The role of mini-grids for electricity access and climate change mitigation in India

Sustainable Development Goal 7 aims to achieve access to sustainable, affordable, reliable, and modern energy for all. Access to electricity is critical for development and economic growth and can support productive livelihoods and power critical community services such as for healthcare and education. Solar mini-grids can offer the most cost-effective option for rural and remote communities not yet connected to the grid and can deliver reliable, high-quality power which is able to serve multiple uses and meet growing demand over time

Off-grid solar photovoltaic systems for rural electrification and emissions mitigation in India

Over one billion people lack access to electricity and many of them in rural areas far from existing infrastructure. Off-grid systems can provide an alternative to extending the grid network and using renewable energy, for example solar photovoltaics (PV) and battery storage, can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from electricity that would otherwise come from fossil fuel sources. This paper presents a model capable of comparing several mature and emerging PV technologies for rural electrification with diesel generation and grid extension for locations in India in terms of both the levelised cost and lifecycle emissions intensity of electricity. The levelised cost of used electricity, ranging from $0.46–1.20/kWh, and greenhouse gas emissions are highly dependent on the PV technology chosen, with battery storage contributing significantly to both metrics. The conditions under which PV and storage becomes more favourable than grid extension are calculated and hybrid systems of PV, storage and diesel generation are evaluated. Analysis of expected price evolutions suggest that the most cost-effective hybrid systems will be dominated by PV generation around 2018

Performance of a Tungsten-Cerium Fluoride Sampling Calorimeter in High-Energy Electron Beam Tests

A prototype for a sampling calorimeter made out of cerium fluoride crystals interleaved with tungsten plates, and read out by wavelength-shifting fibres, has been exposed to beams of electrons with energies between 20 and 150 GeV, produced by the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator complex. The performance of the prototype is presented and compared to that of a Geant4 simulation of the apparatus. Particular emphasis is given to the response uniformity across the channel front face, and to the prototype's energy resolution.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to NIM

Search for new physics in final states with two opposite-sign, same-flavor leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV

A search is presented for physics beyond the standard model in final states with two opposite-sign, same-flavor leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 fb 121 of proton-proton collisions at s 1a=13 TeV collected with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2015. The analysis uses the invariant mass of the lepton pair, searching for a kinematic edge or a resonant-like excess compatible with the Z boson mass. Both search modes use several event categories in order to increase the sensitivity to new physics. These categories are based on the rapidity of the leptons, the multiplicity of jets and b jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta, and missing transverse momentum. The observations in all signal regions are consistent with the expectations from the standard model, and the results are interpreted in the context of simplified models of supersymmetry

Multiplicity and rapidity dependence of strange hadron production in pp, pPb, and PbPb collisions at the LHC

Measurements of strange hadron (View the MathML sourceKS0, View the MathML source\u39b+\u39b\u203e, and View the MathML source\u39e 12+\u39e\u203e+) transverse momentum spectra in pppp, pPbpPb, and PbPb collisions are presented over a wide range of rapidity and event charged-particle multiplicity. The data were collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC in pppp collisions at View the MathML sources=7TeV, pPbpPb collisions at View the MathML sourcesNN=5.02TeV, and PbPb collisions at View the MathML sourcesNN=2.76TeV. The average transverse kinetic energy is found to increase with multiplicity, at a faster rate for heavier strange particle species in all systems. At similar multiplicities, the difference in average transverse kinetic energy between different particle species is observed to be larger for pppp and pPbpPb events than for PbPb events. In pPbpPb collisions, the average transverse kinetic energy is found to be slightly larger in the Pb-going direction than in the p-going direction for events with large multiplicity. The spectra are compared to models motivated by hydrodynamics

Search for new phenomena in events with high jet multiplicity and low missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

