Neutrino oscillations

In the last decades, a very important breakthrough has been brought in the elementary particle physics by the discovery of the phenomenon of the neutrino oscillations, which has shown neutrino properties beyond the Standard Model. But a full understanding of the various aspects of the neutrino oscillations is far to be achieved. In this paper the theoretical background of the neutrino oscillation phenomenon is described, referring in particular to the paradigmatic models. Then the various techniques and detectors which studied neutrinos from different sources are discussed, starting from the pioneering ones up to the detectors still in operation and to those in preparation. The physics results are finally presented adopting the same research path which has crossed this long saga. The problems not yet fixed in this field are discussed, together with the perspectives of their solutions in the near future

Battery choice and management for New Generation Electric Vehicles

Different types of electric vehicles (EVs) have been recently designed with the aim of solving pollution problems caused by the emission of gasoline-powered engines. Environmental problems promote the adoption of new-generation electric vehicles for urban transportation. As it is well known, one of the weakest points of electric vehicles is the battery system. Vehicle autonomy and, therefore, accurate detection of battery state of charge (SoC) together with battery expected life, i.e., battery state of health, are among the major drawbacks that prevent the introduction of electric vehicles in the consumer market. The electric scooter may provide the most feasible opportunity among EVs. They may be a replacement product for the primary-use vehicle, especially in Europe and Asia, provided that drive performance, safety, and cost issues are similar to actual engine scooters. The battery system choice is a crucial item, and thanks to an increasing emphasis on vehicle range and performance, the Li-ion battery could become a viable candidate. This paper deals with the design of a battery pack based on Li-ion technology for a prototype electric scooter with high performance and autonomy. The adopted battery system is composed of a suitable number of cells series connected, featuring a high voltage level. Therefore, cell equalization and monitoring need to be provided. Due to manufacturing asymmetries, charge and discharge cycles lead to cell unbalancing, reducing battery capacity and, depending on cell type, causing safety troubles or strongly limiting the storage capacity of the full pack. No solution is available on the market at a cheap price, because of the required voltage level and performance, therefore, a dedicated battery management system was designed, that also includes a battery SoC monitoring. The proposed solution features a high capability of energy storing in braking conditions, charge equalization, overvoltage and undervoltage protection and, obviously, SoC information in order to optimize autonomy instead of performance or vice-versa

Geo-neutrinos

We review a new interdisciplinary field between Geology and Physics: the study of the Earth's geo-neutrino flux. We describe competing models for the composition of the Earth, present geological insights into the make up of the continental and oceanic crust, those parts of the Earth that concentrate Th and U, the heat producing elements, and provide details of the regional settings in the continents and oceans where operating and planned detectors are sited. Details are presented for the only two operating detectors that are capable of measuring the Earth's geo-neutrinos flux: Borexino and KamLAND; results achieved to date are presented, along with their impacts on geophysical and geochemical models of the Earth. Finally, future planned experiments are highlighted

Optimized Multimode Interference Fiber Based Refractometer in A Reflective Interrogation Scheme

A fiber based refractometer in a reflective interrogation scheme is investigated and optimized. A thin gold film was deposited on the tip of a coreless fiber section, which is spliced with a single mode fiber. The coreless fiber is a multimode waveguide, and the observed effects are due to multimode interference. To investigate and optimize the structure, the multimode part of the sensor is built with 3 different lengths: 58 mm, 29 mm and 17 mm. We use a broadband light source ranging from 1475 nm to 1650 nm and we test the sensors with liquids of varying refractive indices, from 1.333 to 1.438. Our results show that for a fixed wavelength, the sensor sensitivity is independent of the multimode fiber length, but we observed a sensitivity increase of approximately 0.7 nm/RIU for a one-nanometer increase in wavelength

Warm inflation and scalar perturbations of the metric

A second-order expansion for the quantum fluctuations of the matter field was considered in the framework of the warm inflation scenario. The friction and Hubble parameters were expended by means of a semiclassical approach. The fluctuations of the Hubble parameter generates fluctuations of the metric. These metric fluctuations produce an effective term of curvature. The power spectrum for the metric fluctuations can be calculated on the infrared sector.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, to be published in General Rel. and Gravitatio

Ground-based astrometry with wide field imagers. V. Application to near-infrared detectors: HAWK-I@VLT/ESO

