'pi(+)pi(-)) = 0.644 +/- 0.039(stat) +/- 0.032(sys). Significant interference is observed between gamma gamma ->eta(c)->eta pi(+)pi(-) and the nonresonant two-photon process gamma gamma -> eta pi(+)pi(-). A Dalitz plot analysis is performed of eta(c) decays to eta'K+K-, eta'pi(+)pi(-) and eta pi(+)pi(-). Combined with our previous analysis of eta(c) -> K (K) over bar pi, we measure the K-0*(1430) parameters and the ratio between its eta'K and pi K couplings. The decay eta(c) -> eta'pi(+)pi(-) is dominated by the f(0)(2100) resonance, also observed in J/psi radiative decays. A new a(0) (1700) -> eta pi resonance is observed in the eta(c) -> eta pi(+)pi(-) channel. We also compare eta(c) decays to eta and eta' final states in association with scalar mesons as they relate to the identification of the scalar glueball.