Measurement of ΔΓₛ using the B⁰ₛ decays to the final states J/ψη′ and J/ψf₀

The main research field of the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the study of CP violation and rare decays of beauty and charm hadrons. Measurement of the B⁰ₛ mixing parameters ΔΓₛ, Γₛ, Δmₛ and ϕₛ provide a precise test of the Standard Model (SM). New particles, as predicted in models of physics beyond the SM may alter the measured values of B⁰ₛ mixing parameters compared to the SM. In this thesis, a measurement of ΔΓₛ is made by comparing the lifetimes in the B⁰ₛ → J/ψη′ and B⁰ₛ → J/ψf₀ decay modes. This work uses the full data set recorded by the LHCb detector between 2011 and 2018. The value of ΔΓₛ is determined by measuring the yields of the two channels in bins of decay time, computing the ratio between the two channels in each bin and performing a χ² minimization. This technique, combined with the choice of two decay channels with similar topology, reduces the impact of the time acceptance introduced by the detector. The measured value of ΔΓₛ is ΔΓₛ = (0.081 ± 0.011 ± 0.009) ps⁻¹ where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. At the end of 2018 the LHC started a major upgrade to deliver better performance. During this period, most of the LHCb sub-detectors were upgraded as well as the data acquisition system. After the upgrade, the new software infrastructure will need to be more robust and scalable to face the higher luminosity delivered by the LHC. With this new configuration, monitoring the status of the detector and the data collected will be crucial to assure the best performance of the detector. For this reason, a prototype for the High Level Trigger (HLT) monitoring system was designed, implemented and tested. The goal of this system was to check the feasibility of having a monitoring system running on off-the-shelf software instead of developing everything from scratch

Accretion and outflow of gas in Markarian 509

A major uncertainty in models for photoionised outflows in AGN is the distance of the gas to the central black hole. We present the results of a massive multiwavelength monitoring campaign on the bright Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509 to constrain the location of the outflow components dominating the soft X-ray band. Mrk 509 was monitored by XMM-Newton, Integral, Chandra, HST/COS and Swift in 2009. We have studied the response of the photoionised gas to the changes in the ionising flux produced by the central regions. We were able to put tight constraints on the variability of the absorbers from day to year time scales. This allowed us to develop a model for the time-dependent photoionisation in this source. We find that the more highly ionised gas producing most X-ray line opacity is at least 5 pc away from the core; upper limits to the distance of various absorbing components range between 20 pc up to a few kpc. The more lowly ionised gas producing most UV line opacity is at least 100 pc away from the nucleus. These results point to an origin of the dominant, slow (v<1000 km/s) outflow components in the NLR or torus-region of Mrk 509. We find that while the kinetic luminosity of the outflow is small, the mass carried away is likely larger than the 0.5 Solar mass per year accreting onto the black hole. We also determined the chemical composition of the outflow as well as valuable constraints on the different emission regions. We find for instance that the resolved component of the Fe-K line originates from a region 40-1000 gravitational radii from the black hole, and that the soft excess is produced by Comptonisation in a warm (0.2-1 keV), optically thick (tau~10-20) corona near the inner part of the disk.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of IAUS 290 "Feeding Compact Objects: Accretion on All Scales", C. M. Zhang, T. Belloni, M. Mendez & S. N. Zhang (eds.

An easily recoverable and recyclable homogeneous polyester-based Pd catalytic system for the hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds

Homogeneous catalysis is an efficient tool to carry out hydrogenation processes but the major drawback is represented by the separation of the expensive catalyst from the product mixture. In this view we prepared a polyester-based Pd catalytic system that offers the advantages of both homogenous and heterogeneous catalyses: efficacy, selectivity and recyclability. Here its application in the hydrogenation of selected alpha,beta-unsaturated carbonyl compounds is described

Accretion and outflow of gas in Markarian 509

A major uncertainty in models for photoionised outflows in AGN is the distance of the gas to the central black hole. We present the results of a massive multiwavelength monitoring campaign on the bright Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509 to constrain the location of the outflow components dominating the soft X-ray band. Mrk 509 was monitored by XMM-Newton, Integral, Chandra, HST/COS and Swift in 2009. We have studied the response of the photoionised gas to the changes in the ionising flux produced by the central regions. We were able to put tight constraints on the variability of the absorbers from day to year time scales. This allowed us to develop a model for the time-dependent photoionisation in this source. We find that the more highly ionised gas producing most X-ray line opacity is at least 5 pc away from the core; upper limits to the distance of various absorbing components range between 20 pc up to a few kpc. The more lowly ionised gas producing most UV line opacity is at least 100 pc away from the nucleus. These results point to an origin of the dominant, slow (v<1000 km s−1) outflow components in the NLR or torus-region of Mrk 509. We find that while the kinetic luminosity of the outflow is small, the mass carried away is likely larger than the 0.5 Solar mass per year accreting onto the black hole. We also determined the chemical composition of the outflow as well as valuable constraints on the different emission regions. We find for instance that the resolved component of the Fe-K line originates from a region 40-1000 gravitational radii from the black hole, and that the soft excess is produced by Comptonisation in a warm (0.2-1 keV), optically thick (τ~ 10-20) corona near the inner part of the dis

Fast and Reliable On-Site Quality Assessment of Essential Raw Brewing Materials Using MicroNIR and Chemometrics

The interest in the quality control of the raw materials, intermediates, and final products, as well as production methods, of beer has increased significantly in recent decades due to the needs and expectations of consumers. Increasing in the industrialization and globalization of beer supply chains led to a need for novel analytical tools suitable for the rapid and reliable characterization of the materials involved. In this study, an ultracompact instrument operating in the NIR region of the spectrum, microNIR, was tested for the chemical investigation of barley malts. The essential raw materials for brewing require careful control since they deeply affect the characteristic flavor and taste of the final products. Therefore, a robust prediction model able to classify base and specialty barley malts was developed starting from NIR measurements. Soft Independent Class Analogy (SIMCA) was selected as the chemometric technique for the optimization of two prediction models, and ground and sieved materials were investigated using spectroscopy. The microNIR/chemometric approach proposed in this study permitted the correct prediction of the malt samples included in the external validation set, providing false positive and false negative rates no higher than 3.41% and 0.25%, respectively, and confirming the feasibility of the novel analytical platform