Electric communication during courtship and spawning in two sibling species of dwarf stonebasher from southern Africa, Pollimyrus castelnaui and P. marianne (Mormyridae, Teleostei): evidence for a non species-specific communication code?

The fixed part of the electrocommunication signal, the electric organ discharge (EOD) waveform, is well differentiated in the two vicariant dwarf stonebasher species, Pollimyrus castelnaui and P. marianne. However, differentiation regarding the variable, situation-dependent part, i.e., inter-discharge interval (IDI) patterns, has never been studied in a pair of sibling species of mormyrid fish. We here compare the electrical signalling that accompanies different motor behaviours (such as resting and swimming, territorial agonistic interactions, courtship and spawning) in the two species. Double pulse patterns of regularly alternating short IDIs of 8-11 ms and long ones of 16-100 ms accompanied threat displays in both species. In three pairs of P. marianne and five pairs of P. castelnaui, courtship was characterised by nest building, territory patrolling and acoustic displays (advertisment calls) that were accompanied by long discharge breaks in the male and highly regular IDIs around 50 ms in the female of both species. Nest-tending males showed IDI sequences consisting of regularly alternating double pulse patterns, similar to threat displays. During spawning both sexes generated stereotyped IDI sequences of a low discharge rate. All IDI patterns occurring in one species were also found in the other, and no species-specifity was identified at that level. Playback experiments contrasting conspecific and heterospecific IDI sequences (that had been recorded from nocturnally swimming fish) revealed preferences in none of the six experimental subjects. Double pulse patterns, high discharge rate displays (HD) and regularisations of the IDI sequence accompanying specific behaviours occurred in similar form in both dwarf stonebasher species of the present study. Therefore, we conclude that in the speciation of P. castelnaui and P. marianne the fixed part of the EOD, its waveform, was under more differential selection pressure than its variable part, the patterns of IDI

J/psi Inclusive Production in nu N Neutral-Current Deep-Inelastic Scattering

We calculate the cross section of J/psi inclusive production in neutrino-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering via the weak neutral current within the factorization formalism of nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics. Besides J/psi single production via the Z-gluon fusion mechanism, we also consider J/psi plus hadron-jet associated production. We take into account both direct production and feed-down from directly-produced heavier charmonia. We present theoretical predictions for the J/psi transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions, which can be measured in the CHORUS and NOMAD experiments at CERN, including conservative error estimates. In order to interpret a recent CHORUS measurement of the total cross section, we also estimate the contribution due to J/psi prompt production via diffractive processes using the vector-meson dominance model.Comment: 34 pages (Latex), 5 figures (Postscript); significantly extended to include feed-down and diffractive contributions and nuclear corrections; accepted for publication in Nucl. Phys.

Color-Octet Contributions to J/psi Photoproduction via Fragmentation at HERA

We study J/psi photoproduction via fragmentation at next-to-leading order in the QCD-improved parton model, using the nonrelativistic factorization formalism proposed by Bodwin, Braaten, and Lepage. We consider direct and resolved photoproduction of prompt J/psi mesons and chi_{cJ} mesons radiatively decaying to J/psi+gamma, taking into account the formation of both color-singlet and color-octet c anti-c states. Adopting the values of the long-distance color-octet matrix elements extracted from fits to prompt-J/psi data recently taken at the Fermilab Tevatron, we predict that measurements of J/psi photoproduction at DESY HERA should show a distinctive excess over the expectation based on the color-singlet model at small values of the inelasticity variable z. This is complementary to the expected enhancement at z close to 1 due to the color-octet contribution to photon-gluon fusion.Comment: 10 pages (Latex), 3 figures (Postscript

J/psi Inclusive Production in ep Deep-Inelastic Scattering at DESY HERA

We calculate the cross section of J/psi plus jet associated production in ep deep-inelastic scattering within the factorization formalism of nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics. Our analytic results disagree with previous analyses, both for the colour-singlet and colour-octet channels. Our theoretical predictions agree reasonably well with recent data taken by the H1 Collaboration at DESY HERA, significantly better than those obtained within the colour-singlet model.Comment: 27 pages (Latex), 9 figures (Postscript), to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Charmonium Production via Fragmentation at DESY HERA

The cross section for the photoproduction of large-p_T J/psi mesons at HERA is calculated at next-to-leading order, adopting a perturbative approach to describe the fragmentation of charm quarks and gluons into J/psi mesons. We treat the charm quark according to the massless factorization scheme, where it is assumed to be one of the active flavours inside the proton and the resolved photon. We present inclusive distributions in transverse momentum and rapidity, including the contributions due to direct and resolved photons. The importance of the colour-octet components of the J/psi wave function, which contribute to the fragmentation process, is emphasized. In addition to prompt J/psi production, we consider also the production of chi_{cJ} states followed by radiative decays to J/psi mesons, both in the colour-singlet and colour-octet channels.Comment: 32 pages (Latex), 12 figures (Postscript

Strong Coupling Constant from Scaling Violations in Fragmentation Functions

We present a new determination of the strong coupling constant alpha_s through the scaling violations in the fragmentation functions for charged pions, charged kaons, and protons. In our fit we include the latest e+e- annihilation data from CERN LEP1 and SLAC SLC on the Z-boson resonance and older, yet very precise data from SLAC PEP at center-of-mass energy sqrt(s)=29 GeV. A new world average of alpha_s is given.Comment: 10 pages, 3 eps figue

Heavy-quark contributions to the ratio F_L/F_2 at low x

We study the heavy-quark contribution to the proton structure functions F_2^i(x,Q^2) and F_L^i(x,Q^2), with i=c,b, for small values of Bjorken's x variable at next-to-lading order and provide compact formulas for their ratios R_i=F_L^i/F_2^i that are useful to extract F_2^i(x,Q^2) from measurements of the doubly differential cross section of inclusive deep-inelastic scattering at DESY HERA. Our approach naturally explains why R_i is approximately independent of x and the details of the parton distributions in the small-x regime.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur

Associated Production of Heavy Quarkonia and Electroweak Bosons at Present and Future Colliders

We investigate the associated production of heavy quarkonia, with angular-momentum quantum numbers ^{2S+1}L_J = ^1S_0, ^3S_1, ^1P_1, ^3P_J (J = 0, 1, 2), and photons, Z bosons, and W bosons in photon-photon, photon-hadron, and hadron-hadron collisions within the factorization formalism of nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics providing all contributing partonic cross sections in analytic form. In the case of photoproduction, we also include the resolved-photon contributions. We present numerical results for the processes involving J/psi and chi_{cJ} mesons appropriate for the Fermilab Tevatron, CERN LHC, DESY TESLA, operated in the e^+ e^- and gamma gamma modes, and DESY THERA.Comment: 41 pages (Latex), 10 figures (Postscript

J/psi plus prompt-photon associated production in two-photon collisions at next-to-leading order

We calculate the cross section of J/psi plus prompt-photon inclusive production in gamma gamma collisions at next-to-leading order within the factorization formalism of nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics (NRQCD) focusing on direct photoproduction. Apart from direct J/psi production, we also include the feed-down from directly-produced chi_{cJ} and psi' mesons. We discuss the analytical calculation, in particular the treatment of the various types of singularities and the NRQCD operator renormalization, in some detail. We present theoretical predictions for the future e^+e^- linear collider TESLA, taking into account both brems- and beamstrahlung.Comment: 31 pages, 9 figure