127 research outputs found
Proposal for a Supersymmetric Standard Model
The fact that neutrinos are massive suggests that the minimal supersymmetric
standard model (MSSM) might be extended in order to include three gauge-singlet
neutrino superfields with Yukawa couplings of the type . We
propose to use these superfields to solve the problem of the MSSM without
having to introduce an extra singlet superfield as in the case of the
next-to-MSSM (NMSSM). In particular, terms of the type in the
superpotential may carry out this task spontaneously through sneutrino vacuum
expectation values. In addition, terms of the type avoid the
presence of axions and generate effective Majorana masses for neutrinos at the
electroweak scale. On the other hand, these terms break lepton number and
R-parity explicitly implying that the phenomenology of this model is very
different from the one of the MSSM or NMSSM. For example, the usual neutralinos
are now mixed with the neutrinos. For Dirac masses of the latter of order
GeV, eigenvalues reproducing the correct scale of neutrino masses are
obtained.Comment: 9 pages, latex, title modified. Final version published in PR
A systematic approach to the Planck LFI end-to-end test and its application to the DPC Level 1 pipeline
The Level 1 of the Planck LFI Data Processing Centre (DPC) is devoted to the
handling of the scientific and housekeeping telemetry. It is a critical
component of the Planck ground segment which has to strictly commit to the
project schedule to be ready for the launch and flight operations. In order to
guarantee the quality necessary to achieve the objectives of the Planck
mission, the design and development of the Level 1 software has followed the
ESA Software Engineering Standards. A fundamental step in the software life
cycle is the Verification and Validation of the software. The purpose of this
work is to show an example of procedures, test development and analysis
successfully applied to a key software project of an ESA mission. We present
the end-to-end validation tests performed on the Level 1 of the LFI-DPC, by
detailing the methods used and the results obtained. Different approaches have
been used to test the scientific and housekeeping data processing. Scientific
data processing has been tested by injecting signals with known properties
directly into the acquisition electronics, in order to generate a test dataset
of real telemetry data and reproduce as much as possible nominal conditions.
For the HK telemetry processing, validation software have been developed to
inject known parameter values into a set of real housekeeping packets and
perform a comparison with the corresponding timelines generated by the Level 1.
With the proposed validation and verification procedure, where the on-board and
ground processing are viewed as a single pipeline, we demonstrated that the
scientific and housekeeping processing of the Planck-LFI raw data is correct
and meets the project requirements.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; this paper is part of the Prelaunch status LFI
papers published on JINST:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.proc5/jins
Cortical AAV-CNTF gene therapy combined with intraspinal mesenchymal precursor cell transplantation promotes functional and morphological outcomes after spinal cord injury in adult rats
Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) promotes survival and enhances long-distance regeneration of injured axons in parts of the adult CNS. Here we tested whether CNTF gene therapy targeting corticospinal neurons (CSN) in motor-related regions of the cerebral cortex promotes plasticity and regrowth of axons projecting into the female adult F344 rat spinal cord after moderate thoracic (T10) contusion injury (SCI). Cortical neurons were transduced with a bicistronic adeno-associated viral vector (AAV1) expressing a secretory form of CNTF coupled to mCHERRY (AAV-CNTFmCherry) or with control AAV only (AAV-GFP) two weeks prior to SCI. In some animals, viable or nonviable F344 rat mesenchymal precursor cells (rMPCs) were injected into the lesion site two weeks after SCI to modulate the inhibitory environment. Treatment with AAV-CNTFmCherry, as well as with AAV-CNTFmCherry combined with rMPCs, yielded functional improvements over AAV-GFP alone, as assessed by open-field and Ladderwalk analyses. Cyst size was significantly reduced in the AAV-CNTFmCherry plus viable rMPC treatment group. Cortical injections of biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) revealed more BDA-stained axons rostral and alongside cysts in the AAV-CNTFmCherry versus AAV-GFP groups. After AAV-CNTFmCherry treatments, many sprouting mCherry-immunopositive axons were seen rostral to the SCI, and axons were also occasionally found caudal to the injury site. These data suggest that CNTF has the potential to enhance corticospinal repair by transducing parent CNS populations
Modulation of tregs and inkt by fingolimod in multiple sclerosis patients
The altered numbers and functions of cells belonging to immunoregulatory cell networks such as T regulatory (Tregs) and invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cells have been reported in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), an immune-mediated disease. We aimed to assess the frequencies of Tregs and iNKT cells in MS patients throughout a one-year treatment with fingolimod (FTY) and to correlate immunological data with efficacy and safety data. The percentage of Tregs (defined as Live Dead-CD3 + CD4 + FoxP3 + CD25++/CD127 12 cells) increased steadily throughout the year, while there was no significant difference in the absolute number or percentage of iNKT cells (defined as CD3 + CD14 12CD19 12 V\u3b124-J\u3b118 TCR+ cells). However, out of all the iNKT cells, the CD8+ iNKT and CD4 12CD8 12 double-negative (DN) cell percentages steadily increased, while the CD4+ iNKT cell percentages decreased significantly. The mean percentage of CD8+ T cells at all time-points was lower in patients with infections throughout the study. The numbers and percentages of DN iNKT cells were more elevated, considering all time-points, in patients who presented a clinical relapse. FTY may, therefore, exert its beneficial effect in MS patients through various mechanisms, including the increase in Tregs and in iNKT subsets with immunomodulatory potential such as CD8+ iNKT cells. The occurrence of infections was associated with lower mean CD8+ cell counts during treatment with FTY
An origin for small neutrino masses in the NMSSM
