Study of DiMuon Rare Beauty Decays with ATLAS and CMS

The LHC experiments will perform sensitive tests of physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). The investigation of decays of beauty hadrons represents an alternative approach in addition to direct BSM searches. The ATLAS and CMS efforts concentrate on those B-decays that can be efficiently selected already at the first and second level trigger. The most favorable trigger signature will be for $B$-hadron decays with muons in the final state. Using this trigger, ATLAS and CMS will be able to accommodate unprecedentedly high statistics in the rare decay sector. These are purely dimuon decays, and families of semimuonic exclusive channels. Already with data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of \ensuremath{1 fb^{-1}}, the sensitivity in the dimuon channels will be comparable to present measurements (world average). The strategy is to carry on the dimuon channel program up to nominal LHC luminosity. In particular the \ensuremath{B_s \to \mu\mu} signal with \ensuremath{\sim}5 sigma significance can be measured combining low luminosity \ensuremath{10^{33}cm^{-2} s^{-1}} samples with those of one year of LHC operation at a luminosity of \ensuremath{10^{34}cm^{-2} s^{-1}Comment: Submitted for the SUSY07 proceedings, 4 pages, 2 figures, 4 table

Searches for long-lived particles with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Data taken in 2011 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider have been used to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. Results are presented based on luminosities between 2 and 5 fb−1 of √�(s) = 7TeV protonproton collisions focusing on final states with long-lived particles. No evidence of new physics is found

Search for long-lived neutral particles in ATLAS detector

A number of extensions of the Standard Model results in particles that are neutral, weakly coupled and have macroscopic decay lengths comparable with LHC detector dimensions. In the Hidden Valley (HV) models long-lived neutral particles that decay to heavy flavors or pairs of boosted leptons (lepton-jets) can be produced in SUSY processes, Z' decays and Higgs boson decays. Results are presented of a study of the ATLAS Detector performance for the Higgs decays h0 → π0vπ0v → b¯bb¯ b, and h0 → π0vπ0v → UUUU → 4(l+l−), where both π0v and U are neutral and can have a displaced decay. Triggers for processes with such nonstandard signatures have been developed and are now included in the trigger menu for data taking

Dual-readout Calorimetry

The RD52 Project at CERN is a pure instrumentation experiment whose goal is to understand the fundamental limitations to hadronic energy resolution, and other aspects of energy measurement, in high energy calorimeters. We have found that dual-readout calorimetry provides heretofore unprecedented information event-by-event for energy resolution, linearity of response, ease and robustness of calibration, fidelity of data, and particle identification, including energy lost to binding energy in nuclear break-up. We believe that hadronic energy resolutions of {\sigma}/E $\approx$ 1 - 2% are within reach for dual-readout calorimeters, enabling for the first time comparable measurement preci- sions on electrons, photons, muons, and quarks (jets). We briefly describe our current progress and near-term future plans. Complete information on all aspects of our work is available at the RD52 website http://highenergy.phys.ttu.edu/dream/.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Snowmass White pape

Preventing Memory Access Pattern Leakage in Searchable Encryption

With the recent popularity of outsourcing private data to the cloud, there is an increased interest in privacy-enhancing technologies. These technologies were developed to maintain the privacy of a user's identity and have evolved alongside the Internet. The current, most popular solution to maintaining the privacy of this data is with encryption. Searchable encryption was developed to allow a user to search an encrypted data repository without decrypting the data first, but it is susceptible to information leakage through memory access patterns. To address the leakages, oblivious RAM obfuscates the memory accesses of data, so that access patterns do not leak information about the stored data. This poster will look at combining oblivious RAM with encrypted search to prevent access pattern leakage and the associated problems, as well as other proposed solutions.ye

Neutron irradiation test on ATLAS MDT chambers

Abstract The Monitored Drift Tubes (MDT) chambers of the ATLAS muon spectrometer are crucial for the identification of high-momentum final-state muons, which represent very promising and robust signatures of physics at the LHC. They will operate in a high rate and high background environment and therefore their performances should not significantly degrade for the whole ATLAS data taking. The maximum expected total flux, mainly consisting of neutrons and photons in the MeV range, is of the order of 5 kHz/cm 2 for the barrel MDTs, while at SLHC, with machine working at higher luminosity, fluxes can be 10 times higher. To test detector robustness, a MDT test chamber was exposed to intensive neutron irradiation at the TAPIRO ENEA-Casaccia Research Center facility

Electronic band structure of three-dimensional topological insulators with different stoichiometry composition