A dedicated search is presented for new phenomena in inclusive 8- and 10-jet final states with low missing transverse momentum, with and without identification of jets originating from b quarks. The analysis is based on data from proton\u2013proton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7fb 121 collected with the CMS detector at the LHC at s=8TeV. The dominant multijet background expectations are obtained from low jet multiplicity control samples. Data agree well with the standard model background predictions, and limits are set in several benchmark models. Colorons (axigluons) with masses between 0.6 and 0.75 (up to 1.15)\u2009TeV are excluded at 95% confidence level. Similar exclusion limits for gluinos in R-parity violating supersymmetric scenarios are from 0.6 up to 1.1\u2009TeV. These results comprise the first experimental probe of the coloron and axigluon models in multijet final states

Observation of top quark pairs produced in association with a vector boson in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV

Measurements of the cross sections for top quark pairs produced in association with a W or Z boson are presented, using 8TeV pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 fb1, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. Final states are selected in which the associated W boson decays to a charged lepton and a neutrino or the Z boson decays to two charged leptons. Signal events are identied by matching reconstructed objects in the detector to specic nal state particles from ttW or ttZ decays. The ttW cross section is measured to be 382+117 102 fb with a signicance of 4.8 standard deviations from the background-only hypothesis. The ttZ cross section is measured to be 242+65 55 fb with a signicance of 6.4 standard deviations from the background-only hypothesis. These measurements are used to set bounds on ve anomalous dimension-six operators that would aect the ttW and ttZ cross sections

Pseudorapidity dependence of long-range two-particle correlations in pPb collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 5.02 TeV

Two-particle correlations in pPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02TeV are studied as a function of the pseudorapidity separation (\u394\u3b7) of the particle pair at small relative azimuthal angle (|\u394\u3d5|<\u3c0/3). The correlations are decomposed into a jet component that dominates the short-range correlations (|\u394\u3b7|<1), and a component that persists at large \u394\u3b7 and may originate from collective behavior of the produced system. The events are classified in terms of the multiplicity of the produced particles. Finite azimuthal anisotropies are observed in high-multiplicity events. The second and third Fourier components of the particle-pair azimuthal correlations, V2 and V3, are extracted after subtraction of the jet component. The single-particle anisotropy parameters v2 and v3 are normalized by their laboratory frame midrapidity value and are studied as a function of \u3b7c.m.. The normalized v2 distribution is found to be asymmetric about \u3b7c.m.=0, with smaller values observed at forward pseudorapidity, corresponding to the direction of the proton beam, while no significant pseudorapidity dependence is observed for the normalized v3 distribution within the statistical uncertainties

Measurement of the W+W- cross section in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV and limits on anomalous gauge couplings

A measurement of the W boson pair production cross section in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ TeV is presented. The data collected with the CMS detector at the LHC correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.4$\,\text {fb}^\text {-1}$. The ${{\mathrm{W} }^{+} }\mathrm{W}^{-}$ candidates are selected from events with two charged leptons, electrons or muons, and large missing transverse energy. The measured ${{\mathrm{W} }^{+} }\mathrm{W}^{-}$ cross section is $60.1\pm 0.9\,\text {(stat)} \pm 3.2\,\text {(exp)} \pm 3.1\,\text {(theo)} \pm 1.6\,\text {(lumi)} \text {\,pb} = 60.1\pm 4.8\text {\,pb}$, consistent with the standard model prediction. The ${{\mathrm{W} }^{+} }\mathrm{W}^{-}$ cross sections are also measured in two different fiducial phase space regions. The normalized differential cross section is measured as a function of kinematic variables of the final-state charged leptons and compared with several perturbative QCD predictions. Limits on anomalous gauge couplings associated with dimension-six operators are also given in the framework of an effective field theory. The corresponding 95 % confidence level intervals are $-5.7< c_{\mathrm {WWW}}/\Lambda ^2 < 5.9\,\mathrm{TeV}^{-2}$, $-11.4< c_{\mathrm {W}}/\Lambda ^2 < 5.4\,\mathrm{TeV}^{-2}$, $-29.2< c_{\mathrm {B}}/\Lambda ^2 < 23.9\,\mathrm{TeV}^{-2}$, in the HISZ basis