Handbook for Surveillance and Monitoring of European Habitats. First Edition

The primary objective of this Handbook is to describe the methodology appropriate for coordinating information on habitats in order to obtain statistically robust estimates of their extent and associated changes in biodiversity. Such detailed rules are necessary if surveillance; i.e., recording information at a point in time; is to be repeated subsequently as monitoring, otherwise real changes cannot be separated reliably from background noise. The BioHab procedure will also map all Pan-European classifications, such as EUNIS, where possible, as a basis for their surveillance and monitoring throughout Europe. The basis of the General Habitat Categories is the classification of plant Life Forms produced by the Danish botanist Raunkiaer early in the 20th century. These Life Forms e.g. annuals or trees, transcend species. They are based on the scientific hypothesis that habitat structure is related to the environment. The BioHab General Habitat Categories cover the pan-European region (except Turkey) with 130 GHC¿s derived from 16 Life Forms (LF¿s). They have been field tested in all the environmental zones in Europe. Variation within a General Habitat Category is then expressed by environmental and global qualifiers, which are combinations of soil humidity, nutrient status, acidity and other habitat characteristics. Important additional information is given by adding codes from predefined lists of site and management qualifiers

SU(3) Predictions for Weak Decays of Doubly Heavy Baryons -- including SU(3) breaking terms

We find expressions for the weak decay amplitudes of baryons containing two b quarks (or one b and one c quark -- many relationship are the same) in terms of unknown reduced matrix elements. This project was originally motivated by the request of the FNAL Run II b Physics Workshop organizers for a guide to experimentalists in their search for as yet unobserved hadrons. We include an analysis of linear SU(3) breaking terms in addition to relationships generated by unbroken SU(3) symmetry, and relate these to expressions in terms of the complete set of possible reduced matrix elements.Comment: 49 page

Studying Kaon-pion S-wave scattering in K-matrix formalism

We generalize our previous work on \pi\pi scattering to K\pi scattering, and re-analyze the experiment data of K\pi scattering below 1.6 GeV. Without any free parameter, we explain K\pi I=3/2 S-wave phase shift very well by using t-channel rho and u-channel K^* meson exchange. With the t-channel and u-channel meson exchange fixed as the background term, we fit the K\pi I=1/2 S-wave data of the LASS experiment quite well by introducing one or two s-channel resonances. It is found that there is only one s-channel resonance between K\pi threshold and 1.6 GeV, i.e., K_0^*(1430) with a mass around 1438~1486 MeV and a width about 346 MeV, while the t-channel rho exchange gives a pole at (450-480i) MeV for the amplitude.Comment: REVTeX4 file, 11 pages and 3 figure

Strange form factors in the context of SAMPLE, HAPPEX, and A4 experiments

The strange properties of the nucleon are investigated within the framework of the SU(3) chiral quark-soliton model assuming isospin symmetry and applying the symmetry conserving SU(3) quantization. We present the form factors $G^0_{E,M}(Q^2)$, $G^Z_M(Q^2)$ and the electric and magnetic strange form factors $G^s_{E,M}(Q^2)$ incorporating pion and kaon asymptotics. The results show a fairly good agreement with the recent experimental data from the SAMPLE and HAPPEX collaborations. We also present predictions for future measurements including the A4 experiment at MAMI (Mainz).Comment: 10 pages with four figures. RevTeX4 is used. Few lines are changed. Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Loop effects and non-decoupling property of SUSY QCD in gb→tH−g b\to tH^{-}

One-loop SUSY QCD radiative correction to $gb \to tH^{-}$ cross section is calculated in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. We found that SUSY QCD is non-decoupling if the gluino mass and the parameter $\mu$, $A_t$ or $A_b$ are at the same order and get large. The non-decoupling contribution can be enhanced by large $\tan\beta$ and therefore large corrections to the hadronic production rates at the Tevatron and LHC are expected in the large $\tan\beta$ limit. The fundamental reason for such non-decoupling behavior is found to be some couplings in the loops being proportional to SUSY mass parameters.Comment: 15 pages, 5 PS figures. A proof of non-decouplings of SUSY-QCD, Comments on corresponding QCD correction and references adde

Reevaluation of the role of nuclear uncertainties in experiments on atomic parity violation with isotopic chains

In light of new data on neutron distributions from experiments with antiprotonic atoms [ Trzcinska {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 082501 (2001)], we reexamine the role of nuclear-structure uncertainties in the interpretation of measurements of parity violation in atoms using chains of isotopes of the same element. With these new nuclear data, we find an improvement in the sensitivity of isotopic chain measurements to ``new physics'' beyond the standard model. We compare possible constraints on ``new physics'' with the most accurate to date single-isotope probe of parity violation in the Cs atom. We conclude that presently isotopic chain experiments employing atoms with nuclear charges Z < 50 may result in more accurate tests of the weak interaction.Comment: 6 pages, 1 fig., submitted to Phys. Rev.

