Scintillating properties of frozen new liquid scintillators

The light emission from scintillators which are liquid at room temperature was studied in the interval between $+20$~$^{\circ}$C and $-120$~$^{\circ}$C, where the phase transition from liquid to solid takes place. The light yield measured at $-120$~$^{\circ}$C is about twice as much as that observed at $+20$~$^{\circ}$C. By cooling the scintillator from $+20$~$^{\circ}$C to $-120$~$^{\circ}$C and then heating it from $-120$~$^{\circ}$C to $+20$~$^{\circ}$C, the light yield varies in steps at well defined temperatures, which are different for the cooling and heating processes. These hysteresis phenomena appear to be related to the solvent rather than to the dopant. The decay time of scintillation light was measured at $+20$~$^{\circ}$C and $-120$~$^{\circ}$C. Whilst at room temperature most of the light is emitted with a decay time of 6--8 ns, at $-120$~$^{\circ}$C a slower component, with a decay time of 25--35 ns, becomes important

Heritability of peach tree resistance to bacterial leaf spot.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the broad-sense heritability reaction to bacterial leaf spot (Xanthomonas arboricola pv. pruni), in peach tree populations obtained from directed crosses. Disease severity and defoliation of the genotypes were evaluated in field conditions, with posterior measurement of the healthy leaf area duration (HAD). The observed average heritability (0.51) indicates that the use of the evaluated genitors can be effective for the development of cultivars with higher resistance to the disease.Notas Científicas. Título em português: Herdabilidade de resistência de pessegueiro à bacteriose foliar

A new method based on noise counting to monitor the frontend electronics of the LHCb muon detector

A new method has been developed to check the correct behaviour of the frontend electronics of the LHCb muon detector. This method is based on the measurement of the electronic noise rate at different thresholds of the frontend discriminator. The method was used to choose the optimal discriminator thresholds. A procedure based on this method was implemented in the detector control system and allowed the detection of a small percentage of frontend channels which had deteriorated. A Monte Carlo simulation has been performed to check the validity of the method

Measurement of the front-end dead-time of the LHCb muon detector and evaluation of its contribution to the muon detection inefficiency

A method is described which allows to deduce the dead-time of the front-end electronics of the LHCb muon detector from a series of measurements performed at different luminosities at a bunch-crossing rate of 20 MHz. The measured values of the dead-time range from 70 ns to 100 ns. These results allow to estimate the performance of the muon detector at the future bunch-crossing rate of 40 MHz and at higher luminosity

Off-shell effects in dilepton production from hot interacting mesons

The production of dielectrons in reactions involving a_1 mesons and pions is studied. We compare results obtained with different phenomenological Lagrangians that have been used in connection with hadronic matter and finite nuclei. We insist on the necessity for those interactions to satisfy known empirical properties of the strong interaction. Large off-shell effects in dielectron production are found and some consequences for the interpretation of heavy ion data are outlined. We also compare with results obtained using experimentally-extracted spectral functions.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX2e, 2 figure

Performance of the LHCb muon system with cosmic rays

The LHCb Muon system performance is presented using cosmic ray events collected in 2009. These events allowed to test and optimize the detector configuration before the LHC start. The space and time alignment and the measurement of chamber efficiency, time resolution and cluster size are described in detail. The results are in agreement with the expected detector performance.Comment: Submitted to JINST and accepte

Performance of the LHCb muon system

The performance of the LHCb Muon system and its stability across the full 2010 data taking with LHC running at ps = 7 TeV energy is studied. The optimization of the detector setting and the time calibration performed with the first collisions delivered by LHC is described. Particle rates, measured for the wide range of luminosities and beam operation conditions experienced during the run, are compared with the values expected from simulation. The space and time alignment of the detectors, chamber efficiency, time resolution and cluster size are evaluated. The detector performance is found to be as expected from specifications or better. Notably the overall efficiency is well above the design requirementsComment: JINST_015P_1112 201

Intermediate-mass dilepton spectra and the role of secondary hadronic processes in heavy-ion collisions

We carry out a study of intermediate-mass (between 1 and 2.5 GeV) dilepton spectra from hadronic interactions in heavy-ion collisions. The processes considered are $\pi\pi\to l{\bar l}$, $\pi\rho\to l{\bar l}$, $\pi a_1\to l{\bar l}$, $\pi\omega\to l{\bar l}$, $K{\bar K}\to l{\bar l}$, and $K{\bar K^*}+c.c \to l{\bar l}$. The elementary cross sections for those are obtained from chiral Lagrangians involving pseudoscalar, vector, and axial-vector mesons. The respective electromagnetic form factors are determined by fitting to experimental data for the reverse processes of $e^+e^-\to hadrons$. Based on this input we calculate cross sections and thermal dilepton emission rates and compare our results with those from other approaches. Finally we use these elementary cross sections with a relativistic transport model and calculate dilepton spectra in S+W collisions at SPS energies. The comparison of our results with experimental data from the HELIOS-3 collaboration indicates the importance of the secondary hadronic contributions to the intermediate-mass dilepton spectra.Comment: 25 pages, including 20 postscript figure

The Megapixel EBCCD: a high-resolution imaging tube sensitive to single photons

A hybrid image-intensifier tube, suitable for extremely low-light imaging, has been tested. This device is based on an Electron-Bombarded CCD chip (EBCCD) with $1024 \times 1024$ sensitive pixe ls. The tube, which has a photocathode diameter of 40 mm, is gateable and zoomable, with an image magnification varying from 0.62 to 1.3. The high gain (about 4000 collected electrons per photo electron at the operational voltage of 15 kV) and the relatively low noise (180 electrons per pixel at 10 MHz pixel-readout frequency), allows single-photoelectron signals to be separated from n oise with a signal-to-noise ratio greater than 10. By applying an appropriate threshold on the signal amplitude, the background can almost be eliminated, with a loss of few percent in single-ph otoelectron counting. High inner gain, low noise, single-photoelectron sensitivity, and high spatial resolution make the EBCCD imaging tube a unique device, attractive for many applications in h igh-energy physics, astrophysics, biomedical diagnostics

Azimuthal correlation between beauty particles produced in 350 GeV/c π−\pi^{-}-Cu interactions

Using a sample of $10^8$ triggered events, produced in $350\, \hbox{GeV}/c$ $\pi^-$ interactions in a copper target, we have identified $26$ b\=b events. These include $13$ events where the decays of both $B$ and $\overline{B}$ are well reconstructed. We measure the azimuthal \hbox{correlation} between beauty particles, and compare our result with predictions based on perturbative QCD