ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Cerda Alberich, L., Costa, M. J., et al. (2016). Measurements of top-quark pair differential cross-sections in the lepton plus jets channel in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV using the ATLAS detector. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(10), 538–39pp.
Abstract: Measurements of normalized differential cross-sections of top-quark pair production are presented as a function of the top-quark, t (t) over bar system and event-level kinematic observables in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of root s = 8 TeV. The observables have been chosen to emphasize the t (t) over bar production process and to be sensitive to effects of initial-and final-state radiation, to the different parton distribution functions, and to non-resonant processes and higher-order corrections. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb(-1), recorded in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in the lepton+jets channel, requiring exactly one charged lepton and at least four jets with at least two of the jets tagged as originating from a b-quark. The measured spectra are corrected for detector effects and are compared to several Monte Carlo simulations. The results are in fair agreement with the predictions over a wide kinematic range. Nevertheless, most generators predict a harder top-quark transverse momentum distribution at high values than what is observed in the data. Predictions beyond NLO accuracy improve the agreement with data at high top-quark transverse momenta. Using the current settings and parton distribution functions, the rapidity distributions are not well modelled by any generator under consideration. However, the level of agreement is improved when more recent sets of parton distribution functions are used.
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Gonzalez, M., Kovalenko, S. G., & Hirsch, M. (2016). QCD running in neutrinoless double beta decay: Short-range mechanisms. Phys. Rev. D, 93(1), 013017–11pp.
Abstract: The decay rate of neutrinoless double beta (0 nu beta beta) decay contains terms from heavy particle exchange, which lead to dimension-9 (d = 9) six fermion operators at low energies. Limits on the coefficients of these operators have been derived previously neglecting the running of the operators between the high scale, where they are generated, and the energy scale of 0 nu beta beta decay, where they are measured. Here we calculate the leading-order QCD corrections to all possible d = 9 operators contributing to the 0 nu beta beta amplitude and use renormalization group running to calculate 1-loop improved limits. Numerically, QCD running dramatically changes some limits by factors of the order of or larger than typical uncertainties in nuclear matrix element calculations. For some specific cases, operator mixing in the running changes limits even by up to 3 orders of magnitude. Our results can be straightforwardly combined with new experimental limits or improved nuclear matrix element calculations to rederive updated limits on all short-range contributions to 0 nu beta beta decay.
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Bambi, C., Cardenas-Avendano, A., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2016). Wormholes and nonsingular spacetimes in Palatini f(R) gravity. Phys. Rev. D, 93(6), 064016–8pp.
Abstract: We reconsider the problem of f(R) theories of gravity coupled to Born-Infeld theory of electrodynamics formulated in a Palatini approach, where metric and connection are independent fields. By studying electrovacuum configurations in a static and spherically symmetric spacetime, we find solutions which reduce to their Reissner-Nordstrom counterparts at large distances but undergo important nonperturbative modifications close to the center. Our new analysis reveals that the pointlike singularity is replaced by a finite-size wormhole structure, which provides a geodesically complete and thus nonsingular spacetime, despite the existence of curvature divergences at the wormhole throat. Implications of these results, in particular for the cosmic censorship conjecture, are discussed.
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BABAR Collaboration(Lees, J. P. et al), Martinez-Vidal, F., & Oyanguren, A. (2016). Measurement of the I=1/2 K pi S-wave amplitude from Dalitz plot analyses of eta(c) -> K(K)over-bar pi in two-photon interactions. Phys. Rev. D, 93(1), 012005–16pp.
Abstract: We study the processes gamma gamma -> (KSK +/-)-K-0 pi(-/+) and gamma gamma -> K+K-pi(0) 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. We observe eta(c) decays to both final states and perform Dalitz plot analyses using a model-independent partial wave analysis technique. This allows a model-independent measurement of the mass-dependence of the I = 1/2 K pi S-wave amplitude and phase. A comparison between the present measurement and those from previous experiments indicates similar behavior for the phase up to a mass of 1.5 GeV/c(2). In contrast, the amplitudes show very marked differences. The data require the presence of a new a(0)(1950) resonance with parameters m = 1931 +/- 14 +/- 22 MeV/c(2) and Gamma = 271 +/- 22 +/- 29 MeV.
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ANTARES Collaboration(Adrian-Martinez, S. et al), Barrios-Marti, J., Hernandez-Rey, J. J., Sanchez-Losa, A., Tönnis, C., Zornoza, J. D., et al. (2016). The first combined search for neutrino point-sources in the Southern Hemisphere with the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes. Astrophys. J., 823(1), 65–12pp.
Abstract: We present the results of searches for point-like sources of neutrinos based on the first combined analysis of data from both the ANTARES and IceCube neutrino telescopes. The combination of both detectors, which differ in size and location, forms a window in the southern sky where the sensitivity to point sources improves by up to a factor of 2 compared with individual analyses. Using data recorded by ANTARES from 2007 to 2012, and by IceCube from 2008 to 2011, we search for sources of neutrino emission both across the southern sky and from a preselected list of candidate objects. No significant excess over background has been found in these searches, and flux upper limits for the candidate sources are presented for E-2.5 and E-2 power-law spectra with different energy cut-offs.
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