Deep-learned Top Tagging with a Lorentz Layer

We introduce a new and highly efficient tagger for hadronically decaying top quarks, based on a deep neural network working with Lorentz vectors and the Minkowski metric. With its novel machine learning setup and architecture it allows us to identify boosted top quarks not only from calorimeter towers, but also including tracking information. We show how the performance of our tagger compares with QCD-inspired and image-recognition approaches and find that it significantly increases the performance for strongly boosted top quarks.Comment: v3: minor revisions following SciPost referee report

Invisible Higgs Decays to Hooperons in the NMSSM

The galactic center excess of gamma ray photons can be naturally explained by light Majorana fermions in combination with a pseudoscalar mediator. The NMSSM provides exactly these ingredients. We show that for neutralinos with a significant singlino component the galactic center excess can be linked to invisible decays of the Standard-Model-like Higgs at the LHC. We find predictions for invisible Higgs branching ratios in excess of 50 percent, easily accessible at the LHC. Constraining the NMSSM through GUT-scale boundary conditions only slightly affects this expectation. Our results complement earlier NMSSM studies of the galactic center excess, which link it to heavy Higgs searches at the LHC.Comment: 23 pages, 24 figures; v2: references adde

In situ detection of krill and salps using a video camera system in the Southern Ocean and its further development

The polar expedition PS112 of the research vessel “FS Polarstern” took place from March to May 2018 to study the impact of climate change on the Antarctic ecosystem. Due to the temperature rise in the Antarctic, possible e�ects on the two organism Antarctic krill and salps were investigated. The expedition made a combined e�ort with a CTD rosette water sampler and a video camera system supporting the ecological research goals. In the present master thesis, video recordings were evaluated with regards to the observation of krill and salps. By simultaneously performing CTD measurement, parameters water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll fluorescence, oxygen and water depth of each sighting could be assigned in the video. This mapping provided important information and knowledge about the Antarctic krill and salps, which could not be detected through the use of network traps. Since the used camera system was not a live image system, the video footage could only be downloaded and viewed after completing the measurements. Thus, it was possible to obtain information about the organism which was recorded when and where. The combined use of camera and CTD rosette water sampler has a much greater potential for research investigations when using a live camera system. Therefore, in addition to the evaluation of the video material of Expedition PS 112, the conceptual design of a live camera system that can be integrated in a CTD rosette water sampler system was performed. The use of Fiber optic technology for data transmission o�ers, as applied in this concept, the potential for the construction of a Multi-sensor platform for marine research

Konspirationistisches Denken in den USA

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George in der nichtdeutschsprachigen Literaturkritik

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Conspiracy theories in films and television shows

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Conspiracy Theories – Conspiracy Narratives

In this essay Michael Butter discusses the relation between conspiracy theories and conspiracy narratives

Liebesleuchten und Lynchings: Jonathan Safran Foers Everything is illuminated (2002) und Philip Roths The Plot against America (2004) im Kontext der jüdisch-amerikanischen Holocaustliteratur

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Conspiracy Theory after Trump

The title of this article may seem premature, as American politics is not done with Donald Trump, and Trump definitely is not done with American politics. He may or may not manage to return to the White House, but it is highly likely that he will try. Still, for the time being, the Trump presidency is history, and it is time to assess its effects on American politics in general and conspiracy theory in particular. Accordingly, the "after" in the title does not only indicate a temporal relationship but is also meant to articulate another meaning—admittedly, long obsolete in English—which the Oxford English Dictionary describes as "on the authority of, as stated by, according to (an author or text)" (OED n.d.). In other words, what the author is tracing is the impact that Donald Trump has had (and of course continues to exert) on the forms and functions of conspiracy theory in American political culture. Specifically, he is interested in tracing a shift in the status of conspiracist knowledge within the Republican Party and parts of its electorate. But to assess the impact of Trump we also need to understand what was going on before he entered the scene. This is why this article begins even before his ancestors immigrated to the United States. It ends with a consideration of what might lie in store in the future