Production of vector mesons and measurement of the hadronic component of photon light-cone wave function at HERA

A detailed study of vector meson production ($\phi$ and $J/\psi$) in $e^\pm p$ collisions at HERA with the ZEUS and H1 detector has been performed. The cross sections are measured as a function of $Q^2$, $W$ and $t$. In this contribution, the results are summarised, compared to theoretical calculations and the dynamical picture emerging in perturbative QCD is highlighted. The measurement of the hadronic component of the photon light-cone wave function in the exclusive production of di-pions, $ep\to e \pi^+\pi^- p$ is also reported.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to be published in the Proceedings of to 32nd International Conference on High-Energy Physics (ICHEP 04), Beijing, China, 16-22 Aug 200

Military jet fuel from shale oil

Investigations leading to a specification for aviation turbine fuel produced from whole crude shale oil are described. Refining methods involving hydrocracking, hydrotreating, and extraction processes are briefly examined and their production capabilities are assessed

Pion-to-vacuum vector and axial vector amplitudes and weak decays of pions in a magnetic field

We propose a model-independent parametrization for the one-pion-to-vacuum matrix elements of the vector and axial vector hadronic currents in the presence of an external uniform magnetic field. It is shown that, in general, these hadronic matrix elements can be written in terms of several gauge covariant Lorentz structures and form factors. Within this framework we obtain a general expression for the weak decay $\pi^- \to l\,\bar\nu_l$ and discuss the corresponding limits of strong and weak external magnetic fields.Comment: 33 page

Prediction of ductile fracture in anisotropic steels for pipeline applications

Large diameter steel pipelines for gas transportation may experience extreme overloads due to external actions such as soil sliding, faults movements, third part interactions. In these scenarios the material undergoes severe plastic strains which locally may reach the fracture limits. Due to the manufacturing process, the steels used in such applications have an anisotropic behavior both for plasticity and fracture. In this paper two steel grades have been characterized in view of anisotropic plastic fracture. Fracture tests have been planned to characterize the fracture behavior under different stress states and in different directions to define the anisotropic sensitivity. Finite element modelling, incorporating an anisotropic plasticity formulation, has been used to calculate the local fracture parameters in the specimens and to define the complete ductile fracture locus. An uncoupled damage evolution law has been finally used to evaluate the fracture limits on real pipelines failed in full scale laboratory tests. The strain to fracture prediction has been verified by local strain measurements on the fractured pipes. The model robustness has been also verified on global parameter predictions, such us the burst pressur

Non-thermal photons and H2 formation in the early Universe

The cosmological recombination of H and He at z \sim 1000 and the formation of H2 during the dark ages produce a non-thermal photon excess in the Wien tail of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) blackbody spectrum. Here we compute the effect of these photons on the H- photodetachment and H2+ photodissociation processes. We discuss the implications for the chemical evolution of the Universe in the post-recombination epoch, emphasizing how important a detailed account of the full vibrational manifold of H2 and H2+ in the chemical network is. We find that the final abundances of H2, H2+, H3+ and HD are significantly smaller than in previous calculations that neglected the effect of non-thermal photons. The suppression is mainly caused by extra hydrogen recombination photons and could affect the formation rate of first stars. We provide simple analytical approximations for the relevant rate coefficients and briefly discuss the additional effect of dark matter annihilation on the considered reaction rates.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in MNRA