Improving the Dirac Operator in Lattice QCD

Recently various new concepts for the construction of Dirac operators in lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) have been introduced. These operators satisfy the so-called Ginsparg-Wilson condition (GWC), thus obeying the Atiyah-Singer index theorem and violating chiral symmetry only in a modest and local form. Here we present studies in 4-d for SU(3) gauge configurations with non-trivial topological content. We study the flow of eigenvalues and we compare the numerical stability and efficiency of a recently suggested chirally improved operator with that of others in this respect.Comment: Contrib. to Conf. on Comp. Physics, Sept. 2001 (Aachen); 4 pages, 4 figures, (LaTeX style files cpauth.cls, elsart.cls

Risk Owners & Risk Managers: Dealing with the complexity of feeding children with neurodevelopmental disability

This paper illustrates negotiations around risk between lay people and clinicians in relation to gastrostomy interventions for disabled children. These negotiations centre on differing interpretations of what constitutes risk in relation to the safety of oral feeding and a child's need for a feeding tube between parents, carers and clinical specialties. Drawing on Heyman's distinction between risk managers and risk owners, we show that not only do clinicians act as risk managers and parents and carers as risk owners, but that these distinctions often become blurred either because of the shifting dynamics of relations of care or because of the specificity of clinical practice. Parents become risk managers in relation to carers' roles, while clinicians become risk owners in relation to particular procedures which define their practice. This has implications for lay and expert interactions as well as professional accountability for those caring for children with complex medical conditions. Although not an empirical article, we draw on empirical work in the UK. We analyse both parental and professional constructions of risk based on observations of co-ordinating a clinical trial designed to evaluate the effectiveness of gastrostomy surgery. We also examine the diverse value systems used by different groups of professionals and lay carers which inform judgements about risk and feeding. We conclude by arguing that issues of risk in contemporary health care are not just examples of ‘manufactured uncertainty’ or of ‘negotiated power’ but constitute a dialectical relationship which breaks down the essentialist dualism of lay and professional constructions of risk

Above- and below-ground biomass accumulation, production, and distribution of sweetgum and loblolly pine grown with irrigation and fertilization.

Abstract: Increased forest productivity has been obtained by improving resource availability through water and nutrient amendments. However, more stress-tolerant species that have robust site requirements do not respond consistently to irrigation. An important factor contributing to robust site requirements may be the distribution of biomass belowground, yet available information is limited. We examined the accumulation and distribution of above- and below-ground biomass in sweetgum (Liqrridambar sfyrac$lua L.) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) stands receiving irrigation and fertilization. Mean annual aboveground production after 4 years ranged from 2.4 to 5.1 ~g.ha-'.year' for sweetgum and from 5.0 to 6.9 ~g.ha-l.year-l for pine. Sweetgum responded positively to irrigation and fertilization with an additive response to irrigation + fertilization. Pine only responded to fertilization. Sweetgum root mass fraction (RME)in creased with fertilization at 2 years and decreased with fertilization at 4 years. There were no detectable treatment differences in loblolly pine RMF. Development explained from 67% to 98% of variation in shoot versus root allometry for ephemeral and perennial tissues, fertilization explained no more than 5% of the variation in for either species, and irrigation did not explain any. We conclude that shifts in allocation from roots to shoots do not explain nutrient-induced growth stimulations

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02