We report on a comparative theoretical and experimental investigation of the electronic band structure of a family of three-dimensional topological insulators, AIVBi4Te7−xSex (AIV= Sn, Pb;x = 0, 1). We prove by means of density functional theory calculations and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements that partial or total substitution of heavy atoms by lighter isoelectronic ones affects the electronic properties of topological insulators. In particular, we show that the modification of the Dirac cone position relative to the Fermi level and the bulk band gap size can be controlled by varying the stoichiometry of the compound. We also demonstrate that the investigated systems are inert to oxygen exposure.The authors acknowledge financial support from the Saint Petersburg State University (Grant No. 40990069), the Tomsk State University competitiveness improvement program (Grant No. 8.1.01.2018), the Fundamental Research Program of the State Academies of Sciences (line of research III.23.2.9), and the project EUROFEL-ROADMAP ESFRI. This work was also partly supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR) through project PON03PE_00092_1 (EOMAT) and by the Science Development Foundation under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (Grant No. EIF/MQM/Elm-Tehsil-1-2016- 1(26)-71/01/4-M-33). S.V.E. acknowledges support from the Russian Science Foundation (Grant No. 18-12-00169) for part of the electronic band structure calculations.Peer reviewe

Antibiotic and Antiinflammatory Therapy Transiently Reduces Inflammation and Hypercoagulation in Acutely SIV-Infected Pigtailed Macaques

Increased chronic immune activation and inflammation are hallmarks of HIV/SIV infection and are highly correlated with progression to AIDS and development of non-AIDS comorbidities, such as hypercoagulability and cardiovascular disease. Intestinal dysfunction resulting in microbial translocation has been proposed as a lead cause of systemic immune activation and hypercoagulability in HIV/SIV infection. Our goal was to assess the biological and clinical impact of a therapeutic strategy designed to reduce microbial translocation through reduction of the microbial content of the intestine (Rifaximin-RFX) and of gut inflammation (Sulfasalazine-SFZ). RFX is an intraluminal antibiotic that was successfully used in patients with hepatic encephalopathy. SFZ is an antiinflammatory drug successfully used in patients with mild to moderate inflammatory bowel disease. Both these clinical conditions are associated with increased microbial translocation, similar to HIV-infected patients. Treatment was administered for 90 days to five acutely SIV-infected pigtailed macaques (PTMs) starting at the time of infection; seven untreated SIVsab-infected PTMs were used as controls. RFX+SFZ were also administered for 90 days to three chronically SIVsab-infected PTMs. RFX+SFZ administration during acute SIVsab infection of PTMs resulted in: significantly lower microbial translocation, lower systemic immune activation, lower viral replication, better preservation of mucosal CD4+ T cells and significantly lower levels of hypercoagulation biomarkers. This effect was clear during the first 40 days of treatment and was lost during the last stages of treatment. Administration of RFX+SFZ to chronically SIVsab–infected PTMs had no discernible effect on infection. Our data thus indicate that early RFX+SFZ administration transiently improves the natural history of acute and postacute SIV infection, but has no effect during chronic infection

System Test of the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer in the H8 Beam at the CERN SPS

An extensive system test of the ATLAS muon spectrometer has been performed in the H8 beam line at the CERN SPS during the last four years. This spectrometer will use pressurized Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers and Cathode Strip Chambers (CSC) for precision tracking, Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) for triggering in the barrel and Thin Gap Chambers (TGCs) for triggering in the end-cap region. The test set-up emulates one projective tower of the barrel (six MDT chambers and six RPCs) and one end-cap octant (six MDT chambers, A CSC and three TGCs). The barrel and end-cap stands have also been equipped with optical alignment systems, aiming at a relative positioning of the precision chambers in each tower to 30-40 micrometers. In addition to the performance of the detectors and the alignment scheme, many other systems aspects of the ATLAS muon spectrometer have been tested and validated with this setup, such as the mechanical detector integration and installation, the detector control system, the data acquisition, high level trigger software and off-line event reconstruction. Measurements with muon energies ranging from 20 to 300 GeV have allowed measuring the trigger and tracking performance of this set-up, in a configuration very similar to the final spectrometer. A special bunched muon beam with 25 ns bunch spacing, emulating the LHC bunch structure, has been used to study the timing resolution and bunch identification performance of the trigger chambers. The ATLAS first-level trigger chain has been operated with muon trigger signals for the first time

Dual-Readout Calorimetry with Lead Tungstate Crystals

Results are presented of beam tests in which a small electromagnetic calorimeter consisting of lead tungstate crystals was exposed to 50 GeV electrons and pions. This calorimeter was backed up by the DREAM Dual-Readout calorimeter, which measures the scintillation and \v{C}erenkov light produced in the shower development, using two different media. The signals from the crystal calorimeter were analyzed in great detail in an attempt to determine the contributions from these two types of light to the signals, event by event. This information makes it possible to eliminate the dominating source of fluctuations and thus achieve an important improvement in hadronic calorimeter performance.Comment: Preprint submitted to Nucl. Instrum. Meth. on July 23, 200