88 research outputs found
Candidates for multiple impact craters?: Popigai and Chicxulub as seen by the global high resolution gravitational field model EGM2008
In 2008 the new Earth Gravitational Model (EGM2008) was released. It contains a complete set of spherical harmonic coefficients of the Earth's gravitational potential (Stokes parameters) to degree 2190 and order 2159 and selected orders to degree 2190, that can be used for evaluation of various potential quantities with both the unprecedented accuracy and high spatial resolution. Two such quantities, the gravity anomaly and second-order radial derivative of the disturbing potential, were computed over selected areas with known impact craters. The displays of these derivatives for two such sites clearly show not only the strong circular-like features known to be associated with them but also other symmetrical structures which appear to make them multiple impact sites. At Popigai, Siberia, the series of circular features fall in a line from the "primary crater" in the southeast (SE) direction. At Chicxulub, Yucatán, there appears to be one more crater close to the "primary" in the northeast (NE) direction, as well as possibly others in the vicinity of the main crater (SW). Gravity information alone is not, however, proof of impact craters but it is useful in identifying <i>candidate sites</i> for further study, for examination by geologists and geophysicists. In the case of Chicxulub, a very recent single seismic profile suggests that a more likely explanation for the observed circular like gravity signal from EGM2008 NE of the "primary" is a pre-impact basin
Longitudinal double spin asymmetries in single hadron quasi-real photoproduction at high
We measured the longitudinal double spin asymmetries for single
hadron muo-production off protons and deuterons at photon virtuality <
1(GeV/) for transverse hadron momenta in the range 0.7
GeV/ to 4 GeV/ . They were determined using COMPASS data taken
with a polarised muon beam of 160 GeV/ or 200 GeV/ impinging on
polarised or targets. The experimental
asymmetries are compared to next-to-leading order pQCD calculations, and are
sensitive to the gluon polarisation inside the nucleon in the range
of the nucleon momentum fraction carried by gluons
Resonance Production and S-wave in at 190 GeV/c
The COMPASS collaboration has collected the currently largest data set on
diffractively produced final states using a negative pion
beam of 190 GeV/c momentum impinging on a stationary proton target. This data
set allows for a systematic partial-wave analysis in 100 bins of three-pion
mass, GeV/c , and in 11 bins of the reduced
four-momentum transfer squared, (GeV/c) . This
two-dimensional analysis offers sensitivity to genuine one-step resonance
production, i.e. the production of a state followed by its decay, as well as to
more complex dynamical effects in nonresonant production. In this paper,
we present detailed studies on selected partial waves with , , , , and . In these waves, we observe
the well-known ground-state mesons as well as a new narrow axial-vector meson
decaying into . In addition, we present the results
of a novel method to extract the amplitude of the subsystem with
in various partial waves from the
data. Evidence is found for correlation of the and
appearing as intermediate isobars in the decay of the known
and .Comment: 96 page
Leading-order determination of the gluon polarisation from semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering data
Using a novel analysis technique, the gluon polarisation in the nucleon is
re-evaluated using the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry measured in the cross
section of semi-inclusive single-hadron muoproduction with photon virtuality
. The data were obtained by the COMPASS experiment at
CERN using a 160 GeV/ polarised muon beam impinging on a polarised LiD
target. By analysing the full range in hadron transverse momentum ,
the different -dependences of the underlying processes are separated
using a neural-network approach. In the absence of pQCD calculations at
next-to-leading order in the selected kinematic domain, the gluon polarisation
is evaluated at leading order in pQCD at a hard scale of . It is determined in three intervals
of the nucleon momentum fraction carried by gluons, , covering the
range ~ and does not exhibit a significant
dependence on . The average over the three intervals, at
, suggests that the gluon polarisation
is positive in the measured range.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
Collins and Sivers transverse-spin asymmetries in inclusive muoproduction of mesons
The production of vector mesons in deep inelastic scattering is an
interesting yet scarsely explored channel to study the transverse spin
structure of the nucleon and the related phenomena. The COMPASS collaboration
has performed the first measurement of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries for
inclusively produced mesons. The analysis is based on the data set
collected in deep inelastic scattering in using a
beam impinging on a transversely polarized target. The
mesons are selected from oppositely charged hadron pairs, and the
asymmetries are extracted as a function of the Bjorken- variable, the
transverse momentum of the pair and the fraction of the energy carried by
the pair. Indications for positive Collins and Sivers asymmetries are observed
Spin Density Matrix Elements in Exclusive Meson Muoproduction
We report on a measurement of Spin Density Matrix Elements (SDMEs) in hard
exclusive meson muoproduction at COMPASS using 160~GeV/ polarised
and beams impinging on a liquid hydrogen target. The
measurement covers the kinematic range 5.0~GeV/ 17.0~GeV/,
1.0 (GeV/) 10.0 (GeV/) and 0.01 (GeV/) 0.5 (GeV/). Here, denotes the mass of the final
hadronic system, the virtuality of the exchanged photon, and
the transverse momentum of the meson with respect to the
virtual-photon direction. The measured non-zero SDMEs for the transitions of
transversely polarised virtual photons to longitudinally polarised vector
mesons () indicate a violation of -channel helicity
conservation. Additionally, we observe a dominant contribution of
natural-parity-exchange transitions and a very small contribution of
unnatural-parity-exchange transitions, which is compatible with zero within
experimental uncertainties. The results provide important input for modelling
Generalised Parton Distributions (GPDs). In particular, they may allow one to
evaluate in a model-dependent way the role of parton helicity-flip GPDs in
exclusive production
Measurement of P T -weighted Sivers asymmetries in leptoproduction of hadrons
The transverse spin asymmetries measured in semi-inclusive leptoproduction of hadrons, when weighted
with the hadron transverse momentum PT , allow for the extraction of important transverse-momentumdependent distribution functions. In particular, the weighted Sivers asymmetries provide direct information
on the Sivers function, which is a leading-twist distribution that arises from a correlation between the transverse momentum of an unpolarised quark in a transversely polarised nucleon and the spin of the nucleon.
Using the high-statistics data collected by the COMPASS Collaboration in 2010 with a transversely polarised proton target, we have evaluated two types of PT -weighted Sivers asymmetries, which are both
proportional to the product of the first transverse moment of the Sivers function and of the fragmentation
function. The results are compared to the standard unweighted Sivers asymmetries and used to extract the
first transverse moments of the Sivers distributions for u and d quark
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