We consider the Next to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) which
provides a natural solution to the so-called mu problem by introducing a new
gauge-singlet superfield S. We realize that a new mechanism of neutrino mass
suppression, based on the R-parity violating bilinear terms mu_i L_i H_u mixing
neutrinos and higgsinos, arises within the NMSSM, offering thus an original
solution to the neutrino mass problem (connected to the solution for the mu
problem). We generate realistic (Majorana) neutrino mass values without
requiring any strong hierarchy amongst the fundamental parameters, in contrast
with the alternative models. In particular, the ratio |mu_i/mu| can reach about
10^-1, unlike in the MSSM where it has to be much smaller than unity. We check
that the obtained parameters also satisfy the collider constraints and internal
consistencies of the NMSSM. The price to pay for this new cancellation-type
mechanism of neutrino mass reduction is a certain fine tuning, which get
significantly improved in some regions of parameter space. Besides, we discuss
the feasibility of our scenario when the R-parity violating bilinear terms have
a common origin with the mu term, namely when those are generated via a VEV of
the S scalar component from the couplings lambda_i S L_i H_u. Finally, we make
comments on some specific phenomenology of the NMSSM in the presence of
R-parity violating bilinear terms.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, Latex fil
Optimization of Planck/LFI on--board data handling
To asses stability against 1/f noise, the Low Frequency Instrument (LFI)
onboard the Planck mission will acquire data at a rate much higher than the
data rate allowed by its telemetry bandwith of 35.5 kbps. The data are
processed by an onboard pipeline, followed onground by a reversing step. This
paper illustrates the LFI scientific onboard processing to fit the allowed
datarate. This is a lossy process tuned by using a set of 5 parameters Naver,
r1, r2, q, O for each of the 44 LFI detectors. The paper quantifies the level
of distortion introduced by the onboard processing, EpsilonQ, as a function of
these parameters. It describes the method of optimizing the onboard processing
chain. The tuning procedure is based on a optimization algorithm applied to
unprocessed and uncompressed raw data provided either by simulations, prelaunch
tests or data taken from LFI operating in diagnostic mode. All the needed
optimization steps are performed by an automated tool, OCA2, which ends with
optimized parameters and produces a set of statistical indicators, among them
the compression rate Cr and EpsilonQ. For Planck/LFI the requirements are Cr =
2.4 and EpsilonQ <= 10% of the rms of the instrumental white noise. To speedup
the process an analytical model is developed that is able to extract most of
the relevant information on EpsilonQ and Cr as a function of the signal
statistics and the processing parameters. This model will be of interest for
the instrument data analysis. The method was applied during ground tests when
the instrument was operating in conditions representative of flight. Optimized
parameters were obtained and the performance has been verified, the required
data rate of 35.5 Kbps has been achieved while keeping EpsilonQ at a level of
3.8% of white noise rms well within the requirements.Comment: 51 pages, 13 fig.s, 3 tables, pdflatex, needs JINST.csl, graphicx,
txfonts, rotating; Issue 1.0 10 nov 2009; Sub. to JINST 23Jun09, Accepted
10Nov09, Pub.: 29Dec09; This is a preprint, not the final versio
Off-line radiometric analysis of Planck/LFI data
The Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI) is an array of 22
pseudo-correlation radiometers on-board the Planck satellite to measure
temperature and polarization anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) in three frequency bands (30, 44 and 70 GHz). To calibrate and verify the
performances of the LFI, a software suite named LIFE has been developed. Its
aims are to provide a common platform to use for analyzing the results of the
tests performed on the single components of the instrument (RCAs, Radiometric
Chain Assemblies) and on the integrated Radiometric Array Assembly (RAA).
Moreover, its analysis tools are designed to be used during the flight as well
to produce periodic reports on the status of the instrument. The LIFE suite has
been developed using a multi-layered, cross-platform approach. It implements a
number of analysis modules written in RSI IDL, each accessing the data through
a portable and heavily optimized library of functions written in C and C++. One
of the most important features of LIFE is its ability to run the same data
analysis codes both using ground test data and real flight data as input. The
LIFE software suite has been successfully used during the RCA/RAA tests and the
Planck Integrated System Tests. Moreover, the software has also passed the
verification for its in-flight use during the System Operations Verification
Tests, held in October 2008.Comment: Planck LFI technical papers published by JINST:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.proc5/1748-022
Novel signatures for vector-like quarks
We consider supersymmetric extensions of the standard model with a vector-like doublet (T B) of quarks with charge 2/3 and â1/3, respectively. Compared to non-supersymmetric models, there is a variety of new decay modes for the vector-like quarks, involving the extra scalars present in supersymmetry. The importance of these new modes, yielding multi-top, multi-bottom and also multi-Higgs signals, is highlighted by the analysis of several benchmark scenarios. We show how the triangles commonly used to represent the branching ratios of the âstandardâ decay modes of the vector-like quarks involving W, Z or Higgs bosons can be generalised to include additional channels. We give an example by recasting the limits of a recent heavy quark search for this more general case.The work of J.A. Aguilar-Saavedra has been supported by MINECO Projects FPA 2016-
78220-C3-1-P and FPA 2013-47836-C3-2-P (including ERDF), and by Junta de Andaluc a
Project FQM-101. The work of D.E. L opez-Fogliani has been supported by the Argentinian
CONICET. The work of C. Mu~noz has been supported in part by the Programme SEV-
2012-0249 `Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa'. D.E. L opez-Fogliani and C. Mu~noz also
acknowledge the support of the Spanish grant FPA2015-65929-P (MINECO/FEDER, UE),
and MINECO's Consolider-Ingenio 2010 Programme under grant MultiDark CSD2009-
00064
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