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Pierre Auger Collaboration(Abraham, J. et al), & Pastor, S. (2010). Measurement of the Depth of Maximum of Extensive Air Showers above 10(18) eV. Phys. Rev. Lett., 104(9), 091101–7pp.
Abstract: We describe the measurement of the depth of maximum, X-max, of the longitudinal development of air showers induced by cosmic rays. Almost 4000 events above 10(18) eV observed by the fluorescence detector of the Pierre Auger Observatory in coincidence with at least one surface detector station are selected for the analysis. The average shower maximum was found to evolve with energy at a rate of (106 +/- 35-21) g/cm(2)/decade below 10(18.24) +/- (0.05) eV, and d24 +/- 3 g/cm(2)/ecade above this energy. The measured shower-to-shower fluctuations decrease from about 55 to 26 g/cm(2). The interpretation of these results in terms of the cosmic ray mass composition is briefly discussed.
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BABAR Collaboration(Aubert, B. et al), Azzolini, V., Lopez-March, N., Martinez-Vidal, F., Milanes, D. A., & Oyanguren, A. (2010). Measurement of vertical bar V-cb vertical bar and the Form-Factor Slope in (B)over-bar -> Dl(-) (nu)over-bar(l) Decays in Events Tagged by a Fully Reconstructed B Meson. Phys. Rev. Lett., 104(1), 011802–7pp.
Abstract: We present a measurement of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element vertical bar V-cb vertical bar and the form-factor slope rho(2) in (B) over bar -> Dl(-) (nu) over bar (l) decays based on 460 X 10(6) B (B) over bar events recorded at the Gamma(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector. (B) over bar -> Dl(-) (nu) over bar (l) decays are selected in events in which a hadronic decay of the second B meson is fully reconstructed. We measure B(B- -> D(0)l(-) (nu) over bar (l))/B(B- -> Xl(-) (nu) over bar (l)) = (0.255 +/- 0.009 +/- 0.009) and B((B) over bar (0) -> D(+)l(-) (nu) over bar (l))/B((B) over bar (0) -> Xl(-) (nu) over bar (l)) = (0.230 +/- 0.011 +/- 0.011), along with the differential decay distribution in (B) over bar -> Dl(-) (nu) over bar (l) decays. We then determine G(1)vertical bar V-cb vertical bar = 42.3 +/- 1.9 +/- 1.4) X 10(-3) and rho(2) = 1.20 +/- 0.09 +/- 0.04, where G(1) is the hadronic form factor at the point of zero recoil.
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BABAR Collaboration(Aubert, B. et al), Azzolini, V., Lopez-March, N., Martinez-Vidal, F., Milanes, D. A., & Oyanguren, A. (2010). Searches for Lepton Flavor Violation in the Decays tau(+/-) -> e(+/-)gamma and tau(+/-) -> mu(+/-)gamma. Phys. Rev. Lett., 104(2), 021802–7pp.
Abstract: Searches for lepton-flavor-violating decays of a tau lepton to a lighter mass lepton and a photon have been performed with the entire data set of (963 +/- 7) x 10(6) tau decays collected by the BABAR detector near the Y(4S), Y(3S) and Y(2S) resonances. The searches yield no evidence of signals and we set upper limits on the branching fractions of B(tau(+/-) -> e(+/-)gamma) < 3.3 X 10(-8) and B(tau(+/-) -> mu(+/-)gamma) < 4.4 X 10(-8) at 90% confidence level.
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Decoster, S., Cottenier, S., Wahl, U., Correia, J. G., Pereira, L. M. C., Lacasta, C., et al. (2010). Diluted manganese on the bond-centered site in germanium. Appl. Phys. Lett., 97(15), 151914–3pp.
Abstract: The functional properties of Mn-doped Ge depend to large extent on the lattice location of the Mn impurities. Here, we present a lattice location study of implanted diluted Mn by means of electron emission channeling. Surprisingly, in addition to the expected substitutional lattice position, a large fraction of the Mn impurities occupies the bond-centered site. Corroborated by ab initio calculations, the bond-centered Mn is related to Mn-vacancy complexes. These unexpected results call for a reassessment of the theoretical studies on the electrical and magnetic behavior of Mn-doped Ge, hereby including the possible role of Mn-vacancy complexes.
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Sanjuan, R., Nebot, M., Chirico, N., Mansky, L. M., & Belshaw, R. (2010). Viral Mutation Rates. J. Virol., 84(19), 9733–9748.
Abstract: Accurate estimates of virus mutation rates are important to understand the evolution of the viruses and to combat them. However, methods of estimation are varied and often complex. Here, we critically review over 40 original studies and establish criteria to facilitate comparative analyses. The mutation rates of 23 viruses are presented as substitutions per nucleotide per cell infection (s/n/c) and corrected for selection bias where necessary, using a new statistical method. The resulting rates range from 10(-8) to 10(-6) s/n/c for DNA viruses and from 10(-6) to 10(-4) s/n/c for RNA viruses. Similar to what has been shown previously for DNA viruses, there appears to be a negative correlation between mutation rate and genome size among RNA viruses, but this result requires further experimental testing. Contrary to some suggestions, the mutation rate of retroviruses is not lower than that of other RNA viruses. We also show that nucleotide substitutions are on average four times more common than insertions/deletions (indels). Finally, we provide estimates of the mutation rate per nucleotide per strand copying, which tends to be lower than that per cell infection because some viruses undergo several rounds of copying per cell, particularly double-stranded DNA viruses. A regularly updated virus mutation rate data set will be available at www.uv.es/rsanjuan/virmut.
