Low pT Hadronic Physics with CMS

The pixel detector of CMS can be used to reconstruct very low pT charged particles down to about 0.1 GeV/c. This can be achieved with high efficiency, good resolution and a negligible fake rate for elementary collisions. In the case of central PbPb collisions the fake rate can be kept low for pT > 0.4 GeV/c. In addition, the detector can be employed for identification of neutral hadrons (V0s) and converted photons.Comment: 6 pages. Presented at the Poster Session of Quark Matter 2006 Conference, Shanghai, 14-20 November 2006. Submitted to IJMP

High energy solar neutrinos and p-wave contributions to ^3He(p,\nue^+)^4He

High energy solar neutrinos can come from the hep reaction ^3He(p,\nue^+)^4He with a large end point energy of 18.8 MeV. Understanding the hep reaction may be important for interpreting solar neutrino spectra. We calculate the contribution of the axial charge transition $^3P_0\to ^1S_0$ to the hep thermonuclear S factor using a one-body reaction model involving a nucleon moving in optical potentials. Our result is comparable to or larger than previous calculations of the s-wave Gamow Teller contribution. This indicates that the hep reaction may have p-wave strength leading to an enhancement of the S factor.Comment: 4 pages, 1 ps figure, very minor changes, Phys. Rev. C in pres

A 16-Channel Neural Recording System-on-Chip With CHT Feature Extraction Processor in 65-nm CMOS

Next-generation invasive neural interfaces require fully implantable wireless systems that can record from a large number of channels simultaneously. However, transferring the recorded data from the implant to an external receiver emerges as a significant challenge due to the high throughput. To address this challenge, this article presents a neural recording system-on-chip that achieves high resource and wireless bandwidth efficiency by employing on-chip feature extraction. Energy-area-efficient 10-bit 20-kS/s front end amplifies and digitizes the neural signals within the local field potential (LFP) and action potential (AP) bands. The raw data from each channel are decomposed into spectral features using a compressed Hadamard transform (CHT) processor. The selection of the features to be computed is tailored through a machine learning algorithm such that the overall data rate is reduced by 80% without compromising classification performance. Moreover, the CHT feature extractor allows waveform reconstruction on the receiver side for monitoring or additional post-processing. The proposed approach was validated through in vivo and off-line experiments. The prototype fabricated in 65-nm CMOS also includes wireless power and data receiver blocks to demonstrate the energy and area efficiency of the complete system. The overall signal chain consumes 2.6 μW and occupies 0.021 mm² per channel, pointing toward its feasibility for 1000-channel single-die neural recording systems

Single-inclusive production of large-pT charged particles in hadronic collisions at TeV energies and perturbative QCD predictions

The single inclusive spectrum of charged particles with transverse momenta pT=3-150 GeV/c measured at midrapidity by the CDF experiment in proton-antiproton (p-pbar) collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV is compared to next-to-leading order (NLO) perturbative QCD calculations using the most recent parametrizations of the parton distributions and parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions. Above pT~20 GeV/c, there is a very sizeable disagreement of the Tevatron data compared to the NLO predictions and to xT-scaling expectations, suggesting a problem in the experimental data. We also present the predictions for the pT-differential charged hadron spectra and the associated theoretical uncertainties for proton-proton (p-p) collisions at LHC energies (sqrt(s)=0.9-14 TeV). Two procedures to estimate the charged hadron spectra at LHC heavy-ion collision energies (sqrt(s)=2.76,5.5 TeV) from p-p measurements are suggested.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures. A few text additions. Accepted for publication in JHE

Physics Projects for a Future CERN-LNGS Neutrino Programme

We present an overview of the future projects concerning the neutrino oscillation physics in Europe. Recently a joint CERN-LNGS scientific committee has reviewed several proposals both for the study of atmospheric neutrinos and for long (LBL) and short baseline (SBL) neutrino oscillation experiments. The committee has indicated the priority that the European high energy physics community should follows in the field of neutrino physics, namely a new massive, atmospheric neutrino detector and a nu_tau appearance campaign exploiting the new CERN-LNGS Neutrino Facility (NGS), freshly approved by CERN and INFN. The sensitivity and the discovery potential of the whole experimental program in the Super-Kamiokande allowed region are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the XVIII International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrphysics, Takayama, Japan, 199

