2,497 research outputs found
Study of the Largest Multiwavelength Campaign of the Microquasar GRS 1915+105
We present the results from a multiwavelength campaign of GRS 1915+105
performed from 2000 April 16 to 25. This is one of the largest coordinated set
of observations ever performed for this source, covering the wide energy band
in radio (13.3-0.3 cm), near-infrared (J-H-K), X-rays and Gamma-rays (from 1
keV to 10 MeV). During the campaign GRS 1915+105 was predominantly in the
"plateau" (or low/hard) state but sometimes showed soft X-ray oscillations:
before April 20.3, rapid, quasi-periodic (~= 45 min) flare-dip cycles were
observed. The radio flares observed on April 17 shows frequency- dependent peak
delay, consistent with an expansion of synchrotron-emitting region starting at
the transition from the hard-dip to the soft-flare states in X-rays. On the
other hand, infrared flares on April 20 appear to follow (or precede) the
beginning of X-ray oscillations with an inconstant time delay of ~= 5-30 min.
This implies that the infrared emitting region is located far from the black
hole by >~ 10E13 cm, while its size is <~ 10E12 cm constrained from the time
variability. We find a good correlation between the quasi-steady flux level in
the near-infrared band and in the X-ray band. From this we estimate that the
reprocessing of X-rays, probably occurring in the outer parts of the accretion
disk, accounts for about 20-30% of the observed K magnitude in the plateau
state. The OSSE spectrum in the 0.05-10 MeV band is represented by a single
power law with a photon index of 3.1 extending to ~1 MeV with no cutoff. The
power-law slope above ~30 keV is found to be very similar between different
states in spite of large flux variations in soft X-rays, implying that the
electron energy distribution is not affected by the change of the state in the
accretion disk.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ, vol. 571,
2002. Minor corrections. Figure 2 is revised (numbers on the top axis are
corrected). References are update
Pre-exposure prophylaxis with hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 : a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial
Background: Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a promising strategy to break COVID-19 transmission. Although hydroxychloroquine was evaluated for treatment and post-exposure prophylaxis, it is not evaluated for COVID-19 PrEP yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of PrEP with hydroxychloroquine against placebo in healthcare workers at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection during an epidemic period. Methods: We conducted a double-blind placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial in three hospitals in Barcelona, Spain. From 350 adult healthcare workers screened, we included 269 participants with no active or past SARS-CoV-2 infection (determined by a negative nasopharyngeal SARS-CoV-2 PCR and a negative serology against SARS-CoV-2). Participants allocated in the intervention arm (PrEP) received 400 mg of hydroxychloroquine daily for the first four consecutive days and subsequently, 400 mg weekly during the study period. Participants in the control group followed the same treatment schedule with placebo tablets. Results: 52.8% (142/269) of participants were in the hydroxychloroquine arm and 47.2% (127/269) in the placebo arm. Given the national epidemic incidence decay, only one participant in each group was diagnosed with COVID-19. The trial was stopped due to futility and our study design was deemed underpowered to evaluate any benefit regarding PrEP efficacy. Both groups showed a similar proportion of participants experiencing at least one adverse event (AE) (p=0.548). No serious AEs were reported. Almost all AEs (96.4%, 106/110) were mild. Only mild gastrointestinal symptoms were significantly higher in the hydroxychloroquine arm compared to the placebo arm (27.4% (39/142) vs 15.7% (20/127), p=0.041). Conclusions: Although the efficacy of PrEP with hydroxychloroquine for preventing COVID-19 could not be evaluated, our study showed that PrEP with hydroxychloroquine at low doses is safe. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.govNCT04331834. Registered on April 2, 2020
Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA
A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm}
in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays
into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron.
The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment
at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass
dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs
boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only
decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength
h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the
H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged
Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3,
masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Search for dinucleon decay into pions at Super-Kamiokande
A search for dinucleon decay into pions with the Super-Kamiokande detector
has been performed with an exposure of 282.1 kiloton-years. Dinucleon decay is
a process that violates baryon number by two units. We present the first search
for dinucleon decay to pions in a large water Cherenkov detector. The modes
O C, O
N, and O
O are investigated. No significant excess in the
Super-Kamiokande data has been found, so a lower limit on the lifetime of the
process per oxygen nucleus is determined. These limits are:
years,
years, and
years. The lower
limits on each mode are about two orders of magnitude better than previous
limits from searches for dinucleon decay in iron.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review D
on March 30, 201
Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30
- …