Ultimate parameters of the photon collider at the ILC

At linear colliders, the e+e- luminosity is limited by beam-collision effects, which determine the required emittances of beams in damping rings (DRs). While in gamma-gamma collisions at the photon collider, these effects are absent, and so smaller emittances are desirable. In present damping rings designs, nominal DR parameters correspond to those required for e+e- collisions. In this note, I would like to stress once again that as soon as we plan the photon-collider mode of ILC operation, the damping-ring emittances are dictated by the photon-collider requirements--namely, they should be as small as possible. This can be achieved by adding more wigglers to the DRs; the incremental cost is easily justified by a considerable potential improvement of the gamma-gamma luminosity. No expert analysis exists as of yet, but it seems realistic to obtain a factor five increase of the gamma-gamma luminosity compared to the ``nominal'' DR design.Comment: Talk at LCWS06, Bangalore, India, March 2006, to be published in Indian Journal of Physics, 5 pp, Latex, 1 .eps figur

The Far-Infrared Properties of Spatially Resolved AKARI Observations

We present the spatially resolved observations of IRAS sources from the Japanese infrared astronomy satellite AKARI All-Sky Survey during the performance verification (PV) phase of the mission. We extracted reliable point sources matched with IRAS point source catalogue. By comparing IRAS and AKARI fluxes, we found that the flux measurements of some IRAS sources could have been over or underestimated and affected by the local background rather than the global background. We also found possible candidates for new AKARI sources and confirmed that AKARI observations resolved IRAS sources into multiple sources. All-Sky Survey observations are expected to verify the accuracies of IRAS flux measurements and to find new extragalactic point sources.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, accepted publication in PASJ AKARI special issu

Convective Motion in a Vibrated Granular Layer

Experimental results are presented for a vertically shaken granular layer. In the range of accelerations explored, the layer develops a convective motion in the form of one or more rolls. The velocity of the grains near the wall has been measured. It grows linearly with the acceleration, then the growing rate slows down. A rescaling with the amplitude of the wall velocity and the height of the granular layer makes all data collapse in a single curve. This can provide insights on the mechanism driving the motion.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Early GRB Optical and Infrared Afterglow Observations with the 2-m Robotic Liverpool Telescope

We present the first optical observations of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) afterglow using the 2-m robotic Liverpool Telescope (LT), which is owned and operated by Liverpool John Moores University and situated on La Palma. We briefly discuss the capabilities of LT and its suitability for rapid follow-up observations of early optical and infrared GRB light curves. In particular, the combination of aperture, site, instrumentation and rapid response (robotic over-ride mode aided by telescope's rapid slew and fully-opening enclosure) makes the LT ideal for investigating the nature of short bursts, optically-dark bursts, and GRB blast-wave physics in general. We briefly describe the LT's key position in the RoboNet-1.0 network of robotic telescopes. We present the LT observations of GRB041006 and use its gamma-ray properties to predict the time of the break in optical light curve, a prediction consistent with the observations.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Il nuovo cimento (4th Workshop Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era, Rome, 18-22 October 2004

Towards Higgs boson production in gluon fusion to NNLO in the MSSM

We consider the Higgs boson production in the gluon-fusion channel to next-to-next-to-leading order within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In particular, we present analytical results for the matching coefficient of the effective theory and study its influence on the total production cross section in the limit where the masses of all MSSM particles coincide. For supersymmetric masses below 500 GeV it is possible to find parameters leading to a significant enhancement of the Standard Model cross section, the $K$-factors, however, change only marginally.Comment: 20 pages; v2: modification of discussion of numerical effect, version to appear in EPJC; v3: eq.(18) corrected, minor correction

Transitions in the Horizontal Transport of Vertically Vibrated Granular Layers

Motivated by recent advances in the investigation of fluctuation-driven ratchets and flows in excited granular media, we have carried out experimental and simulational studies to explore the horizontal transport of granular particles in a vertically vibrated system whose base has a sawtooth-shaped profile. The resulting material flow exhibits novel collective behavior, both as a function of the number of layers of particles and the driving frequency; in particular, under certain conditions, increasing the layer thickness leads to a reversal of the current, while the onset of transport as a function of frequency occurs gradually in a manner reminiscent of a phase transition. Our experimental findings are interpreted here with the help of extensive, event driven Molecular Dynamics simulations. In addition to reproducing the experimental results, the simulations revealed that the current may be reversed as a function of the driving frequency as well. We also give details about the simulations so that similar numerical studies can be carried out in a more straightforward manner in the future.Comment: 12 pages, 18 figure