Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

“We have been magnified for years - now you are under the microscope!": Co-researchers with learning disabilities created an online survey to challenge public understanding of learning disabilities

Public attitudes towards learning disabilities (LDs) are generally reported as positive, inclusive and empathetic. However, these findings do not reflect the lived experiences of people with LDs. To shed light on this disparity, a team of co-researchers with LDs created the first online survey to challenge public understanding of LDs, asking questions in ways that are important to them and represent how they see themselves. Here, we describe and evaluate the process of creating an accessible survey platform and an online survey in a research team consisting of academic and non-academic professionals with and without LDs or autism. Through this inclusive research process, the co-designed survey met the expectations of the co-researchers and was well-received by the initial survey respondents. We reflect on the co-researchers’ perspectives following the study completion, and consider the difficulties and advantages we encountered deploying such approaches and their potential implications on future survey data analysis

Age at first birth in women is genetically associated with increased risk of schizophrenia

Prof. Paunio on PGC:n jäsenPrevious studies have shown an increased risk for mental health problems in children born to both younger and older parents compared to children of average-aged parents. We previously used a novel design to reveal a latent mechanism of genetic association between schizophrenia and age at first birth in women (AFB). Here, we use independent data from the UK Biobank (N = 38,892) to replicate the finding of an association between predicted genetic risk of schizophrenia and AFB in women, and to estimate the genetic correlation between schizophrenia and AFB in women stratified into younger and older groups. We find evidence for an association between predicted genetic risk of schizophrenia and AFB in women (P-value = 1.12E-05), and we show genetic heterogeneity between younger and older AFB groups (P-value = 3.45E-03). The genetic correlation between schizophrenia and AFB in the younger AFB group is -0.16 (SE = 0.04) while that between schizophrenia and AFB in the older AFB group is 0.14 (SE = 0.08). Our results suggest that early, and perhaps also late, age at first birth in women is associated with increased genetic risk for schizophrenia in the UK Biobank sample. These findings contribute new insights into factors contributing to the complex bio-social risk architecture underpinning the association between parental age and offspring mental health.Peer reviewe

Search for jet extinction in the inclusive jet-pT spectrum from proton-proton collisions at s=8 TeV

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published articles title, journal citation, and DOI.The first search at the LHC for the extinction of QCD jet production is presented, using data collected with the CMS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.7  fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The extinction model studied in this analysis is motivated by the search for signatures of strong gravity at the TeV scale (terascale gravity) and assumes the existence of string couplings in the strong-coupling limit. In this limit, the string model predicts the suppression of all high-transverse-momentum standard model processes, including jet production, beyond a certain energy scale. To test this prediction, the measured transverse-momentum spectrum is compared to the theoretical prediction of the standard model. No significant deficit of events is found at high transverse momentum. A 95% confidence level lower limit of 3.3 TeV is set on the extinction mass scale

Azimuthal anisotropies of charged particles with high transverse momentum in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement is presented of elliptic (v2) and triangular (v3) azimuthal anisotropy coefficients for charged particles produced in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV using a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.44 nb−1 collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2018. The values of v2 and v3 are measured for charged particles over a wide range of transverse momentum (pT), 1–400 GeV, and Pb+Pb collision centrality, 0–60%, using the scalar-product and multiparticle cumulant methods. These methods are sensitive to event-by-event fluctuations and nonflow effects in the measurements of azimuthal anisotropies. Positive values of v2 are observed up to a pT of approximately 100 GeV from both methods across all centrality intervals. Positive values of v3 are observed up to approximately 25 GeV using both methods, though the application of the three-subevent technique to the multiparticle cumulant method leads to significant changes at the highest pT. At high pT (pT 10 GeV), charged particles are dominantly from jet fragmentation. These jets, and hence the measurements presented here, are sensitive to the path-length dependence of parton energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma produced in Pb+Pb collisions

Energy scale and resolution for anti-kt jets with radius parameters R = 0.2 and 0.6 measured in proton-proton collisions at s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Jets with different radius parameters R are an important tool for probing quantum chromodynamics processes at different angular scales. Jets with small R = 0.2 are instrumental in measurements of the substructure of largeR jets resulting from collimated hadronic decays of energetic W, Z, and Higgs bosons, top quarks, and of potential new resonances. This paper presents measurements of the energy scale, resolution, and associated uncertainties of jets with radius parameters R = 0.2 and 0.6, obtained using the ATLAS detector. The results are based on 37 fb−1 of proton– proton collision data from the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV. A new in situ method for measuring jet energy scale differences between data and Monte Carlo simulations is presented. The systematic uncertainties in the jet energy scale for central jets (|η| < 1.2) typically vary from 1% to about 5% as a function of |η| at very low transverse momentum, pT, of around 20 GeV for both R = 0.2 and 0.6 jets. The relative energy resolution ranges from (35 ± 6)% at pT = 20 GeV to (6 ± 0.5)% at pT = 300 GeV for central R = 0.2 jets, and is found to be slightly worse for R = 0.6 jets. Finally, the effect of close-by hadronic activity on the jet energy scale is investigated and is found to be well modelled by the ATLAS Monte Carlo simulations

