Svestka's Research: Then and Now

Zdenek Svestka's research work influenced many fields of solar physics, especially in the area of flare research. In this article I take five of the areas that particularly interested him and assess them in a "then and now" style. His insights in each case were quite sound, although of course in the modern era we have learned things that he could not readily have envisioned. His own views about his research life have been published recently in this journal, to which he contributed so much, and his memoir contains much additional scientific and personal information (Svestka, 2010).Comment: Invited review for "Solar and Stellar Flares," a conference in honour of Prof. Zden\v{e}k \v{S}vestka, Prague, June 23-27, 2014. This is a contribution to a Topical Issue in Solar Physics, based on the presentations at this meeting (Editors Lyndsay Fletcher and Petr Heinzel

On the influence of the cosmological constant on gravitational lensing in small systems

The cosmological constant Lambda affects gravitational lensing phenomena. The contribution of Lambda to the observable angular positions of multiple images and to their amplification and time delay is here computed through a study in the weak deflection limit of the equations of motion in the Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric. Due to Lambda the unresolved images are slightly demagnified, the radius of the Einstein ring decreases and the time delay increases. The effect is however negligible for near lenses. In the case of null cosmological constant, we provide some updated results on lensing by a Schwarzschild black hole.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure; v2: extended discussion on the lens equation, references added, results unchanged, in press on PR

Production of Υ(nS) mesons in Pb+Pb and pp collisions at 5.02 TeV

A measurement of the production of vector bottomonium states, Υ ( 1S ) , Υ ( 2S ) , and Υ ( 3S ) , in Pb + Pb and p p collisions at a center-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 5.02 TeV is presented. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of 1.38 nb − 1 of Pb + Pb data collected in 2018, 0.44 nb − 1 of Pb + Pb data collected in 2015, and 0.26 fb − 1 of p p data collected in 2017 by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are performed in the dimuon decay channel for transverse momentum p μ μ T < 30 GeV , absolute rapidity | y μ μ | < 1.5 , and Pb + Pb event centrality 0–80%. The production rates of the three bottomonium states in Pb + Pb collisions are compared with those in p p collisions to extract the nuclear modification factors as functions of event centrality, p μ μ T , and | y μ μ | . In addition, the suppression of the excited states relative to the ground state is studied. The results are compared with theoretical model calculations

Search for b-->u transitions in B- --> DK- and B- --> D*K- Decays

We report results from an updated study of the suppressed decays B{sup -} --> DK{sup -} and B{sup -} --> D*K{sup -} followed by D --> K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, where D{sup (*)} indicates a D{sup (*)0} or a {anti D}{sup (*)0} meson, and D{sup *} --> D{tau}{sup 0} or D{sup *} --> D{gamma}. These decays are sensitive to the CKM unitarity triangle angle {gamma} due to interference between the b --> c transition B{sup -} --> D{sup (*)0}K{sup -} followed by the double Cabibbo-suppressed decay D{sup 0} --> K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}, and the b --> u transition B{sup -} --> {anti D}{sup (*)0}K{sup -} followed by the Cabibbo-favored decay {anti D}{sup 0} --> K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}. We also report an analysis of the decay B{sup -} --> D{sup (*)}{pi}{sup -} with the D decaying into the doubly Cabibbo-suppressed mode D --> K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}. Our results are based on 467 million {Upsilon}(4S) --> B{anti B} decays collected with the BABAR detector at SLAC. We measure the ratios R{sup (*)} of the suppressed ([K{sup +}{pi}{sup -}]{sub D}K{sup -}/{pi}{sup -}) to favored ([K{sup -}{pi}{sup +}]{sub D}K{sup -}/{pi}{sup -}) branching fractions as well as the CP asymmetries A{sup (*)} of those modes. We see indications of signals for the B{sup -} --> DK{sup -} and B{sup -} --> D{sup *}{sub D{pi}{sup 0}}K{sup -} suppressed modes, with statistical significances of 2.1 and 2.2{sigma}, respectively, and we measure: R{sub DK} = (1.1 {+-} 0.6 {+-} 0.2) x 10{sup -2}, A{sub DK} = -0.86 {+-} 0.47 {sup +0.12}{sub -0.16}, R{sup *}{sub (D{pi}{sup 0})K} = (1.8 {+-} 0.9 {+-} 0.4) x 10{sup -2}, A{sup *}{sub (D{pi}{sup 0})K} = +0.77 {+-} 0.35 {+-} 0.12, R{sup *}{sub (D{gamma})K} = (1.3 {+-} 1.4 {+-} 0.8) x 10{sup -2}, A{sup *}{sub (D{gamma})K} = +0.36 {+-} 0.94 {sup +0.25}{sub -0.41}, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. we use a frequentist approach to obtain the magnitude of the ratio r{sub B} {equivalent_to} {vert_bar}A(B{sup -} --> {anti D}{sup 0}K{sup -})/A(B{sup -} --> D{sup 0}K{sup -}){vert_bar} = (9.5{sup +5.1}{sub -4.1})%, with r{sub B} < 16.7% at 90% confidence level. In the case of B{sup -} --> D{sup *}K{sup -} we find r{sup *}{sub B} {equivalent_to} {vert_bar}A(B{sup -} --> {anti D}{sup *0}K{sup -})/A(B{sup -} --> D{sup *0}K{sup -}){vert_bar} = (9.6{sup +3.5}{sub 5.1})%, with r{sup *}{sub B} < 15.0% at 90% confidence level