Relativistic Effects in Electroweak Nuclear Responses

The electroweak response functions for inclusive electron scattering are calculated in the Relativistic Fermi Gas model, both in the quasi-elastic and in the $\Delta$ peak regions. The impact of relativistic kinematics at high momentum transfer is investigated through an expansion in the initial nucleonic momentum, which is however exact in the four-momentum of the exchanged boson. The same expansion is applied to the meson exchange currents in the particle-hole sector: it is shown that the non-relativistic currents can be corrected by simple kinematical factors to account for relativity. The left-right asymmetry measured via polarized electron scattering is finally evaluated in the quasi-elastic and $\Delta$ peaks.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to appear in "Proceedings of the VIII Convegno su Problemi di Fisica Nucleare Teorica, 18-20 October 2000", World Scientifi

Relativistic effects in quasielastic electron scattering

The impact of pionic correlations and meson-exchange currents on the quasi-elastic electromagnetic response functions is studied in a fully relativistic framework.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of "The Nuclear Many Body Problem 2001", NATO Science Series II - Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, Kluwer Academic Publisher

Discussing the future of open peer-review: a survey of journals in the JCR Public, Environmental and Occupational Health category

The journals listed in the JCR Public, Environmental and Occupational Health category are examined by the authors in order to check how many of them practice some kind of Open Peer-Review (OPR). An overview of the different OPR methods identified is given: a variety of practices considered as OPR even though the number of journals using them is very small. Furthermore, the possible future evolution of OPR is examined

The impact of COVID-19 on scientific publishing

This article proposes an analysis on the impact that COVID-19 pandemic is having on the process of scientific publishing in academic journals. It will specifically describe the response of the scholarly publishing community to meet the pressing demand from authors and researchers wishing to disseminate, as rapidly as possible, information on the virus. Its aim is to provide an overview for the community of librarians and information specialists about publishing in the COVID-19 era

Are there hadronic bound states above the QCD transition temperature?

Recent lattice QCD calculations, at physical pion masses and small lattice spacings that approach the continuum limit, have revealed that non-diagonal quark correlators above the critical temperature are finite up to about 2 $T_c$. Since the transition from hadronic to free partonic degrees of freedom is merely an analytic cross-over, it is likely that, in the temperature regime between 1-2 $T_c$, quark and gluon quasiparticles and pre-hadronic bound states can coexist. The correlator values, in comparison to PNJL model calculations beyond mean-field, indicate that at least part of the mixed phase resides in color-neutral bound states. A similar effect was postulated for the in-medium fragmentation process, i.e. for partons which do not thermalize with the system and thus constitute the non-equilibrium component of the particle emission spectrum from a deconfined plasma phase. Here, for the first time we investigate the likelihood of forming bound states also in the equilibrated, parton dominated phase above $T_c$ which is described by lattice QCD.Comment: 15 pages, 4 Figure

Superscaling in electron- and neutrino-nucleus scattering

The superscaling properties of electron scattering data are used to extract model-independent predictions for neutrino-nucleus cross sections.Comment: Contibution to NuInt05, 4th international workshop on neutrino-nucleus interaction in the few GeV region, Sept. 26 - 29 2005, Okayama, Japa

Nuclear effects in neutrino-nucleus interactions

An accurate description of the nuclear response functions for neutrino scattering in the Gev region is essential for the interpretation of present and future neutrino oscillation experiments. Due to the close similarity of electromagnetic and weak scattering processes, we will review the status of the scaling approach and of relativistic modeling for the inclusive electron scattering response functions in the quasielastic and $\Delta$-resonance regions. In particular, recent studies have been focused on scaling violations and the degree to which these imply modifications of existing predictions for neutrino reactions. We will discuss sources and magnitude of such violations, emphasizing similarities and differences between electron and neutrino reactions.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Proceeding of the XVIII International School on Nuclear Physics, Neutron Physics and Applications, September 21 - 27, 2009 Varna, Bulgari