Precision measurement of the B0 meson lifetime using B0 → J/ψ K∗0 decays with the ATLAS detector

Abstract A measurement of the $$B^{0}$$ B 0 meson lifetime using $$B^{0} \rightarrow J/\psi K^{*0}$$ B 0 → J / ψ K ∗ 0 decays in data from 13  $$\text {TeV}$$ TeV proton–proton collisions with an integrated luminosity of $$140~\mathrm {fb^{-1}}$$ 140 fb - 1 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented. The measured effective lifetime is $$\tau = 1.5053\pm 0.0012~\mathrm {(stat.)} \pm 0.0035~\mathrm {(syst.)~ps}.$$ τ = 1.5053 ± 0.0012 ( stat . ) ± 0.0035 ( syst . ) ps . The average decay width extracted from the effective lifetime, using parameters from external sources, is $$\begin{aligned} \Gamma _d = 0.6639\pm 0.0005~\mathrm {(stat.)} \pm 0.0016~\mathrm {(syst.)}\\ \pm 0.0038~\text {(ext.)} \text {~ps}^{-1}, \end{aligned}$$ Γ d = 0.6639 ± 0.0005 ( stat . ) ± 0.0016 ( syst . ) ± 0.0038 (ext.) ps - 1 , where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic and from external sources. The earlier ATLAS measurement of $$\Gamma _s$$ Γ s in the $$B^{0}_{s} \rightarrow J/\psi \phi$$ B s 0 → J / ψ ϕ decay was used to derive a value for the ratio of the average decay widths $$\Gamma _d$$ Γ d and $$\Gamma _s$$ Γ s for $$B^{0}$$ B 0 and $$B^{0}_{s}$$ B s 0 mesons respectively, of $$\frac{\Gamma _d }{\Gamma _s } = 0.9905\pm 0.0022~\text {(stat.)} \pm 0.0036~\text {(syst.)} \pm 0.0057~\text {(ext.)}.$$ Γ d Γ s = 0.9905 ± 0.0022 (stat.) ± 0.0036 (syst.) ± 0.0057 (ext.) . The measured lifetime, average decay width and decay width ratio are in agreement with theoretical predictions and with measurements by other experiments. This measurement provides the most precise result of the effective lifetime of the $$B^{0}$$ B 0 meson to date. </jats:p

Deep generative models for fast photon shower simulation in ATLAS

The need for large-scale production of highly accurate simulated event samples for the extensive physics programme of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider motivates the development of new simulation techniques. Building on the recent success of deep learning algorithms, variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks are investigated for modelling the response of the central region of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter to photons of various energies. The properties of synthesised showers are compared with showers from a full detector simulation using geant4. Both variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks are capable of quickly simulating electromagnetic showers with correct total energies and stochasticity, though the modelling of some shower shape distributions requires more refinement. This feasibility study demonstrates the potential of using such algorithms for ATLAS fast calorimeter simulation in the future and shows a possible way to complement current simulation techniques

Search for heavy Majorana or Dirac neutrinos and right-handed W gauge bosons in final states with charged leptons and jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy right-handed Majorana or Dirac neutrinos NR and heavy right-handed gauge bosons WR is performed in events with energetic electrons or muons, with the same or opposite electric charge, and energetic jets. The search is carried out separately for topologies of clearly separated final-state products (“resolved” channel) and topologies with boosted final states with hadronic and/or leptonic products partially overlapping and reconstructed as a large-radius jet (“boosted” channel). The events are selected from pp collision data at the LHC with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 collected by the ATLAS detector at √s = 13 TeV. No significant deviations from the Standard Model predictions are observed. The results are interpreted within the theoretical framework of a left-right symmetric model, and lower limits are set on masses in the heavy righthanded WR boson and NR plane. The excluded region extends to about m(WR) = 6.4 TeV for both Majorana and Dirac NR neutrinos at m(NR) < 1 TeV. NR with masses of less than 3.5 (3.6) TeV are excluded in the electron (muon) channel at m(WR) = 4.8 TeV for the Majorana neutrinos, and limits of m(NR) up to 3.6 TeV for m(WR) = 5.2 (5.0) TeV in the electron (muon) channel are set for the Dirac neutrinos. These constitute the most stringent exclusion limits to date for the model considered