Validation of Observed Bedload Transport Pathways Using Morphodynamic Modeling

Phenomena related to braiding, including local scour and fill, channel bar development, migration and avulsion, make numerical morphodynamic modeling of braided rivers challenging. This paper investigates the performance of a Delft3D model, in a 2D depth-averaged formulation, to simulate the morphodynamics of an anabranch of the Rees River (New Zealand). Model performance is evaluated using data from field surveys collected on the falling limb of a major high flow, and using several sediment transport formulas. Initial model results suggest that there is generally good agreement between observed and modeled bed levels. However, some discrepancies in the bed level estimations were noticed, leading to bed level, water depth and water velocity estimation errors

Identifying mechanisms that predict weight trajectory after bariatric surgery: rationale and design of the biobehavioral trial

Bariatric surgery is currently the most efficacious and durable intervention for severe obesity. The most commonly performed procedures in the United States are the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and the sleeve gastrectomy, which involve significant anatomic and physiologic alterations that lead to changes in behavior and biology. Unfortunately, many patients experience suboptimal weight loss and/or substantial weight regain. Eating and physical activity/sedentary behaviors, mood, cognition, and the gut microbiome all change postoperatively and have an association with weight change. The longitudinal relationship between changes in the gut microbiome and postoperative weight trajectory has not been explored thoroughly, and the interactive associations among the gut microbiome and the other variables that impact weight have been similarly understudied. The following is a methods and design description for a prospective, 24-month longitudinal study of 144 bariatric surgery patients, at 2 sites, that aimed to identify predictors of weight loss trajectories over 24 months after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and the sleeve gastrectomy. Specifically, the study will examine the relationships between empirically supported behavioral and biological variables and their combined impact on postoperative weight trajectories. Novel data collection will include intensive measurement of problematic eating behaviors and diet and physical activity postoperatively, which may be altered in parallel with, or in response to, changes observed in the gut microbiota. Identifying postoperative predictors of weight loss and co-morbidity resolution should inform development of novel interventions that are tailored to individual patients’ risk profiles to optimize and sustain more favorable weight trajectories

Recent Advances in Understanding Particle Acceleration Processes in Solar Flares

We review basic theoretical concepts in particle acceleration, with particular emphasis on processes likely to occur in regions of magnetic reconnection. Several new developments are discussed, including detailed studies of reconnection in three-dimensional magnetic field configurations (e.g., current sheets, collapsing traps, separatrix regions) and stochastic acceleration in a turbulent environment. Fluid, test-particle, and particle-in-cell approaches are used and results compared. While these studies show considerable promise in accounting for the various observational manifestations of solar flares, they are limited by a number of factors, mostly relating to available computational power. Not the least of these issues is the need to explicitly incorporate the electrodynamic feedback of the accelerated particles themselves on the environment in which they are accelerated. A brief prognosis for future advancement is offered.Comment: This is a chapter in a monograph on the physics of solar flares, inspired by RHESSI observations. The individual articles are to appear in Space Science Reviews (2011

Software performance of the ATLAS track reconstruction for LHC run 3

Charged particle reconstruction in the presence of many simultaneous proton–proton (pp) collisions in the LHC is a challenging task for the ATLAS experiment’s reconstruction software due to the combinatorial complexity. This paper describes the major changes made to adapt the software to reconstruct high-activity collisions with an average of 50 or more simultaneous pp interactions per bunch crossing (pileup) promptly using the available computing resources. The performance of the key components of the track reconstruction chain and its dependence on pile-up are evaluated, and the improvement achieved compared to the previous software version is quantified. For events with an average of 60 pp collisions per bunch crossing, the updated track reconstruction is twice as fast as the previous version, without significant reduction in reconstruction efficiency and while reducing the rate of combinatorial fake tracks by more than a factor two

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

Beam-induced backgrounds measured in the ATLAS detector during local gas injection into the LHC beam vacuum

