ISR physics at BABAR

We present a review of BaBar results on e+e- annihilations into exclusive hadronic final states using the initial state radiation technique. Cross sections over the sqrt{s} range from threshold to 4.5 GeV, with very small point-to-point systematic errors, are presented for the 3pi, 2(pi+ pi-), 3(pi+ pi-), 2(pi+ pi-)2pi0, K+ K- pi+ pi-, 2(K+ K-) and p anti-p final states. The proton form factor and the ratio of its electric and magnetic components are also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 11 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the 12th Lomonosov Conference on Elementary Particle Physics (Moscow State University, Moscow, 25 - 31 August 2005

Economic development of Russia's north-western regions and migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration

This article aims to analyse the development of Russia’s North-Western Federal District (NWFD) regions between 1998 and 2021, based on data from Rosstat. It focuses on how the territories responded to migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration in the early 21st century and compares their progress with the cores of the St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Helsinki agglomerations. For building the models, regions with similar development dynamics were divided into four sectors: St. Petersburg, the Leningrad region, three less advanced northern areas, and the more successful NWFD territories. Before the 2008-2009 crisis, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region outperformed the other north-western areas. However, the crisis led to a sharp decline in economic growth rates across the federal district, with manufacturing, agriculture, and forestry replacing the service sector as the main drivers. St. Petersburg's development slowed down, and it became less efficient compared to the Leningrad region and the other five territories, which excelled in manufacturing, agriculture, and forestry. Despite migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration and an associated increase in employment, the city did not gain a significant advantage over the other NWFD regions due to insufficient investment and hindrance in the development of new economic sectors. Migration to the St. Petersburg agglomeration primarily involved younger people but did not significantly impact traditional industries, such as manufacturing, agriculture, and forestry, which remained at the core of NWFD regions' economic success. St. Petersburg's higher economic efficiency compared to Moscow and Helsinki was a result of greater investments in manufacturing

Enhancement of the transverse non-reciprocal magneto-optical effect

The origin and properties of the transverse non-reciprocal magneto-optical (nMO) effect were studied. The transverse nMO effect occurs in the case when light propagates perpendicularly to the magnetic field. It was demonstrated that light can experience the transverse nMO effect only when it propagates in the vicinity of a boundary between two materials and the optical field at least in one material is evanescent. The transverse nMO effect is pronounced in the cases of surface plasmons and waveguiding modes. The magnitude of the transverse nMO effect is comparable to or greater than the magnitude of the longitudinal nMO effect. In the case of surface plasmons propagating at a boundary between the transition metal and the dielectric it is possible to magnify the transverse nMO effect and the magneto-optical figure-of-merit may increase from a few percents to above 100%. The scalar dispersion relation, which describes the transverse MO effect in cases of waveguide modes and surface plasmons propagating in a multilayer MO slab, was derived

An Assessment of the Economic Performance of the EU Baltic Region States

The paper explores how the common economic space, a product of the EU, influenced the economies of the Baltic Sea Region states in 1995-2015. The authors investigate changes in the economic performance of the developed (Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) and Eastern European countries (Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) during the integration of the latter states into the EU. Performance dynamics is analyzed for eight EU Baltic Sea Region countries. Three Russian Baltic regions constitute a control group. The authors conduct a production-function-based comparative analysis of development dynamics in individual countries to identify distinctive features for each group. Despite a rapid growth of Eastern European economies, the difference between the region’s eastern and western countries remains substantial. Economic convergence between eastern and western EU countries in terms of investment does not lead to convergence in labour efficiency. The capital-labour ratio and the growth rate of labour efficiency in the Russian Baltic are close to the Eastern European average