Abstract: The b-hadron production cross section is measured with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at root s = 7 TeV, using 3.3 pb(-1) of integrated luminosity, collected during the 2010 LHC run. The b-hadrons are selected by partially reconstructing D*(+)mu X- final states. Differential cross sections are measured as functions of the transverse momentum and pseudorapidity. The measured production cross section for a b-hadron with p(T) > 9 GeV and vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2.5 is 32.7 +/- 0.8(stat.)(-6.8)(+4.5)(syst.) μb, higher than the next-to-leading-order QCD predictions but consistent within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties.

Abstract: We reconsider the phenomenological implications of two texture zeros in symmetric neutrino mass matrices in the light of the recent T2K results for the reactor angle and the new global analysis which gives also best fit values for the Dirac CP phase delta. The most important results of the analysis are: Among the viable cases classified by Frampton etal, only A(1) and A(2) predict theta(13) to be different from zero at 3 sigma. Furthermore these two cases are compatible only with a normal mass spectrum in the allowed region for the reactor angle. At the best fit value A(1) and A(2) predict 0.024 >= sin(2)theta(13) >= 0.012 and 0.014 <= sin(2)theta(13) <= 0.032, respectively, where the bounds on the right and the left correspond to cos delta = -1 and cos delta = 1, respectively. The cases B-1, B-2, B-3 and B-4 predict nearly maximal CP violation, i.e. cos delta approximate to 0.

Abstract: We study resonant CP-violating Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations that may take place in the production and decay of unstable scalar particles at high-energy colliders. We show that as a consequence of unitarity and CPT invariance of the S-matrix, in 2 -> 2 scatterings mediated by mixed scalar particles, at least three linearly independent decay matrices associated with the unstable scalar states are needed to obtain non-zero CP-odd observables that are also odd under C-conjugation. Instead, for the correlated production and decay of two unstable particle systems in 2 -> 4 processes, we find that only two independent decay matrices are sufficient to induce a net non-vanishing CP-violating phenomenon. As an application of this theorem, we present numerical estimates of CP asymmetries for the correlated production and decay of supersymmetric scalar top anti-top pairs at the LHC, and demonstrate that these could reach values of order one. As a byproduct of our analysis, we develop a novel spinorial trace technique, which enables us to efficiently evaluate lengthy expressions of squared amplitudes describing the resonant scalar transitions.