Confronting fluctuations of conserved charges in central nuclear collisions at the LHC with predictions from Lattice QCD

We construct net baryon number and strangeness susceptibilities as well as correlations between electric charge, strangeness and baryon number from experimental data at midrapidity of the ALICE Collaboration at CERN. The data were taken in central Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV and cover one unit of rapidity. The resulting fluctuations and correlations are consistent with Lattice QCD results at the chiral crossover pseudocritical temperature Tc≃155 MeV . This agreement lends strong support to the assumption that the fireball created in these collisions is of thermal origin and exhibits characteristic properties expected in QCD at the transition from the quark gluon plasma to the hadronic phase. The volume of the fireball for one unit of rapidity at Tc is found to exceed 3000 fm 3 . A detailed discussion on uncertainties in the temperature and volume of the fireball is presented. The results are linked to pion interferometry measurements and predictions from percolation theory

Lifting shell structures in the dynamically assisted Schwinger effect in periodic fields

The dynamically assisted pair creation (Schwinger effect) is considered for the superposition of two periodic electric fields acting in a finite time interval. We find a strong enhancement by orders of magnitude caused by a weak field with a frequency being a multitude of the strong-field frequency. The strong low-frequency field leads to shell structures which are lifted by the weaker high-frequency field. The resonance type amplification refers to a new, monotonously increasing mode, often hidden in some strong oscillatory transient background, which disappears during the smoothly switching off the background fields, thus leaving a pronounced residual shell structure in phase space

Complete QED NLO contributions to the reaction e + e − → μ + μ − γ and their implementation in the event generator PHOKHARA

KLOE and Babar have an observed discrepancy of 2% to 5% in the invariant pion pair production cross section. These measurements are based on approximate NLO μ + μ − γ cross section predictions of the Monte Carlo event generator PHOKHARA7.0. In this article, the complete NLO radiative corrections to μ + μ − γ production are calculated and implemented in the Monte Carlo event generator PHOKHARA9.0. Numerical reliability is guaranteed by two independent approaches to the real and the virtual corrections. The novel features include the contribution of pentagon diagrams in the virtual corrections, which form a gauge-invariant set when combined with their box diagram partners. They may contribute to certain distributions at the percent level. Also the real emission was complemented with two-photon final state emission contributions not included in the generator PHOKHARA7.0. We demonstrate that the numerical influence reaches, for realistic charge-averaged experimental setups, not more than 0.1% at KLOE and 0.3% at BaBar energies. As a result, we exclude the approximations in earlier versions of PHOKHARA as origin of the observed experimental discrepancy

Measurement of the analysing power in proton–proton elastic scattering at small angles

The proton analysing power in p→p elastic scattering has been measured at small angles at COSY-ANKE at 796 MeV and five other beam energies between 1.6 and 2.4 GeV using a polarised proton beam. The asymmetries obtained by detecting the fast proton in the ANKE forward detector or the slow recoil proton in a silicon tracking telescope are completely consistent. Although the analysing power results agree well with the many published data at 796 MeV, and also with the most recent partial wave solution at this energy, the ANKE data at the higher energies lie well above the predictions of this solution at small angles. An updated phase shift analysis that uses the ANKE results together with the World data leads to a much better description of these new measurements

Analysing powers and spin correlations in deuteron–proton charge exchange at 726 MeV

The charge exchange of vector polarised deuterons on a polarised hydrogen target has been studied in a high statistics experiment at the COSY-ANKE facility at a deuteron beam energy of Td=726 MeV . By selecting two fast protons at low relative energy Epp , the measured analysing powers and spin correlations are sensitive to interference terms between specific neutron–proton charge-exchange amplitudes at a neutron kinetic energy of Tn≈12Td=363 MeV . An impulse approximation calculation, which takes into account corrections due to the angular distribution in the diproton, describes reasonably the dependence of the data on both Epp and the momentum transfer. This lends broad support to the current neutron–proton partial wave solution that was used in the estimation

Black hole lightning due to particle acceleration at subhorizon scales

Supermassive black holes with masses of millions to billions of solar masses are commonly found in the centers of galaxies. Astronomers seek to image jet formation using radio interferometry, but still suffer from insufficient angular resolution. An alternative method to resolve small structures is to measure the time variability of their emission. Here, we report on gamma-ray observations of the radio galaxy IC 310 obtained with the MAGIC telescopes revealing variability with doubling time scales faster than 4.8 min. Causality constrains the size of the emission region to be smaller than 20\% of the gravitational radius of its central black hole. We suggest that the emission is associated with pulsar-like particle acceleration by the electric field across a magnetospheric gap at the base of the radio jet

Measurement of the Crab Nebula spectrum over three decades in energy with the MAGIC telescopes