Inelastic beam-gas collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), within a few hundred metres of the ATLAS experiment, are known to give the dominant contribution to beam backgrounds. These are monitored by ATLAS with a dedicated Beam Conditions Monitor (BCM) and with the rate of fake jets in the calorimeters. These two methods are complementary since the BCM probes backgrounds just around the beam pipe while fake jets are observed at radii of up to several metres. In order to quantify the correlation between the residual gas density in the LHC beam vacuum and the experimental backgrounds recorded by ATLAS, several dedicated tests were performed during LHC Run 2. Local pressure bumps, with a gas density several orders of magnitude higher than during normal operation, were introduced at different locations. The changes of beam-related backgrounds, seen in ATLAS, are correlated with the local pressure variation. In addition the rates of beam-gas events are estimated from the pressure measurements and pressure bump profiles obtained from calculations. Using these rates, the efficiency of the ATLAS beam background monitors to detect beam-gas events is derived as a function of distance from the interaction point. These efficiencies and characteristic distributions of fake jets from the beam backgrounds are found to be in good agreement with results of beam-gas simulations performed with theFluka Monte Carlo programme

Observation of four-top-quark production in the multilepton final state with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the observation of four-top-quark (tt¯tt¯) production in proton-proton collisions at the LHC. The analysis is performed using an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1 at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected using the ATLAS detector. Events containing two leptons with the same electric charge or at least three leptons (electrons or muons) are selected. Event kinematics are used to separate signal from background through a multivariate discriminant, and dedicated control regions are used to constrain the dominant backgrounds. The observed (expected) significance of the measured tt¯tt¯ signal with respect to the standard model (SM) background-only hypothesis is 6.1 (4.3) standard deviations. The tt¯tt¯ production cross section is measured to be 22.5+6.6−5.5 fb, consistent with the SM prediction of 12.0±2.4 fb within 1.8 standard deviations. Data are also used to set limits on the three-top-quark production cross section, being an irreducible background not measured previously, and to constrain the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling and effective field theory operator coefficients that affect tt¯tt¯ production

Search for the Zγ decay mode of new high-mass resonances in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This letter presents a search for narrow, high-mass resonances in the Zγ final state with the Z boson decaying into a pair of electrons or muons. The √s = 13 TeV pp collision data were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider and have an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1. The data are found to be in agreement with the Standard Model background expectation. Upper limits are set on the resonance production cross section times the decay branching ratio into Zγ. For spin-0 resonances produced via gluon–gluon fusion, the observed limits at 95% confidence level vary between 65.5 fb and 0.6 fb, while for spin-2 resonances produced via gluon–gluon fusion (or quark–antiquark initial states) limits vary between 77.4 (76.1) fb and 0.6 (0.5) fb, for the mass range from 220 GeV to 3400 GeV

The ATLAS trigger system for LHC Run 3 and trigger performance in 2022

The ATLAS trigger system is a crucial component of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. It is responsible for selecting events in line with the ATLAS physics programme. This paper presents an overview of the changes to the trigger and data acquisition system during the second long shutdown of the LHC, and shows the performance of the trigger system and its components in the proton-proton collisions during the 2022 commissioning period as well as its expected performance in proton-proton and heavy-ion collisions for the remainder of the third LHC data-taking period (2022–2025)

Search for single production of vector-like T quarks decaying into Ht or Zt in pp collisions at s√ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper describes a search for the single production of an up-type vector-like quark (T) decaying as T → Ht or T → Zt. The search utilises a dataset of pp collisions at s√ = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector during the 2015–2018 data-taking period of the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. Data are analysed in final states containing a single lepton with multiple jets and b-jets. The presence of boosted heavy resonances in the event is exploited to discriminate the signal from the Standard Model background. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed, and 95% CL upper limits are set on the production cross section of T quarks in different decay channels. The results are interpreted in several benchmark scenarios to set limits on the mass and universal coupling strength (κ) of the vector-like quark. For singlet T quarks, κ values above 0.53 are excluded for all masses below 2.3 TeV. At a mass of 1.6 TeV, κ values as low as 0.35 are excluded. For T quarks in the doublet scenario, where the production cross section is much lower, κ values above 0.72 are excluded for all masses below 1.7 TeV, and this exclusion is extended to κ above 0.55 for low masses around 1.0 TeV