Antihyperon-Production in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collision

Recently it has been shown that the observed antiproton yield in heavy-ion collisions at CERN-SpS energies can be understood by multi-pionic interactions which enforce local chemical equilibrium of the antiprotons with the nucleons and pions. Here we show that antihyperons are driven towards local chemical equilibrium with pions, nucleons and kaons on a timescale of less than 3 fm/c when applying a similar argument for the antihyperons by considering the inverse channel of annihilation reactions anti-Y + p to pions + kaons. These multi-mesonic reactions easily explain the antihyperon yields at CERN-SpS energies as advertised in pure thermal, hadronic models without the need of a quark gluon plasma phase. In addition, the argument also applies for AGS energies.Comment: 4 pages using RevTeX, 1 eps figur

The new Primary Care and Risk Factor Management (PCRFM) nucleus of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology: A call for action.

In recent decades, cardiovascular mortality has reduced significantly. Among others, improved treatment options for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and a reduction of smoking since the 1960s have contributed to this decline.1 In many countries, smoking in public areas is prohibited. However, western dietary habits, including foods high in sugar, salt and fat, and lack of exercise are still persistent, leading to obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Yet, despite numerous guidelines on prevention and treatment of CVD with medication and lifestyle management, the incidence of CVD is still increasing in many countries, fuelled by rising obesity levels, sedentary lifestyles and increased longevity.2 In particular in the southern hemisphere CVD is on the increase, with high rates of obesity, diabetes and hypertension.3 Demographics are changing in low and middle income countries, fuelling the rise of chronic diseases and a persistent burden of infectious diseases overwhelming the limited health care resources.4 In western countries survival after CVD events has successfully improved; however, at the price of more patients living with chronic CVDs.5 These developments will lead to an increased demand on healthcare services now and in the years ahead for both the prevention and the management of CVD. The organisation and continuity of care through the various layers of the different national healthcare systems is challenging and calls for close collaboration between hospital specialists, general practitioners (GPs) and other primary care workers in the battle against CVD. GPs are key in identifying patients at risk of CVD and providing individualised, risk stratified preventive careThe author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this articl

Status and perspectives of short baseline studies

The study of flavor changing neutrinos is a very active field of research. I will discuss the status of ongoing and near term experiments investigating neutrino properties at short distances from the source. In the next few years, the Double Chooz, RENO and Daya Bay reactor neutrino experiments will start looking for signatures of a non-zero value of the mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ with much improved sensitivities. The MiniBooNE experiment is investigating the LSND anomaly by looking at both the $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{e}$ and $\bar{\nu}_{\mu} \to \bar{\nu}_{e}$ appearance channels. Recent results on cross section measurements will be discussed briefly.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP 2009), Rome, Italy, 1-5 July 200

Observation of a nuclear recoil peak at the 100 eV scale induced by neutron capture

Coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering and low-mass Dark Matter detectors rely crucially on the understanding of their response to nuclear recoils. We report the first observation of a nuclear recoil peak at around 112 eV induced by neutron capture. The measurement was performed with a CaWO$_4$ cryogenic detector from the NUCLEUS experiment exposed to a $^{252}$Cf source placed in a compact moderator. The measured spectrum is found in agreement with simulations and the expected peak structure from the single-$\gamma$ de-excitation of $^{183}$W is identified with 3 $\sigma$ significance. This result demonstrates a new method for precise, in-situ, and non-intrusive calibration of low-threshold experiments

Reaction-rates of Astrophysical Interest Obtained With Radioactive Beams

The reasons and the methods used for obtaining information interesting for nuclear astrophysics with radioactive beams are reviewed. Specific examples of experiments carried out with low (less than or equal to 1 MeV/A)- and high (tens of MeV/A)-energy radioactive beams are presented, dealing with direct and indirect determinations of reaction cross sections, and measurements of spectroscopic data. The perspectives of the field are outlined