The MAGIC stereoscopic system collected 69 hours of Crab Nebula data between October 2009 and April 2011. Analysis of this data sample using the latest improvements in the MAGIC stereoscopic software provided an unprecedented precision of spectral and night-by-night light curve determination at gamma rays. We derived a differential spectrum with a single instrument from 50 GeV up to almost 30 TeV with 5 bins per energy decade. At low energies, MAGIC results, combined with Fermi-LAT data, show a flat and broad Inverse Compton peak. The overall fit to the data between 1 GeV and 30 TeV is not well described by a log-parabola function. We find that a modified log-parabola function with an exponent of 2.5 instead of 2 provides a good description of the data ($\chi^2=35/26$). Using systematic uncertainties of red the MAGIC and Fermi-LAT measurements we determine the position of the Inverse Compton peak to be at (53 $\pm$ 3stat + 31syst -13syst) GeV, which is the most precise estimation up to date and is dominated by the systematic effects. There is no hint of the integral flux variability on daily scales at energies above 300 GeV when systematic uncertainties are included in the flux measurement. We consider three state- of-the-art theoretical models to describe the overall spectral energy distribution of the Crab Nebula. The constant B-field model cannot satisfactorily reproduce the VHE spectral measurements presented in this work, having particular difficulty reproducing the broadness of the observed IC peak. Most probably this implies that the assumption of the homogeneity of the magnetic field inside the nebula is incorrect. On the other hand, the time-dependent 1D spectral model provides a good fit of the new VHE results when considering a 80 {\mu}G magnetic field. However, it fails to match the data when including the morphology of the nebula at lower wavelengths

MAGIC reveals a complex morphology within the unidentified gamma-ray source HESS J1857+026

HESS J1857+026 is an extended TeV gamma-ray source that was discovered by H.E.S.S. as part of its Galactic plane survey. Given its broadband spectral energy distribution and its spatial coincidence with the young energetic pulsar PSR J1856+0245, the source has been put forward as a pulsar wind nebula (PWN) candidate. MAGIC has performed follow-up observations aimed at mapping the source down to energies approaching 100 GeV in order to better understand its complex morphology. HESS J1857+026 was observed by MAGIC in 2010, yielding 29 hours of good quality stereoscopic data that allowed us to map the source region in two separate ranges of energy. We detected very-high-energy gamma-ray emission from HESS J1857+026 with a significance of $12 \sigma$ above $150$ GeV. The differential energy spectrum between $100$ GeV and $13$ TeV is well described by a power law function $dN/dE = N_0(E/1\textrm{TeV})^{-\Gamma}$ with $N_0 = (5.37 \pm0.44_{stat} \pm1.5_{sys}) \times 10^{-12} (\textrm{TeV}^{-1} \textrm{cm}^{-2}$ $\textrm{ s}^{-1})$ and $\Gamma = 2.16\pm0.07_{stat} \pm0.15_{sys}$, which bridges the gap between the GeV emission measured by Fermi-LAT and the multi-TeV emission measured by H.E.S.S.. In addition, we present a detailed analysis of the energy-dependent morphology of this region. We couple these results with archival multi-wavelength data and outline evidence in favor of a two-source scenario, whereby one source is associated with a PWN, while the other could be linked with a molecular cloud complex containing an HII region and a possible gas cavity

First broadband characterization and redshift determination of the VHE blazar MAGIC J2001+439

We aim to characterize the broadband emission from 2FGL J2001.1+4352, which has been associated with the unknown-redshift blazar MG4 J200112+4352. Based on its gamma-ray spectral properties, it was identified as a potential very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emitter. The source was observed with MAGIC first in 2009 and later in 2010 within a multi-instrument observation campaign. The MAGIC observations yielded 14.8 hours of good quality stereoscopic data. The object was monitored at radio, optical and gamma-ray energies during the years 2010 and 2011. The source, named MAGIC J2001+439, is detected for the first time at VHE with MAGIC at a statistical significance of 6.3 {\sigma} (E > 70 GeV) during a 1.3-hour long observation on 2010 July 16. The multi-instrument observations show variability in all energy bands with the highest amplitude of variability in the X-ray and VHE bands. We also organized deep imaging optical observations with the Nordic Optical Telescope in 2013 to determine the source redshift. We determine for the first time the redshift of this BL Lac object through the measurement of its host galaxy during low blazar activity. Using the observational evidence that the luminosities of BL Lac host galaxies are confined to a relatively narrow range, we obtain z = 0.18 +/- 0.04. Additionally, we use the Fermi-LAT and MAGIC gamma-ray spectra to provide an independent redshift estimation, z = 0.17 +/- 0.10. Using the former (more accurate) redshift value, we adequately describe the broadband emission with a one-zone SSC model for different activity states and interpret the few-day timescale variability as produced by changes in the high-energy component of the electron energy distribution

Very-high-energy γ-ray observations of novae and dwarf novae with the MAGIC telescopes

Context. In the last five years the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) instrument detected GeV {\gamma}-ray emission from five novae. The GeV emission can be interpreted in terms of an inverse Compton process of electrons accelerated in a shock. In this case it is expected that protons in the same conditions can be accelerated to much higher energies. Consequently they may produce a second component in the {\gamma}-ray spectrum at TeV energies. Aims. We aim to explore the very-high-energy domain to search for {\gamma}-ray emission above 50 GeV and to shed light on the acceleration process of leptons and hadrons in nova explosions. Methods. We have performed observations with the MAGIC telescopes of the classical nova V339 Del shortly after the 2013 outburst, triggered by optical and subsequent GeV {\gamma}-ray detec- tions. We also briefly report on VHE observations of the symbiotic nova YY Her and the dwarf nova ASASSN-13ax. We complement the TeV MAGIC observations with the analysis of con- temporaneous Fermi-LAT data of the sources. The TeV and GeV observations are compared in order to evaluate the acceleration parameters for leptons and hadrons. Results. No significant TeV emission was found from the studied sources. We computed upper limits on the spectrum and night-by-night flux. The combined GeV and TeV observations of V339 Del limit the ratio of proton to electron luminosities to Lp<~0.15 Le