Detection of Supernova Neutrinos by Neutrino-Proton Elastic Scattering

We propose that neutrino-proton elastic scattering, $\nu + p \to \nu + p$, can be used for the detection of supernova neutrinos in scintillator detectors. Though the proton recoil kinetic energy spectrum is soft, with $T_p \simeq 2 E_\nu^2/M_p$, and the scintillation light output from slow, heavily ionizing protons is quenched, the yield above a realistic threshold is nearly as large as that from $\bar{\nu}_e + p \to e^+ + n$. In addition, the measured proton spectrum is related to the incident neutrino spectrum, which solves a long-standing problem of how to separately measure the total energy and temperature of $\nu_\mu$, $\nu_\tau$, $\bar{\nu}_\mu$, and $\bar{\nu}_\tau$. The ability to detect this signal would give detectors like KamLAND and Borexino a crucial and unique role in the quest to detect supernova neutrinos.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, revtex

Rare charm meson decays D->Pl^+l^- and c->ul^+l^- in SM and MSSM

We study the nine possible rare charm meson decays D->Pl^+l^- (P=pi,K,eta,eta') using the Heavy Meson Chiral Lagrangians and find them to be dominated by the long distance contributions. The decay D^+ -> pi^+l^+l^- with the branching ratio 1*10^(-6) is expected to have the best chances for an early experimental discovery. The short distance contribution in the five Cabibbo suppressed channels arises via the c->ul^+l^- transition; we find that this contribution is detectable only in the D->pi l^+l^- decay, where it dominates the differential spectrum at high-q^2. The general Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model can enhance the c->ul^+l^- rate by up to an order of magnitude; its effect on the D->Pl^+l^- rates is small since the c->ul^+l^- enhancement is sizable in low-q^2 region, which is inhibited in the hadronic decay.Comment: 17 page

Extra Families, Higgs Spectrum and Oblique Corrections

The standard model accommodates, but does not explain, three families of leptons and quarks, while various extensions suggest extra matter families. The oblique corrections from extra chiral families with relatively light (weak-scale) masses, $M_{f} \sim$, are analyzed and used to constrain the number of extra families and their spectrum. The analysis is motivated, in part, by recent N = 2 supersymmetry constructions, but is performed in a model-independent way. It is shown that the correlations among the contributions to the three oblique parameters, rather than the contribution to a particular one, provide the most significant bound. Nevertheless, a single extra chiral family with a constrained spectrum is found to be consistent with precision data without requiring any other new physics source. Models with three additional families may also be accommodated but only by invoking additional new physics, most notably, a two-Higgs-doublet extension. The interplay between the spectra of the extra fermions and the Higgs boson(s) is analyzed in the case of either one or two Higgs doublets, and its implications are explored. In particular, the precision bound on the SM-like Higgs boson mass is shown to be significantly relaxed in the presence of an extra relatively light chiral family.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, version for PR

Do solar neutrinos decay?

Despite the fact that the solar neutrino flux is now well-understood in the context of matter-affected neutrino mixing, we find that it is not yet possible to set a strong and model-independent bound on solar neutrino decays. If neutrinos decay into truly invisible particles, the Earth-Sun baseline defines a lifetime limit of \tau/m \agt 10^{-4} s/eV. However, there are many possibilities which must be excluded before such a bound can be established. There is an obvious degeneracy between the neutrino lifetime and the mixing parameters. More generally, one must also allow the possibility of active daughter neutrinos and/or antineutrinos, which may partially conceal the characteristic features of decay. Many of the most exotic possibilities that presently complicate the extraction of a decay bound will be removed if the KamLAND reactor antineutrino experiment confirms the large-mixing angle solution to the solar neutrino problem and measures the mixing parameters precisely. Better experimental and theoretical constraints on the $^8$B neutrino flux will also play a key role, as will tighter bounds on absolute neutrino masses. Though the lifetime limit set by the solar flux is weak, it is still the strongest direct limit on non-radiative neutrino decay. Even so, there is no guarantee (by about eight orders of magnitude) that neutrinos from astrophysical sources such as a Galactic supernova or distant Active Galactic Nuclei will not decay.Comment: Very minor corrections, corresponds to published versio