Radiative quarkonium decays and the NMSSM Higgs interpretation of the HyperCP Sigma+ --> p mu+mu- events

We study the potential of radiative decays of the Upsilon(1S) and of the phi mesons to search for a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson, proposed as a possible interpretation of Sigma+ --> p mu+mu- events observed by the HyperCP collaboration at Fermilab. We conclude that the detection of this signal should certainly be possible with the current CLEO Upsilon(1S) data, and is within the reach of KLOE in at least part of the range of couplings suggested by the HyperCP findings.Comment: 6 pages, no figure

Swift monitoring of IGR J16418-4532

We report on the Swift observations of the candidate supergiant fast X-ray transient (SFXT) IGR J16418-4532, which has an orbital period of ~3.7 d. Our monitoring, for a total of ~43 ks, spans over three orbits and represents the most intense and complete sampling along the orbital period of the light curve of this source. If one assumes a circular orbit, the X-ray emission from this source can be explained by accretion from a spherically symmetric clumpy wind from a blue supergiant, composed of clumps with different masses, ranging from ~5x10^16 g to 10^21g.Comment: 4 pages; Proceedings, 5th International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy, (Gamma2012) Heidelberg, Germany, July 9-13th, 201

Color-flow decomposition of QCD amplitudes

We introduce a new color decomposition for multi-parton amplitudes in QCD, free of fundamental-representation matrices and structure constants. This decomposition has a physical interpretation in terms of the flow of color, which makes it ideal for merging with shower Monte-Carlo programs. The color-flow decomposition allows for very efficient evaluation of amplitudes with many quarks and gluons, many times faster than the standard color decomposition based on fundamental-representation matrices. This will increase the speed of event generators for multi-jet processes, which are the principal backgrounds to signals of new physics at colliders.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, version to appear on Phys. Rev.

Three Flavour Majorana Neutrinos with Magnetic Moments in a Supernova

The resonant transition effects MSW and NSFP for three flavour Majorana neutrinos in a supernova are considered, where the transition magnetic moments are likely to play a relevant role in neutrino physics. In this scenario, the deformed thermal neutrino distributions are obtained for different choices of the electron-tau mixing angle. Detailed predictions for the future large neutrino detectors are also given in terms of the ratio between the spectra of recoil electrons for deformed and undeformed spectra.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, 5 figures.p

Etude sur la ramulose du cotonnier. Comparaison du Colletrichum responsable à C. gossypii South. Conditions d'attaques

La comparaison de l'agent de la ramulose et de l'agent de l'anthracnose (C. gossypii) montre que ces 2 parasites diffèrent par leur pouvoir pathogène, leur morphologie, leur croissance sur divers milieux et leur aptitude à se développer au dessus de 30¼C. L'agent de la ramulose n'est donc pas un cultivar particulier de C. gossypii d'où la proposition de dénomination: C. gloeosporioides Penz. var. cephalosporioides cost

Production of a Higgs pseudoscalar plus two jets in hadronic collisions

We consider the production of a Higgs pseudoscalar accompanied by two jets in hadronic collisions. We work in the limit that the top quark is much heavier than the Higgs pseudoscalar and use an effective Lagrangian for the interactions of gluons with the pseudoscalar. We compute the amplitudes involving: 1) four gluons and the pseudoscalar, 2) two quarks, two gluons and the pseudoscalar and 3) four quarks and the pseudoscalar. We find that the pseudoscalar amplitudes are nearly identical to those for the scalar case, the only differences being the overall size and the relative signs between terms. We present numerical cross sections for proton-proton collisions with center-of-mass energy 14 TeV.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 4 Postscript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Monte Carlo studies of the jet activity in Higgs + 2 jet events

Tree-level studies have shown in the past that kinematical correlations between the two jets in Higgs+2-jet events are direct probes of the Higgs couplings, e.g. of their CP nature. In this paper we explore the impact of higher-order corrections on the azimuthal angle correlation of the two leading jets and on the rapidity distribution of extra jets. Our study includes matrix-element and shower MC effects, for the two leading sources of Higgs plus two jet events at the CERN LHC, namely vector-boson and gluon fusion. We show that the discriminating features present in the previous leading-order matrix element studies survive.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Version to appear on JHEP. Figs. 5-8 replaced with colour version

Investigating Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients with LOFT

Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT) are a class of High-Mass X-ray Binaries whose optical counterparts are O or B supergiant stars, and whose X-ray outbursts are ~ 4 orders of magnitude brighter than the quiescent state. LOFT, the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing, with its coded mask Wide Field Monitor (WFM) and its 10 m^2 class collimated X-ray Large Area Detector (LAD), will be able to dramatically deepen the knowledge of this class of sources. It will provide simultaneous high S/N broad-band and time-resolved spectroscopy in several intensity states, and long term monitoring that will yield new determinations of orbital periods, as well as spin periods. We show the results of an extensive set of simulations performed using previous observational results of these sources obtained with Swift and XMM-Newton. The WFM will detect all SFXT flares within its field of view down to a 15-20 mCrab in 5ks. Our simulations describe the outbursts at several intensities (F_(2-10keV)=5.9x10^-9 to 5.5x10^-10 erg cm^-2 s^-1), the intermediate and most common state (10^-11 erg cm^-2 s^-1), and the low state (1.2x10^-12 to 5x10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1). We also considered large variations of N_H and the presence of emission lines, as observed by Swift and XMM-Newton.Comment: Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy (Gamma2012), Heidelberg. 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl