n_TOF Collaboration(Barbagallo, M. et al), Domingo-Pardo, C., Tain, J. L., & Tarifeño-Saldivia, A. (2016). Be-7(n,alpha)He-4 Reaction and the Cosmological Lithium Problem: Measurement of the Cross Section in a Wide Energy Range at n_TOF at CERN. Phys. Rev. Lett., 117(15), 152701–7pp.
Abstract: The energy-dependent cross section of the (7)Bed(n,alpha)He-4 reaction, of interest for the so-called cosmological lithium problem in big bang nucleosynthesis, has been measured for the first time from 10 meV to 10 keV neutron energy. The challenges posed by the short half-life of Be-7 and by the low reaction cross section have been overcome at nTOF thanks to an unprecedented combination of the extremely high luminosity and good resolution of the neutron beam in the new experimental area (EAR2) of the nTOF facility at CERN, the availability of a sufficient amount of chemically pure Be-7, and a specifically designed experimental setup. Coincidences between the two alpha particles have been recorded in two Si-Be-7-Si arrays placed directly in the neutron beam. The present results are consistent, at thermal neutron energy, with the only previous measurement performed in the 1960s at a nuclear reactor. The energy dependence reported here clearly indicates the inadequacy of the cross section estimates currently used in BBN calculations. Although new measurements at higher neutron energy may still be needed, the n_TOF results hint at a minor role of this reaction in BBN, leaving the long-standing cosmological lithium problem unsolved.
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Pich, A. (2021). Precision physics with inclusive QCD processes. Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys., 117, 103846–41pp.
Abstract: The inclusive production of hadrons through electroweak currents can be rigorously analysed with short-distance theoretical tools. The associated observables are insensitive to the involved infrared behaviour of the strong interaction, allowing for very precise tests of Quantum Chromodynamics. The theoretical predictions for sigma(e(+)e(-) -> hadrons) and the hadronic decay widths of the tau lepton and the Z, W and Higgs bosons have reached an impressive accuracy of O(alpha(4)(s)). Precise experimental measurements of the Z and tau hadronic widths have made possible the accurate determination of the strong coupling at two very different energy scales, providing a highly significant experimental verification of asymptotic freedom. A detailed discussion of the theoretical description of these processes and their current phenomenological status is presented. The most precise determinations of alpha(s) from other sources are also briefly reviewed and compared with the fully-inclusive results.
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Barrientos, L., Borja-Lloret, M., Casaña, J. V., Dendooven, P., Garcia Lopez, J. G., Hueso-Gonzalez, F., et al. (2024). Gamma-ray sources imaging and test-beam results with MACACO III Compton camera. Phys. Medica, 117, 103199–10pp.
Abstract: Hadron therapy is a radiotherapy modality which offers a precise energy deposition to the tumors and a dose reduction to healthy tissue as compared to conventional methods. However, methods for real-time monitoring are required to ensure that the radiation dose is deposited on the target. The IRIS group of IFIC-Valencia developed a Compton camera prototype for this purpose, intending to image the Prompt Gammas emitted by the tissue during irradiation. The system detectors are composed of Lanthanum (III) bromide scintillator crystals coupled to silicon photomultipliers. After an initial characterization in the laboratory, in order to assess the system capabilities for future experiments in proton therapy centers, different tests were carried out in two facilities: PARTREC (Groningen, The Netherlands) and the CNA cyclotron (Sevilla, Spain). Characterization studies performed at PARTREC indicated that the detectors linearity was improved with respect to the previous version and an energy resolution of 5.2 % FWHM at 511 keV was achieved. Moreover, the imaging capabilities of the system were evaluated with a line source of 68Ge and a point-like source of 241Am-9Be. Images at 4.439 MeV were obtained from irradiation of a graphite target with an 18 MeV proton beam at CNA, to perform a study of the system potential to detect shifts at different intensities. In this sense, the system was able to distinguish 1 mm variations in the target position at different beam current intensities for measurement times of 1800 and 600 s.
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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. (2020). Model-independent search for neutrino sources with the ANTARES neutrino telescope. Astropart Phys., 114, 35–47.
Abstract: A novel method to analyse the spatial distribution of neutrino candidates recorded with the ANTARES neutrino telescope is introduced, searching for an excess of neutrinos in a region of arbitrary size and shape from any direction in the sky. Techniques originating from the domains of machine learning, pattern recognition and image processing are used to purify the sample of neutrino candidates and for the analysis of the obtained skymap. In contrast to a dedicated search for a specific neutrino emission model, this approach is sensitive to a wide range of possible morphologies of potential sources of high-energy neutrino emission. The application of these methods to ANTARES data yields a large-scale excess with a post-trial significance of 2.5 sigma. Applied to public data from IceCube in its IC40 configuration, an excess consistent with the results from ANTARES is observed with a post-trial significance of 2.1 sigma.
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KM3NeT Collaboration(Aiello, S. et al), Barrios-Marti, J., Calvo, D., Coleiro, A., Colomer, M., Gozzini, S. R., et al. (2019). Sensitivity of the KM3NeT/ARCA neutrino telescope to point-like neutrino sources. Astropart Phys., 111, 100–110.
Abstract: KM3NeT will be a network of deep-sea neutrino telescopes in the Mediterranean Sea. The KM3NeT/ARCA detector, to be installed at the Capo Passero site (Italy), is optimised for the detection of high-energy neutrinos of cosmic origin. Thanks to its geographical location on the Northern hemisphere, KM3NeT/ARCA can observe upgoing neutrinos from most of the Galactic Plane, including the Galactic Centre. Given its effective area and excellent pointing resolution, KM3NeT/ARCA will measure or significantly constrain the neutrino flux from potential astrophysical neutrino sources. At the same time, it will test flux predictions based on gamma-ray measurements and the assumption that the gamma-ray flux is of hadronic origin. Assuming this scenario, discovery potentials and sensitivities for a selected list of Galactic sources and to generic point sources with an E(-2 )spectrum are presented. These spectra are assumed to be time independent. The results indicate that an observation with 3 sigma significance is possible in about six years of operation for the most intense sources, such as Supernovae Remnants RX J1713.7-3946 and Vela Jr. If no signal will be found during this time, the fraction of the gamma-ray flux coming from hadronic processes can be constrained to be below 50% for these two objects.
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Wilkinson, C., & Garcia Soto, A. (2024). Low-ν method with LHC neutrinos. Phys. Rev. D, 109(3), 033010–19pp.
Abstract: The Forward Physics Facility (FPF) plans to use neutrinos produced at the Large Hadron Collider to make a variety of measurements at previously unexplored TeV energies. Its primary goals include precision measurements of the neutrino cross section and using the measured neutrino flux both to uncover information about far-forward hadron production and to search for various beyond standard model scenarios. However, these goals have the potential to conflict: Extracting information about the flux or cross section relies upon an assumption about the other. In this paper, we demonstrate that the FPF can use the low-nu method-a technique for constraining the flux shape by isolating neutrino interactions with low energy transfer to the nucleus-to break this degeneracy. We show that the low-nu method is effective for extracting the nu μflux shape, in a model-independent way. We discuss its application for extracting the nu over bar μflux shape but find that this is significantly more model dependent. Finally, we explore the precision to which the nu μflux shape could be constrained at the FPF for a variety of proposed detector options. We find that the precision would be sufficient to discriminate between various realistic flux models.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo, F. L., Castillo Gimenez, V., et al. (2024). Search for quantum black hole production in lepton plus jet final states using proton-proton collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Rev. D, 109(3), 032010–28pp.
Abstract: A search for quantum black holes in electron + jet and muon + jet invariant mass spectra is performed with 140 fb(-1) of data collected by the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at root s = 13 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The observed invariant mass spectrum of lepton + jet pairs is consistent with Standard Model expectations. Upper limits are set at 95% confidence level on the production cross section times branching fractions for quantum black holes decaying into a lepton and a quark in a search region with invariant mass above 2.0 TeV. The resulting quantum black hole lower mass threshold limit is 9.2 TeV in the Arkani-Hamed-Dimopoulos-Dvali model, and 6.8 TeV in the Randall-Sundrum model.
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Fajfer, S., Solomonidi, E., & Vale Silva, L. (2024). S-wave contribution to rare D0 → π+ π- l+ l- decays in the standard model and sensitivity to new physics. Phys. Rev. D, 109(3), 036027–24pp.
Abstract: Physics of the up-type flavor offers unique possibilities of testing the standard model (SM) compared to the down-type flavor sector. Here, we discuss SM and new physics (NP) contributions to the rare charmmeson decay D0 -> x+x- l+l-. In particular, we discuss the effect of including the lightest scalar isoscalar resonance in the SM picture, namely, the f0(500), which manifests in a big portion of the allowed phase space. Other than showing in the total branching ratio at an observable level of about 20%, the f0(500) resonance manifests as interference terms with the vector resonances, such as at high invariant mass of the leptonic pair in distinct angular observables. Recent data from LHCb optimize the sensitivity to P-wave contributions that we analyze in view of the inclusion of vector resonances. We propose the measurement of alternative observables that are sensitive to the S-wave and are straightforward to implement experimentally. This leads to a new set of null observables that vanish in the SM due to its gauge and flavor structures. Finally, we study observables that depend on the SM interference with generic NP contributions from semileptonic four-fermion operators in the presence of the S-wave.
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Alexandre, J., Mavromatos, N. E., Mitsou, V. A., & Musumeci, E. (2024). Resummation schemes for high-electric-charge objects leading to improved experimental mass limits. Phys. Rev. D, 109(3), 036026–20pp.
Abstract: High-electric-charge compact objects (HECOs) appear in several theoretical particle physics models beyond the Standard Model, and are actively searched for in current colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. In such searches, mass bounds of these objects have been placed, using Drell-Yan and photon-fusion processes at tree level so far. However, such mass-bound estimates are not reliable, given that, as a result of the large values of the electric charge of the HECO, perturbative quantum electrodynamics calculations break down. In this work, we perform a Dyson-Schwinger resummation scheme (as opposed to lattice strong-coupling approach), which makes the computation of the pertinent HECO-production cross sections reliable, thus allowing us to extract improved mass bounds for such objects from ATLAS and MoEDAL searches.
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Karan, A., Miralles, V., & Pich, A. (2024). Updated global fit of the aligned two-Higgs-doublet model with heavy scalars. Phys. Rev. D, 109(3), 035012–29pp.
Abstract: An updated global fit on the parameter-space of the aligned two-Higgs-doublet model is performed with the help of the open-source package HEPfit, assuming the Standard-Model Higgs to be the lightest scalar. No new sources of CP violation, other than the phase in the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix of the Standard Model, are considered. A similar global fit was previously performed by O. Eberhardt et al. [Global fits in the aligned two-Higgs-doublet model, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2021) 005] with a slightly different set of parameters. Our updated fit incorporates improved analyses of the theoretical constraints required for the perturbative unitarity and boundedness of the scalar potential from below, additional flavor observables and updated data on direct searches for heavy scalars at the LHC, Higgs signal strengths, and electroweak precision observables. Although not included in the main fit, the implications of the CDF measurement of the W +/- mass are also discussed.
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