Jets and produced particles in pp collisions from SPS to RHIC energies for nuclear applications

Higher-order pQCD corrections play an important role in the reproduction of data at high transverse momenta in the energy range 20 GeV $\leq \sqrt{s} \leq 200$ GeV. Recent calculations of photon and pion production in $pp$ collisions yield detailed information on the next-to-leading order contributions. However, the application of these results in proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions is not straightforward. The study of nuclear effects requires a simplified understanding of the output of these computations. Here we summarize our analysis of recent calculations, aimed at handling the NLO results by introducing process and energy-dependent $K$ factors.Comment: 4 pages with 5 eps figures include

The effects of temperature on Bosmina longirostris susceptibility to microcystin-LR acute toxicity

Harmful algal blooms are an ongoing threat to many aquatic systems throughout the world. In the Chowan River, North Carolina, the frequency of toxin producing Microcystis aeruginosa blooms has increased since 1975 along with an average 0.71°C rise in water temperature. The combined effect of microcystin-LR toxin and rising temperatures on a dominant zooplankter in the system, Bosmina longirostris, was the focus of this study. Laboratory studies were conducted to determine how microcystin-LR, produced from M. aeruginosa blooms, affected B. longirostris mortality under different temperature regimes. At 25°C, the LC50 for B. longirostris was 26.3 μg L-1 suggesting that B. longirostris can survive typical current bloom microcystin-LR concentrations ranging 0.1μg L-1 to 2.0 μg L-1, but would be susceptible to higher concentrations they may be periodically exposed to. Mortality was assessed at a constant microcystin-LR concentration of 26.3 μg L-1 over 15–35°C, and it was found that B. longirostris mortality increased at higher temperatures. B. longirostris mortality increased approximately 18% due to microcystin-LR alone over 2°C between 25°C and 27°C when exposed to the LC50 concentration. The increased prevalence of toxic M. aeruginosa blooms and increasing temperatures due to climate change may reduce B. longirostris populations, potentially affecting larval fish and fisheries in the Chowan River, North Carolina

Area Decay Law Implementation for Quark String Fragmentation

We apply the Area Decay Law (ADL) straightforwardly to simulate a quark string hadronization and compare the results with the explicit analytic calculations. We show that the usual "inclusive" Monte--Carlo simulations do not correspond to the ADL because of two mistakes: not proper simulation of two--dimensional probability density and lack of an important combinatorial factor in a binary tree simulation. We also show how to simulate area decay law "inclusively" avoiding the above--mentioned mistakes.Comment: 5 pages (REVTEX) + 3 figures (available in ps format from G.G.Leptoukh , IPGAS-HE/93-3, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Strong Coupling Constant from the Photon Structure Function

We extract the value of the strong coupling constant alpha_s from a single-parameter pointlike fit to the photon structure function F_2^gamma at large x and Q^2 and from a first five-parameter full (pointlike and hadronic) fit to the complete F_2^gamma data set taken at PETRA, TRISTAN, and LEP. In next-to-leading order and the MSbar renormalization and factorization schemes, we obtain alpha_s(m_Z)=0.1183 +/- 0.0050(exp.)^+0.0029_-0.0028(theor.) [pointlike] and alpha_s(m_Z)=0.1198 +/- 0.0028(exp.)^+0.0034_-0.0046(theor.) [pointlike and hadronic]. We demonstrate that the data taken at LEP have reduced the experimental error by about a factor of two, so that a competitive determination of alpha_s from F_2^gamma is now possible.Comment: 11 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures. Version accepted for publication by Phys. Rev. Let

On the symmetry breaking phenomenon

We investigate the problem of symmetry breaking in the framework of dynamical systems with symmetry on a smooth manifold. Two cases will be analyzed: general and Hamiltonian dynamical systems. We give sufficient conditions for symmetry breaking in both cases

Protention and retention in biological systems

This paper proposes an abstract mathematical frame for describing some features of cognitive and biological time. We focus here on the so called "extended present" as a result of protentional and retentional activities (memory and anticipation). Memory, as retention, is treated in some physical theories (relaxation phenomena, which will inspire our approach), while protention (or anticipation) seems outside the scope of physics. We then suggest a simple functional representation of biological protention. This allows us to introduce the abstract notion of "biological inertia".Comment: This paper was made possible only as part of an extended collaboration with Francis Bailly (see references), a dear friend and "ma\^itre \'a penser", who contributed to the key ideas. Francis passed away in february 2008: we continue here our inspiring discussions and joint wor

Convergence and Gauge Dependence Properties of the Resummed One-loop Quark-Quark Scattering Amplitude in Perturbative QCD

The one-loop QCD effective charge $\alpha_s^{eff}$ for quark-quark scattering is derived by diagrammatic resummation of the one-loop amplitude using an arbitary covariant gauge. Except for the particular choice of gauge parameter $\xi = -3$, $\alpha_s^{eff}$ is found to {\it increase} with increasing physical scale, $Q$, as $\ln Q$ or $\ln^2 Q$. For $\xi = -3$, $\alpha_s^{eff}$ decreases with increasing $Q$ and satisfies a renormalisation group equation. Also, except for the case $\xi = 19/9$, convergence radii of geometric series are found to impose upper limits on $Q$.Comment: 28 pages, 5 tables, 5 figures. v3 The one-loop amplitudes in Section 2 are recalculated using dimensional regularisation, and several errors in the on-shell calculation of Reference[1] are pointed out. v4 one figure removed one added. Three tables and new text in Section 5 added. Published versio

Cosmological Magnetic Fields from Primordial Helical Seeds

Most early Universe scenarios predict negligible magnetic fields on cosmological scales if they are unprocessed during subsequent expansion of the Universe. We present a new numerical treatment of the evolution of primordial fields and apply it to weakly helical seeds as they occur in certain early Universe scenarios. We find that initial helicities not much larger than the baryon to photon number can lead to fields of about 10^{-13} Gauss with coherence scales slightly below a kilo-parsec today.Comment: 4 revtex pages, 2 postscript figures include