Abstract: A search for highly ionizing particles produced in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV center-of-mass energy is performed by the ATLAS Collaboration at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The data set used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 7.0 fb(-1). A customized trigger significantly increases the sensitivity, permitting a search for such particles with charges and energies beyond what was previously accessible. No events were found in the signal region, leading to production cross section upper limits in the mass range 200-2500 GeV for magnetic monopoles with magnetic charge in the range 0.5g(D) < vertical bar g vertical bar < 2.0g(D), where g(D) is the Dirac charge, and for stable particles with electric charge in the range 10 < vertical bar z vertical bar < 60. Model-dependent limits are presented in given pair-production scenarios, and model-independent limits are presented in fiducial regions of particle energy and pseudorapidity.

Abstract: We report a measurement of the nu(mu)-nucleus inclusive charged-current cross section (= sigma(cc)) on iron using data from the INGRID detector exposed to the J-PARC neutrino beam. The detector consists of 14 modules in total, which are spread over a range of off-axis angles from 0 degrees to 1.1 degrees. The variation in the neutrino energy spectrum as a function of the off-axis angle, combined with event topology information, is used to calculate this cross section as a function of neutrino energy. The cross section is measured to be sigma(cc) (1.1 GeV) = 1.10 +/- 0.15 (10(-38) cm(2)/nucleon), sigma(cc) (2.0 GeV) = 2.07 +/- 0.27 (10(-38) cm(2)/nucleon), and sigma(cc) (3.3 GeV) = 2.29 +/- 0.45 (10(-38) cm(2)/nucleon), at energies of 1.1, 2.0, and 3.3 GeV, respectively. These results are consistent with the cross section calculated by the neutrino interaction generators currently used by T2K. More importantly, the method described here opens up a new way to determine the energy dependence of neutrino-nucleus cross sections.

Abstract: The simplest inflationary models predict a primordial power spectrum (PPS) of the curvature fluctuations that can be described by a power-law function that is nearly scale invariant. It has been shown, however, that the low-multipole spectrum of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies may hint at the presence of some features in the shape of the scalar PPS, which could deviate from its canonical power-law form. We study the possible degeneracies of this nonstandard PPS with the active neutrino masses, the effective number of relativistic species, and a sterile neutrino or a thermal axion mass. The limits on these additional parameters are less constraining in a model with a nonstandard PPS when including only the temperature autocorrelation spectrum measurements in the data analyses. The inclusion of the polarization spectra noticeably helps in reducing the degeneracies, leading to results that typically show no deviation from the Lambda CDM model with a standard power-law PPS. These findings are robust against changes in the function describing the noncanonical PPS. Albeit current cosmological measurements seem to prefer the simple power-law PPS description, the statistical significance to rule out other possible parametrizations is still very poor. Future cosmological measurements are crucial to improve the present PPS uncertainties.

Abstract: The gamma decay from the high-lying states of Ce-140 excited via inelastic scattering of O-17 at a bombarding energy of 340 MeV was measured using the high-resolution AGATA-demonstrator array in coincidence with scattered ions detected in two segmented Delta E-E silicon detectors. Angular distributions of scattered ions and emitted gamma rays were measured, as well as their differential cross sections. The excitation of 1(-) states below the neutron separation energy is similar to the one obtained in reactions with the alpha isoscalar probe. The comparison between the experimental differential cross sections and the corresponding predictions using the distorted-wave Born approximation allowed us to extract the isoscalar component of identified 1(-) pygmy states. For this analysis the form factor obtained by folding microscopically calculated transition densities and optical potentials was used.

Abstract: We study here the A(b)(0) -> J/psi p pi(-) reaction in analogy to the A(b)(0) -> J/psi pK(-) one, and we note that in both decays there is a sharp structure (dip or peak) in the J/psi p mass distribution around 4450 MeV, which is associated in the A(b)(0) -> J/psi pK(-) experiment to an exotic pentaquark baryonic state, although in J/psi p pi(-) it shows up with relatively low statistics. We analyze the A(b)(0) -> J/psi p pi(-) interaction along the same lines as the A(b)(0) -> J/psi pK(-) one, with the main difference stemming from the reduced Cabibbo strength in the former and the consideration of the pi(-)p final state interaction instead of the K(-)p one. We find that with a minimal input, introducing the pi(-)p and J/psi p interaction in S-wave with realistic interactions, and the empirical P-wave and D-wave contributions, one can accomplish a qualitative description of the pi(-)p and J/psi p mass distributions. More importantly, the peak structure followed by a dip of the experimental J/psi p mass distribution is reproduced with the same input as used to describe the data of A(b)(0) -> J/psi pK(-) reaction. The repercussion for the triangular singularity mechanism, invoked in some works to explain the pentaquark peak, is discussed.