7,205 research outputs found
Potential of a Neutrino Detector in the ANDES Underground Laboratory for Geophysics and Astrophysics of Neutrinos
The construction of the Agua Negra tunnels that will link Argentina and Chile
under the Andes, the world longest mountain range, opens the possibility to
build the first deep underground labo- ratory in the Southern Hemisphere. This
laboratory has the acronym ANDES (Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site) and its
overburden could be as large as \sim 1.7 km of rock, or 4500 mwe, providing an
excellent low background environment to study physics of rare events like the
ones induced by neutrinos and/or dark matter. In this paper we investigate the
physics potential of a few kiloton size liquid scintillator detector, which
could be constructed in the ANDES laboratory as one of its possible scientific
programs. In particular, we evaluate the impact of such a detector for the
studies of geoneutrinos and galactic supernova neutrinos assuming a fiducial
volume of 3 kilotons as a reference size. We emphasize the complementary roles
of such a detector to the ones in the Northern Hemisphere neutrino facilities
through some advantages due to its geographical location.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures and 9 table
A population-based case-control study on social factors and risk of testicular germ cell tumours
Objectives Incidence rates for testicular cancer have risen over the last few decades. Findings of an association between the risk of testicular cancer and social factors are controversial. The association of testicular cancer and different indicators of social factors were examined in this study.<p></p>
Design Case–control study.<p></p>
Setting Population-based multicentre study in four German regions (city states Bremen and Hamburg, the Saarland region and the city of Essen).<p></p>
Participants The study included 797 control participants and 266 participants newly diagnosed with testicular cancer of which 167 cases were classified as seminoma and 99 as non-seminoma. The age of study participants ranged from 15 to 69 years.<p></p>
Methods Social position was classified by educational attainment level, posteducational training, occupational sectors according to Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarrero (EGP) and the socioeconomic status (SES) on the basis of the International SocioEconomic Index of occupational status (ISEI). ORs and corresponding 95% CIs (95% CIs) were calculated for the whole study sample and for seminoma and non-seminoma separately.<p></p>
Results Testicular cancer risk was modestly increased among participants with an apprenticeship (OR=1.7 (95% CI 1.0 to 2.8)) or a university degree (OR=1.6 (95% CI 0.9 to 2.8)) relative to those whose education was limited to school. Analysis of occupational sectors revealed an excess risk for farmers and farm-related occupations. No clear trend was observed for the analyses according to the ISEI-scale.<p></p>
Conclusions Social factors based on occupational measures were not a risk factor for testicular cancer in this study. The elevated risk in farmers and farm-related occupations warrants further research including analysis of occupational exposures.<p></p>
Characterization of red wines aged with oak chip in the São Francisco Valley, Brazil.
This research aimed to characterize the physicochemical composition of Syrah tropical wines aged with oak chip addition
Neutrino and antineutrino charge-exchange reactions on 12C
We extend the formalism of weak interaction processes, obtaining new
expressions for the transition rates, which greatly facilitate numerical
calculations, both for neutrino-nucleus reactions and muon capture. Explicit
violation of CVC hypothesis by the Coulomb field, as well as development of a
sum rule approach for the inclusive cross sections have been worked out. We
have done a thorough study of exclusive (ground state) properties of B
and N within the projected quasiparticle random phase approximation
(PQRPA). Good agreement with experimental data achieved in this way put in
evidence the limitations of standard RPA and the QRPA models, which come from
the inability of the RPA in opening the shell, and from the
non-conservation of the number of particles in the QRPA. The inclusive
neutrino/antineutrino () reactions C(N
and C(B are calculated within both the PQRPA, and
the relativistic QRPA (RQRPA). It is found that the magnitudes of the resulting
cross-sections: i) are close to the sum-rule limit at low energy, but
significantly smaller than this limit at high energies both for and
, ii) they steadily increase when the size of the configuration
space is augmented, and particulary for energies MeV,
and iii) converge for sufficiently large configuration space and final state
spin. The quasi-elastic C(N cross section recently
measured in the MiniBooNE experiment is briefly discussed. We study the
decomposition of the inclusive cross-section based on the degree of
forbiddenness of different multipoles. A few words are dedicated to the
-C charge-exchange reactions related with astrophysical
applications.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, submitted to Physical Review
Probing Low Energy Neutrino Backgrounds with Neutrino Capture on Beta Decaying Nuclei
We study the interaction of low energy neutrinos on nuclei that spontaneously
undergo beta decay showing that the product of the cross section times neutrino
velocity takes values as high as 10^{-42} cm^2 c for some specific nuclei that
decay via allowed transitions. The absence of energy threshold and the value of
the cross section single out these processes as a promising though very
demanding approach for future experiments aimed at a direct detection of low
energy neutrino backgrounds such as the cosmological relic neutrinos.Comment: Includes a discussion of local relic neutrino density effect on
neutrino capture rate. Accepted for publication in JCA
Weak Long-Ranged Casimir Attraction in Colloidal Crystals
We investigate the influence of geometric confinement on the free energy of
an idealized model for charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions. The mean-field
Poisson-Boltzmann formulation for this system predicts pure repulsion among
macroionic colloidal spheres. Fluctuations in the simple ions' distribution
provide a mechanism for the macroions to attract each other at large
separations. Although this Casimir interaction is long-ranged, it is too weak
to influence colloidal crystals' dynamics.Comment: 5 pages 2 figures ReVTe
Superallowed 0+ to 0+ nuclear beta decays: A new survey with precision tests of the conserved vector current hypothesis and the standard model
A new critical survey is presented of all half-life, decay-energy and
branching-ratio measurements related to 20 0+ to 0+ beta decays. Compared with
our last review, there are numerous improvements: First, we have added 27
recently published measurements and eliminated 9 references; of particular
importance, the new data include a number of high-precision Penning-trap
measurements of decay energies. Second, we have used the recently improved
isospin symmetry-breaking corrections. Third, our calculation of the
statistical rate function now accounts for possible excitation in the daughter
atom. Finally, we have re-examined the systematic uncertainty associated with
the isospin symmetry-breaking corrections by evaluating the radial-overlap
correction using Hartree-Fock radial wave functions and comparing the results
with our earlier calculations, which used Saxon-Woods wave functions; the
provision for systematic uncertainty has been changed as a consequence. The new
corrected Ft values are impressively constant and their average, when combined
with the muon liftime, yields the up-down quark-mixing element of the
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix, V_{ud} = 0.97425(22). The unitarity
test on the top row of the matrix becomes |V_{ud}|^2 + |V_{us}|^2 + |V_{ub}|^2
= 0.99995(61). Both V_{ud} and the unitarity sum have significantly reduced
uncertainties compared with our previous survey, although the new value of
V_{ud} is statistically consistent with the old one. From these data we also
set limits on the possible existence of scalar interactions, right-hand
currents and extra Z bosons. Finally, we discuss the priorities for future
theoretical and experimental work with the goal of making the CKM unitarity
test even more definitive.Comment: 36 pages, 11 tables, 9 figure
A study of semi-inclusive charmless decays
We study semi-inclusive charmless decays in detail, such as
, , , where does not contain a charm (anti)quark. We find that
the process () can be particularly
useful for determination of the CKM matrix element . We calculate and
present the branching ratio (BR) of as a function of
, with an estimate of possible uncertainties. It is expected that the
BR is an order of . Our estimation indicates that one can
phenomenologically determine with reasonable accuracy by measuring
the BR of ().Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures; Revtex; version accepted for publication in Eur.
Phys. J.
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