1,862 research outputs found
Explaining the t tbar forward-backward asymmetry without dijet or flavor anomalies
We consider new physics explanations of the anomaly in the top quark
forward-backward asymmetry measured at the Tevatron, in the context of flavor
conserving models. The recently measured LHC dijet distributions strongly
constrain many otherwise viable models. A new scalar particle in the
antitriplet representation of flavor and color can fit the t tbar asymmetry and
cross section data at the Tevatron and avoid both low- and high-energy bounds
from flavor physics and the LHC. An s-channel resonance in uc to uc scattering
at the LHC is predicted to be not far from the current sensitivity. This model
also predicts rich top quark physics for the early LHC from decays of the new
scalar particles. Single production gives t tbar j signatures with high
transverse momentum jet, pair production leads to t tbar j j and 4 jet final
states.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures; v2: notation clarified, references adde
QCD Coherence and the Top Quark Asymmetry
Coherent QCD radiation in the hadroproduction of top quark pairs leads to a
forward--backward asymmetry that grows more negative with increasing transverse
momentum of the pair. This feature is present in Monte Carlo event generators
with coherent parton showering, even though the production process is treated
at leading order and has no intrinsic asymmetry before showering. In addition,
depending on the treatment of recoils, showering can produce a positive
contribution to the inclusive asymmetry. We explain the origin of these
features, compare them in fixed-order calculations and the Herwig++, Pythia and
Sherpa event generators, and discuss their implications.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, 2 table
Scalar-mediated forward-backward asymmetry
A large forward-backward asymmetry in production, for large
invariant mass of the system, has been recently observed by the CDF
collaboration. Among the scalar mediated mechanisms that can explain such a
large asymmetry, only the t-channel exchange of a color-singlet weak-doublet
scalar is consistent with both differential and integrated cross
section measurements. Constraints from flavor changing processes dictate a very
specific structure for the Yukawa couplings of such a new scalar. No sizable
deviation in the differential or integrated production cross section
is expected at the LHC.Comment: 22 pages, 1 figure and 2 tables. v2: Corrected Eqs.(50,51,74),
adapted Fig.1, Tab.1 and relevant discussions. Extended discussion of top
decay and single to
Common Gene Therapy Viral Vectors Do Not Efficiently Penetrate Sputum from Cystic Fibrosis Patients
Norwalk virus and human papilloma virus, two viruses that infect humans at mucosal surfaces, have been found capable of rapidly penetrating human mucus secretions. Viral vectors for gene therapy of Cystic Fibrosis (CF) must similarly penetrate purulent lung airway mucus (sputum) to deliver DNA to airway epithelial cells. However, surprisingly little is known about the rates at which gene delivery vehicles penetrate sputum, including viral vectors used in clinical trials for CF gene therapy. We find that sputum spontaneously expectorated by CF patients efficiently traps two viral vectors commonly used in CF gene therapy trials, adenovirus (d∼80 nm) and adeno-associated virus (AAV serotype 5; d∼20 nm), leading to average effective diffusivities that are ∼3,000-fold and 12,000-fold slower than their theoretical speeds in water, respectively. Both viral vectors are slowed by adhesion, as engineered muco-inert nanoparticles with diameters as large as 200 nm penetrate the same sputum samples at rates only ∼40-fold reduced compared to in pure water. A limited fraction of AAV exhibit sufficiently fast mobility to penetrate physiologically thick sputum layers, likely because of the lower viscous drag and smaller surface area for adhesion to sputum constituents. Nevertheless, poor penetration of CF sputum is likely a major contributor to the ineffectiveness of viral vector based gene therapy in the lungs of CF patients observed to date
Phenomenology of event shapes at hadron colliders
We present results for matched distributions of a range of dijet event shapes
at hadron colliders, combining next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy in
the resummation exponent, next-to-next-to leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy
in its expansion and next-to-leading order (NLO) accuracy in a pure alpha_s
expansion. This is the first time that such a matching has been carried out for
hadronic final-state observables at hadron colliders. We compare our results to
Monte Carlo predictions, with and without matching to multi-parton tree-level
fixed-order calculations. These studies suggest that hadron-collider event
shapes have significant scope for constraining both perturbative and
non-perturbative aspects of hadron-collider QCD. The differences between
various calculational methods also highlight the limits of relying on
simultaneous variations of renormalisation and factorisation scale in making
reliable estimates of uncertainties in QCD predictions. We also discuss the
sensitivity of event shapes to the topology of multi-jet events, which are
expected to appear in many New Physics scenarios.Comment: 70 pages, 25 figures, additional material available from
http://www.lpthe.jussieu.fr/~salam/pp-event-shapes
On parallel Branch and Bound frameworks for Global Optimization
Branch and Bound (B&B) algorithms are known to exhibit an irregularity of the search tree. Therefore, developing a parallel approach for this kind of algorithms is a challenge. The efficiency of a B&B algorithm depends on the chosen Branching, Bounding, Selection, Rejection, and Termination rules. The question we investigate is how the chosen platform consisting of programming language, used libraries, or skeletons influences programming effort and algorithm performance. Selection rule and data management structures are usually hidden to programmers for frameworks with a high level of abstraction, as well as the load balancing strategy, when the algorithm is run in parallel. We investigate the question by implementing a multidimensional Global Optimization B&B algorithm with the help of three frameworks with a different level of abstraction (from more to less): Bobpp, Threading Building Blocks (TBB), and a customized Pthread implementation. The following has been found. The Bobpp implementation is easy to code, but exhibits the poorest scalability. On the contrast, the TBB and Pthread implementations scale almost linearly on the used platform. The TBB approach shows a slightly better productivity
NLO QCD corrections to tW' and tZ' production in forward-backward asymmetry models
We consider Z' and W' models recently proposed to explain the top
forward-backward asymmetry at the Tevatron. We present the next-to-leading
order QCD corrections to associated production of such vector bosons together
with top quarks at the Large Hadron Collider, for centre-of-mass energies of 7
and 8 TeV. The corrections are significant, modifying the total production
cross-section by 30-50%. We consider the effects of the corrections on the top
and vector-boson kinematics. The results are directly applicable to current
experimental searches, for both the ATLAS and CMS collaborations.Comment: 62 pages, 13 figures, 36 tables. v3 Updated to correspond to Journal
version and incorporate supplementary materia
RG-improved single-particle inclusive cross sections and forward-backward asymmetry in production at hadron colliders
We use techniques from soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) to derive
renormalization-group improved predictions for single-particle inclusive (1PI)
observables in top-quark pair production at hadron colliders. In particular, we
study the top-quark transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions, the
forward-backward asymmetry at the Tevatron, and the total cross section at
NLO+NNLL order in resummed perturbation theory and at approximate NNLO in fixed
order. We also perform a detailed analysis of power corrections to the leading
terms in the threshold expansion of the partonic hard-scattering kernels. We
conclude that, although the threshold expansion in 1PI kinematics is
susceptible to numerically significant power corrections, its predictions for
the total cross section are in good agreement with those obtained by
integrating the top-pair invariant-mass distribution in pair invariant-mass
kinematics, as long as a certain set of subleading terms appearing naturally
within the SCET formalism is included.Comment: 55 pages, 14 figures, 6 table
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