Abstract: Borexino has been running since May 2007 at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy with the primary goal of detecting solar neutrinos. The detector a large unsegmented liquid scintillator calorimeter characterized by unprecedented low levels of intrinsic radioactivity is optimized for the study of the lower energy part of the spectrum. During Phase-I (2007-2010) Borexino first detected and then precisely measured the flux of the Be-7 solar neutrinos ruled out any significant day-night asymmetry of their interaction rate made the first direct observation of the pep neutrinos and set the tightest upper limit on the flux of solar neutrinos produced in the CNO cycle (carbon nitrogen oxigen) where carbon nitrogen and oxygen serve as catalysts in the fusion process. In this paper we discuss the signal signature and provide a comprehensive description of the backgrounds quantify their event rates describe the methods for their identification selection or subtraction and describe data analysis. Key features are an extensive in situ calibration program using radioactive sources the detailed modeling of the detector response the ability to define an innermost fiducial volume with extremely low background via software cuts and the excellent pulse-shape discrimination capability of the scintillator that allows particle identification. We report a measurement of the annual modulation of the Be-7 neutrino interaction rate. The period the amplitude and the phase of the observed modulation are consistent with the solar origin of these events and the absence of their annual modulation is rejected with higher than 99% C.L. The physics implications of Phase-I results in the context of the neutrino oscillation physics and solar models are presented.

Abstract: Ordinarily, a scalar field may only play the role of dark energy if it possesses a potential that is either extraordinarily flat or extremely fine-tuned. Here we demonstrate that these restrictions are lifted when the scalar field undergoes persistent energy exchange with another fluid. In this scenario, the field is prevented from reversing its direction of motion, and instead may come to rest while displaced from the local minimum of its potential. Therefore almost any scalar potential is capable of initiating a prolonged phase of cosmic acceleration. If the rate of energy transfer is modulated via a derivative coupling, the field undergoes a rapid process of freezing, after which the field's equation of state mimicks that of a cosmological constant. We present a physically motivated realisation in the form of a neutrino-majoron coupling, which avoids the dynamical instabilities associated with mass-varying neutrino models. Finally we discuss possible means by which this model could be experimentally verified.

Abstract: A class of well-behaved modified gravity models with long enough matter domination epoch and a late-time accelerated expansion is confronted with SNIa, CMB, SDSS, BAO and H(z) galaxy ages data, as well as current measurements of the linear growth of structure. We show that the combination of geometrical probes and growth data exploited here allows to rule out f(R) gravity models, in particular, the logarithmic of curvature model. We also apply solar system tests to the models in agreement with the cosmological data. We find that the exponential of the inverse of the curvature model satisfies all the observational tests considered and we derive the allowed range of parameters. Current data still allows for small deviations of Einstein gravity. Future, high precision growth data, in combination with expansion history data, will be able to distinguish tiny modifications of standard gravity from the Lambda CDM model.