Is Vtb=1 ?

The strongest constraint on Vtb presently comes from the 3 x 3 unitarity of the CKM matrix, which fixes Vtb to be very close to one. If the unitarity is relaxed, current information from top production at Tevatron still leaves open the possibility that Vtb is sizably smaller than one. In minimal extensions of the standard model with extra heavy quarks, the unitarity constraints are much weaker and the EW precision parameters entail the strongest bounds on Vtb. We discuss the experimental perspectives of discovering and identifying such new physics models at the Tevatron and the LHC, through a precise measurement of Vtb from the single top cross sections and by the study of processes where the extra heavy quarks are produced.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure

Spontaneous decay in the presence of dispersing and absorbing bodies: general theory and application to a spherical cavity

A formalism for studying spontaneous decay of an excited two-level atom in the presence of dispersing and absorbing dielectric bodies is developed. An integral equation, which is suitable for numerical solution, is derived for the atomic upper-state-probability amplitude. The emission pattern and the power spectrum of the emitted light are expressed in terms of the Green tensor of the dielectric-matter formation including absorption and dispersion. The theory is applied to the spontaneous decay of an excited atom at the center of a three-layered spherical cavity, with the cavity wall being modeled by a band-gap dielectric of Lorentz type. Both weak coupling and strong coupling are studied, the latter with special emphasis on the cases where the atomic transition is (i) in the normal-dispersion zone near the medium resonance and (ii) in the anomalous-dispersion zone associated with the band gap. In a single-resonance approximation, conditions of the appearance of Rabi oscillations and closed solutions to the evolution of the atomic state population are derived, which are in good agreement with the exact numerical results.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, typos fixed, 1 figure adde

The Spin-Dependent Structure Functions of Nuclei in the Meson-Nucleon Theory

A theoretical approach to the investigation of spin-dependent structure functions in deep inelastic scattering of polarized leptons off polarized nuclei, based on the effective meson-nucleon theory and operator product expansion method, is proposed and applied to deuteron and $^3He$. The explicit forms of the moments of the deuteron and $^3He$ spin-dependent structure functions are found and numerical estimates of the influence of nuclear structure effects are presented.Comment: 42 pages revtex, 7 postscript figures available from above e-mail upon request. Perugia preprint DFUPG 92/9

Stress corrosion cracking in Al-Zn-Mg-Cu aluminum alloys in saline environments

Copyright 2013 ASM International. This paper was published in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 44A(3), 1230 - 1253, and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of ASM International. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic or multiple reproduction, distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means, duplications of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of this paper are prohibited.Stress corrosion cracking of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu (AA7xxx) aluminum alloys exposed to saline environments at temperatures ranging from 293 K to 353 K (20 °C to 80 °C) has been reviewed with particular attention to the influences of alloy composition and temper, and bulk and local environmental conditions. Stress corrosion crack (SCC) growth rates at room temperature for peak- and over-aged tempers in saline environments are minimized for Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloys containing less than ~8 wt pct Zn when Zn/Mg ratios are ranging from 2 to 3, excess magnesium levels are less than 1 wt pct, and copper content is either less than ~0.2 wt pct or ranging from 1.3 to 2 wt pct. A minimum chloride ion concentration of ~0.01 M is required for crack growth rates to exceed those in distilled water, which insures that the local solution pH in crack-tip regions can be maintained at less than 4. Crack growth rates in saline solution without other additions gradually increase with bulk chloride ion concentrations up to around 0.6 M NaCl, whereas in solutions with sufficiently low dichromate (or chromate), inhibitor additions are insensitive to the bulk chloride concentration and are typically at least double those observed without the additions. DCB specimens, fatigue pre-cracked in air before immersion in a saline environment, show an initial period with no detectible crack growth, followed by crack growth at the distilled water rate, and then transition to a higher crack growth rate typical of region 2 crack growth in the saline environment. Time spent in each stage depends on the type of pre-crack (“pop-in” vs fatigue), applied stress intensity factor, alloy chemistry, bulk environment, and, if applied, the external polarization. Apparent activation energies (E a) for SCC growth in Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloys exposed to 0.6 M NaCl over the temperatures ranging from 293 K to 353 K (20 °C to 80 °C) for under-, peak-, and over-aged low-copper-containing alloys (~0.8 wt pct), they are typically ranging from 20 to 40 kJ/mol for under- and peak-aged alloys, and based on limited data, around 85 kJ/mol for over-aged tempers. This means that crack propagation in saline environments is most likely to occur by a hydrogen-related process for low-copper-containing Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloys in under-, peak- and over-aged tempers, and for high-copper alloys in under- and peak-aged tempers. For over-aged high-copper-containing alloys, cracking is most probably under anodic dissolution control. Future stress corrosion studies should focus on understanding the factors that control crack initiation, and insuring that the next generation of higher performance Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloys has similar longer crack initiation times and crack propagation rates to those of the incumbent alloys in an over-aged condition where crack rates are less than 1 mm/month at a high stress intensity factor