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Rafi Alam, M., Ruiz Simo, I., Sajjad Athar, M., & Vicente Vacas, M. J. (2010). Weak kaon production off the nucleon. Phys. Rev. D, 82(3), 033001–8pp.
Abstract: The weak kaon production off the nucleon induced by neutrinos is studied at the low and intermediate energies of interest for some ongoing and future neutrino oscillation experiments. This process is also potentially important for the analysis of proton decay experiments. We develop a microscopical model based on the SU(3) chiral Lagrangians. The basic parameters of the model are f pi, the pion decay constant, Cabibbo's angle, the proton and neutron magnetic moments, and the axial vector coupling constants for the baryons octet, D and F, that are obtained from the analysis of the semileptonic decays of neutron and hyperons. The studied mechanisms are the main source of kaon production for neutrino energies up to 1.2 to 1.5 GeV for the various channels and the cross sections are large enough to be amenable to be measured by experiments such as Minerva and T2K.
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BABAR Collaboration(del Amo Sanchez, P. et al), Azzolini, V., Lopez-March, N., Martinez-Vidal, F., Milanes, D. A., & Oyanguren, A. (2010). Observation of the rare decay B-0 -> K-S(0) K-+/-pi(-/+). Phys. Rev. D, 82(3), 031101–8pp.
Abstract: We report an analysis of charmless hadronic decays of neutral B mesons to the final state (KSK +/-)-K-0 pi(-/+) (sic), using a data sample of (465 +/- 5) x 10(6) B (B) over bar events collected with the BABAR detector at the Gamma(4S) resonance. We observe an excess of signal events with a significance of 5.2 standard deviations including systematic uncertainties and measure the branching fraction to be B(B-0 -> (KSK +/-)-K-0 pi(-/+) (sic) (3.2 +/- 0.5 +/- 0.3) x 10(-6), where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively.
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de Putter, R., & Takada, M. (2010). Halo-galaxy lensing: A full sky approach. Phys. Rev. D, 82(10), 103522–9pp.
Abstract: The halo-galaxy lensing correlation function or the average tangential shear profile over sampled halos is a very powerful means of measuring the halo masses, the mass profile, and the halo-mass correlation function of very large separations in the linear regime. We reformulate the halo-galaxy lensing correlation in harmonic space. We find that, counterintuitively, errors in the conventionally used flat-sky approximation remain at a percent level even at very small angles. The errors increase at larger angles and for lensing halos at lower redshifts: the effect is at a few percent level at the baryonic acoustic oscillation scales for lensing halos of z similar to 0.2, and comparable with the effect of primordial non-Gaussianity with f(NL) similar to 10 at large separations. Our results allow one to readily estimate/correct for the full-sky effect on a high-precision measurement of the average shear profile available from upcoming wide-area lensing surveys.
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MiniBooNE Collaboration(Aguilar-Arevalo, A. A. et al), & Sorel, M. (2010). Measurement of the neutrino neutral-current elastic differential cross section on mineral oil at E-nu similar to 1 GeV. Phys. Rev. D, 82(9), 092005–16pp.
Abstract: We report a measurement of the flux-averaged neutral-current elastic differential cross section for neutrinos scattering on mineral oil (CH2) as a function of four-momentum transferred squared, Q(2). It is obtained by measuring the kinematics of recoiling nucleons with kinetic energy greater than 50 MeV which are readily detected in MiniBooNE. This differential cross-section distribution is fit with fixed nucleon form factors apart from an axial mass M-A that provides a best fit for M-A = 1.39 +/- 0.11 GeV. Using the data from the charged-current neutrino interaction sample, a ratio of neutral-current to charged-current quasielastic cross sections as a function of Q(2) has been measured. Additionally, single protons with kinetic energies above 350 MeV can be distinguished from neutrons and multiple nucleon events. Using this marker, the strange quark contribution to the neutral-current axial vector form factor at Q(2) – 0, Delta s, is found to be Delta s = 0.08 +/- 0.26.
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CDF Collaboration(Aaltonen, T. et al), & Cabrera, S. (2010). Updated search for the flavor-changing neutral-current decay D-0 -> mu(+)mu(-) in p(p)over-bar collisions at root s=1.96 TeV. Phys. Rev. D, 82(9), 091105–8pp.
Abstract: We report on a search for the flavor-changing neutral-current decay D-0 -> mu(+)mu(-) in p (p) over bar collisions at root s = 1.96 TeV using 360 pb(-1) of integrated luminosity collected by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. A displaced vertex trigger selects long-lived D-0 candidates in the mu(+)mu(-), pi(+)pi(-), and K-pi(+) decay modes. We use the Cabibbo-favored D-0 -> K-pi(+) channel to optimize the selection criteria in an unbiased manner, and the kinematically similar D-0 -> pi(+)pi(-) channel for normalization. We set an upper limit on the branching fraction B(D-0 -> mu(+)mu(-)) < 2.1 X 10(-7) (3.0 X 10(-7)) at the 90% (95%) confidence level.
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