Abstract: In this work we study several c and b states dynamically generated from the meson-baryon interaction in coupled channels, using an extension of the local hidden gauge approach in the Bethe-Salpeter equation. These molecular states appear as poles of the scattering amplitudes, and several of them can be identified with the experimentally observed c states, including the c(2790), c(2930), c(2970), c(3055) and c(3080). Also, for the recently reported b(6227) state, we find two poles with masses and widths remarkably close to the experimental data, for both the JP=1/2- and JP=3/2- sectors.

Abstract: By solving the Muskhelishvili-Omnes integral equations, the scalar form factors of the semileptonic heavy meson decays D -> pi(l) over bar nu(l), D -> (K) over bar(l) over bar nu(l), (K) over bar -> pi(l) over bar nu(l) and (B) over bar (s) -> Kl (nu) over bar (l) are simultaneously studied. As input, we employ unitarized heavy meson-Goldstone boson chiral coupled-channel amplitudes for the energy regions not far from thresholds, while, at high energies, adequate asymptotic conditions are imposed. The scalar form factors are expressed in terms of Omn\`es matrices multiplied by vector polynomials, which contain some undetermined dispersive subtraction constants. We make use of heavy quark and chiral symmetries to constrain these constants, which are fitted to lattice QCD results both in the charm and the bottom sectors, and in this latter sector to the light-cone sum rule predictions close to q(2)=0 as well. We find a good simultaneous description of the scalar form factors for the four semileptonic decay reactions. From this combined fit, and taking advantage that scalar and vector form factors are equal at q(2)=0, we obtain |V-cd| = 0.244 +/- 0.022, |V-cs| = 0.945 +/- 0.041 and |V-ub| = (4.3 +/- 0.7)x10(-3) for the involved Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements. In addition, we predict the following vector form factors at q(2) = 0: |f(+)(D ->eta)(0)| = 0.01 +/- 0.05, |f(+)(Ds ->eta)(0)| = 0.50 +/- 0.08, |f(+)(Ds ->eta)(0)| = 0.73 +/- 0.03 and|f(+)((B) over bar ->eta)(0)| = 0.82 +/- 0.08, which might serve as alternatives to determine the CKM elements when experimental measurements of the corresponding differential decay rates become available. Finally, we predict the different form factors above the q(2)-regions accessible in the semileptonic decays, up to moderate energies amenable to be described using the unitarized coupled-channel chiral approach.

Abstract: The XENON1T experiment aims for the direct detection of dark matter in a detector filled with 3.3 tons of liquid xenon. In order to achieve the desired sensitivity, the background induced by radioactive decays inside the detector has to be sufficiently low. One major contributor is the beta-emitter Kr-85 which is present in the xenon. For XENON1T a concentration of natural krypton in xenon Kr-nat/Xe < 200 ppq (parts per quadrillion, 1 ppq = 10(-15) mol/mol) is required. In this work, the design, construction and test of a novel cryogenic distillation column using the common McCabe-Thiele approach is described. The system demonstrated a krypton reduction factor of 6.4 . 10(5) with thermodynamic stability at process speeds above 3 kg/h. The resulting concentration of natKr/Xe < 26 ppq is the lowest ever achieved, almost one order of magnitude below the requirements for XENON1T and even sufficient for future dark matter experiments using liquid xenon, such as XENONnT and DARWIN.

Abstract: The S- and P- wave phase shifts of low-energy pion-nucleon scatterings are analysed using Peking University representation, in which they are decomposed into various terms contributing either from poles or branch cuts. We estimate the left-hand cut contributions with the help of tree-level perturbative amplitudes derived in relativistic baryon chiral perturbation theory up to O(p(2)). It is found that in S-11 and P-11 channels, contributions from known resonances and cuts are far from enough to saturate experimental phase shift data – strongly indicating contributions from low lying poles undiscovered before, and we fully explore possible physics behind. On the other side, no serious disagreements are observed in the other channels.

Abstract: The recently released Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) sample, Pantheon+, is an updated version of Pantheon and has very important cosmological implications. To explore the origin of the enhanced constraining power and internal correlations of datasets in different redshifts, we perform a comprehensively tomographic analysis of the Pantheon+ sample without and with the Cepheid host distance calibration, respectively. Specifically, we take two binning methods to analyze the Pantheon+ sample, i.e., equal redshift interval and equal supernovae number for each bin. For the case of equal redshift interval, after dividing the sample to 10 bins, the first bin in the redshift range z is an element of [0.00122, 0.227235] dominates the constraining power of the whole sample. For the case of equal supernovae number, the first three low redshift bins prefer a large matter fraction Omega(m) and only the sixth bin gives a relatively low cosmic expansion rate H-0. For both binning methods, we find no obvious evidence of evolution of H-0 and Omega(m) at the 2 sigma confidence level. The inclusion of the SHOES calibration can significantly compress the parameter space of background dynamics of the universe in each bin. When not considering the calibration, combining the Pantheon+ sample with cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, cosmic chronometers, galaxy clustering and weak lensing data, we give the strongest 1 sigma constraint H-0 = 67.88 +/- 0.42kms(-1) Mpc(-1). However, the addition of the calibration leads to a global shift of the parameter space from the combined constraint and H-0 = 68.66 +/- 0.42 km s(-1) Mpc(-1), which is inconsistent with the Planck-2018 result at about 2 sigma confidence level.