The Nucleon's Virtual Meson Cloud and Deep Inelastic Lepton Scattering

We address the question whether the nucleon's antiquark sea can be attributed entirely to its virtual meson cloud and, in essence, whether there exists a smooth transition between hadronic and quark-gluon degrees of freedom. We take into account contributions from $\pi$ and $K$ mesons and compare with the nucleon's antiquark distributions which serve as a non-perturbative input to the QCD evolution equations. We elucidate the different behavior in the flavor singlet and non-singlet channels and study the dependence of our results on the scale $Q^2$. The meson-nucleon cut-offs that we determine give not only an indication on the size of the region within which quarks are confined in a nucleon, but we find that the scale of these form factors is closely related to the four-momentum transfer, $Q^2$, where gluons are resolved by a high energy probe, and that large meson loop momenta, $|{\bf k}| \approx 0.8$ GeV, contribute significantly to the sea quark distributions. While the agreement of our calculations with data-based parametrizations is satisfactory and scale independent for the flavor breaking share of the nucleon's antiquark sea, the flavor singlet component is quite poorly described. This hints the importance of gluon degrees of freedom.Comment: 34 pages, RevTeX, 6 figures optionally included using epsfig.st

Performance of the PEP-II B-Factory Collider at SLAC

PEP-II is an e{sup +}e{sup -} asymmetric B-Factory Collider located at SLAC operating at the Upsilon 4S resonance (3.1 GeV x 9 GeV). It has reached a luminosity of 9.21 x 10{sup 33}/cm{sup 2}/s and has delivered an integrated luminosity of 710 pb{sup -1} in one day. PEP-II has delivered, over the past six years, an integrated luminosity to the BaBar detector of over 262 fb{sup -1}. PEP-II operates in continuous injection mode for both beams boosting the integrated luminosity. The peak positron current has reached 2.45 A in 1588 bunches. Steady progress is being made in reaching higher luminosity. The goal over the next several years is to reach a luminosity of 2.1 x 10{sup 34}/cm{sup 2}/s. The accelerator physics issues being addressed in PEP-II to reach this goal include the electron cloud instability, beam-beam effects, parasitic beam-beam effects, high RF beam loading, shorter bunches, lower {beta}*{sub y} interaction region operation, and coupling control. Figure 1 shows the PEP-II tunnel

Combination of searches for Higgs boson pairs in pp collisions at \sqrts = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This letter presents a combination of searches for Higgs boson pair production using up to 36.1 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy root s = 13 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The combination is performed using six analyses searching for Higgs boson pairs decaying into the b (b) over barb (b) over bar, b (b) over barW(+)W(-), b (b) over bar tau(+)tau(-), W+W-W+W-, b (b) over bar gamma gamma and W+W-gamma gamma final states. Results are presented for non-resonant and resonant Higgs boson pair production modes. No statistically significant excess in data above the Standard Model predictions is found. The combined observed (expected) limit at 95% confidence level on the non-resonant Higgs boson pair production cross-section is 6.9 (10) times the predicted Standard Model cross-section. Limits are also set on the ratio (kappa(lambda)) of the Higgs boson self-coupling to its Standard Model value. This ratio is constrained at 95% confidence level in observation (expectation) to -5.0 &lt; kappa(lambda) &lt; 12.0 (-5.8 &lt; kappa(lambda) &lt; 12.0). In addition, limits are set on the production of narrow scalar resonances and spin-2 Kaluza-Klein Randall-Sundrum gravitons. Exclusion regions are also provided in the parameter space of the habemus Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and the Electroweak Singlet Model. For complete list of authors see http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2019.135103</p