High-precision astrometry requires accurate point-spread function modeling and accurate geometric-distortion corrections. This paper demonstrates that it is possible to achieve both requirements with data collected at the high acuity wide-field K-band imager (HAWK-I), a wide-field imager installed at the Nasmyth focus of UT4/VLT ESO 8m telescope. Our final astrometric precision reaches ~3 mas per coordinate for a well-exposed star in a single image with a systematic error less than 0.1 mas. We constructed calibrated astro-photometric catalogs and atlases of seven fields: the Baade's Window, NGC 6656, NGC 6121, NGC 6822, NGC 6388, NGC 104, and the James Webb Space Telescope calibration field in the Large Magellanic Cloud. We make these catalogs and images electronically available to the community. Furthermore, as a demonstration of the efficacy of our approach, we combined archival material taken with the optical wide-field imager at the MPI/ESO 2.2m with HAWK-I observations. We showed that we are able to achieve an excellent separation between cluster members and field objects for NGC 6656 and NGC 6121 with a time base-line of about 8 years. Using both HST and HAWK-I data, we also study the radial distribution of the SGB populations in NGC 6656 and conclude that the radial trend is flat within our uncertainty. We also provide membership probabilities for most of the stars in NGC 6656 and NGC 6121 catalogs and estimate membership for the published variable stars in these two fields.Comment: 36 pages (included appendix), 13 tables, 35 figures (26 in low resolution), accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Online materials will be soon available on CDS. Meanwhile, online materials can be requested directly to the first autho

A confirmation of agreement of different approaches for scalar gauge-invariant metric perturbations during inflation

We revisit an extension of the well-known formalism for gauge-invariant scalar metric fluctuations, to study the spectrums for both, the inflaton and gauge invariant (scalar) metric fluctuations in the framework of a single field inflationary model where the quasi-exponential expansion is driven by an inflation which is minimally coupled to gravity. The proposal here examined is valid also for fluctuations with large amplitude, but for cosmological scales, where vector and tensor perturbations can be neglected and the fluid is irrotacional.Comment: Version accepted in EPJC with new title. 11 pages, no figure

Observing multiple stellar populations with FORS2@VLT - Main sequence photometry in outer regions of NGC 6752, NGC 6397, and NGC 6121 (M 4)

We present the photometric analysis of the external regions of three Galactic Globular Clusters: NGC 6121, NGC 6397 and NGC 6752. The main goal is the characterization of the multiple stellar populations along the main sequence (MS) and the study of the radial trend of the different populations hosted by the target clusters. The data have been collected using FORS2 mounted at the ESO/VLT@UT1 telescope in UBVI filters. From these data sets we extracted high-accuracy photometry and constructed color-magnitude diagrams. We exploit appropriate combination of colors and magnitudes which are powerful tools to identify multiple stellar populations, like B versus U-B and V versus c_{U,B,I}=(U-B)-(B-I) CMDs. We confirm previous findings of a split MS in NGC 6752 and NGC 6121. Apart from the extreme case of omega Centauri, this is the first detection of multiple MS from ground-based photometry. For NGC 6752 and NGC 6121 we compare the number ratio of the blue MS to the red MS in the cluster outskirts with the fraction of first and second generation stars measured in the central regions. There is no evidence for significant radial trend. The MS of NGC 6397 is consistent with a simple stellar population. We propose that the lack of multiple sequences is due both to observational errors and to the limited sensitivity of U,B,V,I photometry to multiple stellar populations in metal-poor GCs. Finally, we compute the helium abundance for the stellar populations hosted by NGC 6121 and NGC 6752, finding a mild (Delta Y ~ 0.02) difference between stars in the two sequences.Comment: 16 pages, 5 tables, 17 figures, accepted for pubblication in A&

Improved Limit on theta_{13} and Implications for Neutrino Masses in Neutrino-less Double Beta Decay and Cosmology

We analyze the impact of a measurement, or of an improved bound, on theta_{13} for the determination of the effective neutrino mass in neutrino-less double beta decay and cosmology. In particular, we discuss how an improved limit on (or a specific value of) theta_{13} can influence the determination of the neutrino mass spectrum via neutrino-less double beta decay. We also discuss the interplay with improved cosmological neutrino mass searches.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. Minor corrections, matches version in PR