The Higgs mass as a function of the compactification scale

We calculate to a few percent precision the Higgs potential in a model with supersymmetry broken by boundary conditions on an extra-dimension, compactified to a segment of length $L$, and a top quark quasi-localized on one of the two boundaries. 1/L alone, in the range 2-4 TeV, determines the Higgs mass, in the range 110-125 GeV, and the spectrum of gauginos, higgsinos and of the third-generation squarks. Lower values of 1/L cannot be excluded, with a progressive delocalization of the top quark.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure

Geometry and dimensionality reduction of feature spaces in primary visual cortex

Some geometric properties of the wavelet analysis performed by visual neurons are discussed and compared with experimental data. In particular, several relationships between the cortical morphologies and the parametric dependencies of extracted features are formalized and considered from a harmonic analysis point of view

Electroweak Corrections

The test of the electroweak corrections has played a major role in providing evidence for the gauge and the Higgs sectors of the Standard Model. At the same time the consideration of the electroweak corrections has given significant indirect information on the masses of the top and the Higgs boson before their discoveries and important orientation/constraints on the searches for new physics, still highly valuable in the present situation.The progression of these contributions is reviewed.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, a contribution to "The Standard Theory up to the Higgs discovery - 60 years of CERN

Isotopes in hydrology and hydrogeology

The structure, status, and processes of the groundwater system, which can only be acquired through scientific research efforts, are critical aspects of water resource management. Isotope hydrology and hydrogeology is a genuinely interdisciplinary science. It developed from the application of methods evolved in physics (analytical techniques) to problems of Earth and the environmental sciences since around the 1950s. In this regard, starting from hydrogeochemical data, stable and radioactive isotope data provide essential tools in support of water resource management. The inventory of stable isotopes, which has significant implications for water resources management, has grown in recent years. Methodologies based on the use of isotopes in a full spectrum of hydrological problems encountered in water resource assessment, development, and management activities are already scientifically established and are an integral part of many water resource investigations and environmental studies. The driving force behind this Special Issue was the need to point the hydrological and water resource management societies in the direction of up-to-date research and best practices

Toward an Ab-initio Description of Quasiparticle Properties

Preliminary ab-initio applications of many-body Green's functions theory to the ground state of He-4 suggest that high accuracy can be achieved in the so-called Faddeev-random-phase-approximation method. We stress the potentialities of this approach for microscopic studies of medium-large nuclei and report applications to 1s0d and 1p0f-shell nuclei. In particular, we discuss the role of long-range correlations on spectroscopic factors and their dependence on asymmetry.Comment: Minor corrections and references added -- Proceedings of the Varenna conference, June 15-19, 200

ICHEP2012 Physics Highlights

I describe some of the highlights of ICHEP2012 with an eye to the current status of particle physics.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, ICHEP2012, Melbourn