Not With a Bang, But a Whimper: The End of the Archaic in Northeast Texas

The Archaic period in Northeast Texas lasted for thousands of years and, if this length of time can be taken as any indication, it was as an extremely successful adaptation to the Holocene environment of North America. Accepting this view, however, begs the question: why and how did the Archaic period come to an end? This paper uses the term Archaic to describe a way of life (see Story 1990:211), and in this sense, the Archaic period in eastern North America may be seen as a tradition, characterized by small, band-level societies, marked by an economy based on hunting, fishing, shell-fishing, and plant-collecting. It has often been described in the past as a period of post-Pleistocene settling in, with increasingly intensive utilization of local resources. The Archaic is generally recognized by the presence of certain cultural attributes, including large and broad-bladed dart points and ground- and polished-stone tools and ornaments. In this regard, Northeast Texas is no different from much of the rest of eastern North America

The Middle Caddoan Period in the Lower Sulphur River Area

For purposes of this review, the Lower Sulphur River in Texas includes the area of the Sulphur River basin from the Arkansas border to the eastern edge of Titus County, and encompasses the area of what is today Wright Patman Lake and the White Oak Creek Wildlife Management Area. Traditionally, the Lower Sulphur River area has been tied to cultural constructs defined in the Red River basin, to the north and east. In his ambitious overview of the Caddoan Culture Area, Don Wyckoff generally placed the Lower Sulphur River area with the cultures of the Great Bend. As defined by current usage in Texas, the Middle Caddoan period dates from A.D. 1200 to A.D. 1400, but it is actually the middle portion of a long period of indigenous Caddoan cultural development, which began anywhere from A.D. 800 to 1000 and lasted until after the arrival of the Europeans. Several researchers have suggested that the strongest (and possibly the only) evidence for continuity from the Early Caddoan period to the Late Caddoan period can be found in the area of the Great Bend of the Red River

Cultural Resources Monitoring/Survey of a JTF-6 Action, Van Horn, Texas Sector

This report presents the results of cultural resources monitoring and survey activities connected with a Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Task Force Six (JTF-6) project in southern Hudspeth and Culberson, western Jeff Davis, and northern Presidio Counties, Texas. These cultural resource activities were prompted by road improvement activities initiated by the U.S. Border Patrol. The road improvement activities were designed to aid the U.S. Border Patrol in their battle against illegal drug trade and smuggling operations along the U.S.-Mexico border. Geo-Marine, Inc. conducted the survey as part of an indefinite delivery contract with the Fort Worth District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The survey and monitoring were tailored to focus only on those areas to be disturbed by road repair activities and to identify cultural resource sites which were to be avoided during such activities

Measurement of the CP-violating phase \phi s in Bs->J/\psi\pi+\pi- decays

Measurement of the mixing-induced CP-violating phase phi_s in Bs decays is of prime importance in probing new physics. Here 7421 +/- 105 signal events from the dominantly CP-odd final state J/\psi pi+ pi- are selected in 1/fb of pp collision data collected at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV with the LHCb detector. A time-dependent fit to the data yields a value of phi_s=-0.019^{+0.173+0.004}_{-0.174-0.003} rad, consistent with the Standard Model expectation. No evidence of direct CP violation is found.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; minor revisions on May 23, 201

Measurement of the Bs0→J/ψKS0B_s^0\to J/\psi K_S^0 branching fraction

The $B_s^0\to J/\psi K_S^0$ branching fraction is measured in a data sample corresponding to 0.41$fb^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected with the LHCb detector at the LHC. This channel is sensitive to the penguin contributions affecting the sin2$\beta$ measurement from $B^0\to J/\psi K_S^0$ The time-integrated branching fraction is measured to be $BF(B_s^0\to J/\psi K_S^0)=(1.83\pm0.28)\times10^{-5}$. This is the most precise measurement to date

Search for CP violation in D+→K−K+π+D^{+} \to K^{-}K^{+}\pi^{+} decays

A model-independent search for direct CP violation in the Cabibbo suppressed decay $D^+ \to K^- K^+\pi^+$ in a sample of approximately 370,000 decays is carried out. The data were collected by the LHCb experiment in 2010 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb$^{-1}$. The normalized Dalitz plot distributions for $D^+$ and $D^-$ are compared using four different binning schemes that are sensitive to different manifestations of CP violation. No evidence for CP asymmetry is found.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Measurement of the ratio of branching fractions BR(B0 -> K*0 gamma)/BR(Bs0 -> phi gamma)

The ratio of branching fractions of the radiative B decays B0 -> K*0 gamma and Bs0 -> phi gamma has been measured using 0.37 fb-1 of pp collisions at a centre of mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, collected by the LHCb experiment. The value obtained is BR(B0 -> K*0 gamma)/BR(Bs0 -> phi gamma) = 1.12 +/- 0.08 ^{+0.06}_{-0.04} ^{+0.09}_{-0.08}, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third is associated to the ratio of fragmentation fractions fs/fd. Using the world average for BR(B0 -> K*0 gamma) = (4.33 +/- 0.15) x 10^{-5}, the branching fraction BR(Bs0 -> phi gamma) is measured to be (3.9 +/- 0.5) x 10^{-5}, which is the most precise measurement to date.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, 2 table

Observation of excited Lambda_b0 baryons

Using pp collision data corresponding to 1.0 fb-1 integrated luminosity collected by the LHCb detector, two narrow states are observed in the Lambda_b0pi+pi- spectrum with masses 5911.97 +- 0.12(stat) +- 0.02(syst) +- 0.66(Lambda_b0 mass) MeV/c^2 and 5919.77 +- 0.08(stat) +- 0.02(syst) +- 0.66(Lambda_b0 mass) MeV/c^2. The significances of the observations are 5.2 and 10.2 standard deviations, respectively. These states are interpreted as the orbitally-excited Lambda_b0 baryons, Lambda_b*0(5912) and Lambda_b*0(5920).Comment: Replaced by version published in Phys. Rev. Lett, modified fit with better mass resolution treatmen

Opposite-side flavour tagging of B mesons at the LHCb experiment

The calibration and performance of the oppositeside flavour tagging algorithms used for the measurements of time-dependent asymmetries at the LHCb experiment are described. The algorithms have been developed using simulated events and optimized and calibrated with B + →J/ψK +, B0 →J/ψK ∗0 and B0 →D ∗− μ + νμ decay modes with 0.37 fb−1 of data collected in pp collisions at √ s = 7 TeV during the 2011 physics run. The oppositeside tagging power is determined in the B + → J/ψK + channel to be (2.10 ± 0.08 ± 0.24) %, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic

Measurements of the branching fractions of the decays B°s → D∓s K± and B°s → D¯sπ+

The decay mode B°s → D∓s K± allows for one of the theoretically cleanest measurements of the CKM angle γ through the study of time-dependent CP violation. This paper reports a measurement of its branching fraction relative to the Cabibbo-favoured mode B°s → D¯sπ+ based on a data sample corresponding to 0.37 fb¯¹ of proton-proton collisions at √s = 7TeV collected in 2011 with the LHCb detector. In addition, the ratio of B meson production fractions fs/fd, determined from semileptonic decays, together with the known branching fraction of the control channel B°s → D¯sπ+ is used to perform an absolute measurement of the branching fractions: B(B°s → D¯sπ+) = (2.95 ± 0.05 ± 0.17 -0.22 +0.18) × 10¯³ ; B(B°s → D∓s K±) = (1.90 ± 0.12 ± 0.13 -0.14 +0.12) × 10¯4 ; where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second the experimental systematic uncertainty, and the third the uncertainty due to f s/f