The FAMU experiment: muonic atoms to probe the proton structure

The goal of the FAMU experiment is the measurement of the proton Zemach radius using muonic hydrogen, a subject that has raised much interest in recent years due to its implications in the so-called proton radius puzzle. In order to extract the Zemach radius, the FAMU collaboration aims at measuring the hyperfine splitting of the µp ground state, since the effect of the proton finite size affects the HF transition energy. The proposed experimental method requires a detection system which is suited for time resolved X-ray spectroscopy: in this contribution the results of the first measurements performed at the RIKEN-RAL muon facility in order to verify the fitness of the detection system in the pulsed intense muon beam are presented. The characteristic X-rays from atomic transitions in muonic atoms formed in different targets have been detected using a HPGe detector and five scintillating counters based on LaBr3(Ce) crystals, whose output has been recorded for 5 ps using a 500 MHz digitizer to measure both the energy and the time spectrum of the detected events. With a detailed pulse analysis considering pile-up events, both the expected characteristic X-rays and lifetimes of various elements were measured, paving the way for future measurements to be carried out in early 2016

Polarized Parton Distributions at an Electron-Ion Collider

We study the potential impact of inclusive deep-inelastic scattering data from a future electron-ion collider (EIC) on longitudinally polarized parton distribution (PDFs). We perform a PDF determination using the NNPDF methodology, based on sets of deep-inelastic EIC pseudodata, for different realistic choices of the electron and proton beam energies. We compare the results to our current polarized PDF set, NNPDFpol1.0, based on a fit to fixed-target inclusive DIS data. We show that the uncertainties on the first moments of the polarized quark singlet and gluon distributions are substantially reduced in comparison to NNPDFpol1.0, but also that more measurements may be needed to ultimately pin down the size of the gluon contribution to the nucleon spin.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Two plots in Fig.5 added and discussion of extrapolation uncertainties expanded. Final version, published in Phys. Lett.

Progress on neural parton distributions

We give a status report on the determination of a set of parton distributions based on neural networks. In particular, we summarize the determination of the nonsinglet quark distribution up to NNLO, we compare it with results obtained using other approaches, and we discuss its use for a determination of $\alpha_s$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figs, uses dis2007.cls, to appear in the DIS 2007 workshop proceeding

Recent progress on NNPDF for LHC

We present recent results of the NNPDF collaboration on a full DIS analysis of Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs). Our method is based on the idea of combining a Monte Carlo sampling of the probability measure in the space of PDFs with the use of neural networks as unbiased universal interpolating functions. The general structure of the project and the features of the fit are described and compared to those of the traditional approaches.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, contribution for the proceedings of the conference "Rencontres de Moriond, QCD and High Energy Interactions

The impact of heavy quark mass effects in the NNPDF global analysis

We discuss the implementation of the FONLL general-mass scheme for heavy quarks in deep-inelastic scattering in the FastKernel framework, used in the NNPDF series of global PDF analysis. We present the general features of FONLL and benchmark the accuracy of its implementation in FastKernel comparing with the Les Houches heavy quark benchmark tables. We then show preliminary results of the NNPDF2.1 analysis, in which heavy quark mass effects are included following the FONLL-A GM scheme.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; to appear in the proceedings of DIS 2010, Firenz

Progress in the Neural Network Determination of Polarized Parton Distributions

We review recent progress towards a determination of a set of polarized parton distributions from a global set of deep-inelastic scattering data based on the NNPDF methodology, in analogy with the unpolarized case. This method is designed to provide a faithful and statistically sound representation of parton distributions and their uncertainties. We show how the FastKernel method provides a fast and accurate method for solving the polarized DGLAP equations. We discuss the polarized PDF parametrizations and the physical constraints which can be imposed. Preliminary results suggest that the uncertainty on polarized PDFs, most notably the gluon, has been underestimated in previous studies.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the proceedings of DIS 2010, Firenz

Parton distributions: determining probabilities in a space of functions

We discuss the statistical properties of parton distributions within the framework of the NNPDF methodology. We present various tests of statistical consistency, in particular that the distribution of results does not depend on the underlying parametrization and that it behaves according to Bayes' theorem upon the addition of new data. We then study the dependence of results on consistent or inconsistent datasets and present tools to assess the consistency of new data. Finally we estimate the relative size of the PDF uncertainty due to data uncertainties, and that due to the need to infer a functional form from a finite set of data.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, presented by Stefano Forte at PHYSTAT 2011 (to be published in the proceedings

Polygenic risk associated with post-traumatic stress disorder onset and severity.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric illness with a highly polygenic architecture without large effect-size common single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Thus, to capture a substantial portion of the genetic contribution, effects from many variants need to be aggregated. We investigated various aspects of one such approach that has been successfully applied to many traits, polygenic risk score (PRS) for PTSD. Theoretical analyses indicate the potential prediction ability of PRS. We used the latest summary statistics from the largest published genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted by Psychiatric Genomics Consortium for PTSD (PGC-PTSD). We found that the PRS constructed for a cohort comprising veterans of recent wars (n = 244) explains a considerable proportion of PTSD onset (Nagelkerke R2 = 4.68%, P = 0.003) and severity (R2 = 4.35%, P = 0.0008) variances. However, the performance on an African ancestry sub-cohort was minimal. A PRS constructed with schizophrenia GWAS also explained a significant fraction of PTSD diagnosis variance (Nagelkerke R2 = 2.96%, P = 0.0175), confirming previously reported genetic correlation between the two psychiatric ailments. Overall, these findings demonstrate the important role polygenic analyses of PTSD will play in risk prediction models as well as in elucidating the biology of the disorder

Dijet rates with symmetric E_t cuts

We consider dijet production in the region where symmetric cuts on the transverse energy, $E_t$, are applied to the jets. In this region next-to--leading order calculations are unreliable and an all-order resummation of soft gluon effects is needed, which we carry out. Although, for illustrative purposes, we choose dijets produced in deep inelastic scattering, our general ideas apply additionally to dijets produced in photoproduction or $\gamma \gamma$ processes and should be relevant also to the study of prompt di-photon $E_t$ spectra in association with a recoiling jet, in hadron-hadron processesComment: 28 pages, 4 figure