COMPARISON OF TRANSVERSE SINGLE BUNCH INSTABILITIES BETWEEN THE ESRF AND ELETTRA

Abstract Transverse single bunch instabilities are measured, analysed and compared between the ESRF and ELETTRA, to obtain a deeper insight, namely how different effects influence coherent transverse motions. Despite the basic similarity of the two machines, being both examples of third generation light sources, it is found that some distinct differences in the relevant parameters such as the energy and optics, as well as the impedance, lead to the appearance of instabilities in a notably different manner. As well as summarising the results of the experiments, modelling of the broadband impedance of the two machines and comparison with expectations are presented

Recombinant pediocin in Lactococcus lactis:increased production by propeptide fusion and improved potency by co-production with PedC

We describe the impact of two propeptides and PedC on the production yield and the potency of recombinant pediocins produced in Lactococcus lactis. On the one hand, the sequences encoding the propeptides SD or LEISSTCDA were inserted between the sequence encoding the signal peptide of Usp45 and the structural gene of the mature pediocin PA-1. On the other hand, the putative thiol-disulfide oxidoreductase PedC was coexpressed with pediocin. The concentration of recombinant pediocins produced in supernatants was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The potency of recombinant pediocins was investigated by measuring the minimal inhibitory concentration by agar well diffusion assay. The results show that propeptides SD or LEISSTCDA lead to an improved secretion of recombinant pediocins with apparently no effect on the antibacterial potency and that PedC increases the potency of recombinant pediocin. To our knowledge, this study reveals for the first time that pediocin tolerates fusions at the N-terminal end. Furthermore, it reveals that only expressing the pediocin structural gene in a heterologous host is not sufficient to get an optimal potency and requires the accessory protein PedC. In addition, it can be speculated that PedC catalyses the correct formation of disulfide bonds in pediocin.</p

Solar Neutrinos: What We Have Learned

The four operating solar neutrino experiments confirm the hypothesis that the energy source for solar luminosity is hydrogen fusion. However, the measured rate for each of the four solar neutrino experiments differs significantly (by factors of 2.0 to 3.5) from the corresponding theoretical prediction that is based upon the standard solar model and the simplest version of the standard electroweak theory. If standard electroweak theory is correct, the energy spectrum for \b8 neutrinos created in the solar interior must be the same (to one part in $10^5$) as the known laboratory \b8 neutrino energy spectrum. Direct comparison of the chlorine and the Kamiokande experiments, both sensitive to \b8 neutrinos, suggests that the discrepancy between theory and observations depends upon neutrino energy, in conflict with standard expectations. Monte Carlo studies with 1000 implementations of the standard solar model confirm that the chlorine and the Kamiokande experiments cannot be reconciled unless new weak interaction physics changes the shape of the \b8 neutrino energy spectrum. The results of the two gallium solar neutrino experiments strengthen the conclusion that new physics is required and help determine a relatively small allowed region for the MSW neutrino parameters.Comment: LaTeX file, 19 pages. For hardcopy with figures contact [email protected]. Institute for Advanced Study number AST 93/6

Infiltration from surface and buried point sources: The average wetting water content

The assumption in analytical solutions for flow from surface and buried point sources of an average water content, (θ) over bar, behind the wetting front is examined. Some recent work has shown that this assumption fitted some field data well. Here we calculated (θ) over bar using a steady state solution based on the work by Raats [1971] and an exponential dependence of the diffusivity upon the water content. This is compared with a constant value of (θ) over bar calculated from an assumption of a hydraulic conductivity at the wetting front of 1 mm day(-1) and the water content at saturation. This comparison was made for a wide range of soils. The constant (θ) over bar generally underestimated (θ) over bar at small wetted radii and overestimated (θ) over bar at large radii. The crossover point between under and overestimation changed with both soil properties and flow rate. The largest variance occurred for coarser texture soils at low-flow rates. At high-flow rates in finer-textured soils the use of a constant (θ) over bar results in underestimation of the time for the wetting front to reach a particular radius. The value of (θ) over bar is related to the time at which the wetting front reaches a given radius. In coarse-textured soils the use of a constant value of (θ) over bar can result in an error of the time when the wetting front reaches a particular radius, as large as 80% at low-flow rates and large radii