605 research outputs found

    DNA hybridization catalysts and catalyst circuits

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    Practically all of life's molecular processes, from chemical synthesis to replication, involve enzymes that carry out their functions through the catalysis of metastable fuels into waste products. Catalytic control of reaction rates will prove to be as useful and ubiquitous in DNA nanotechnology as it is in biology. Here we present experimental results on the control of the decay rates of a metastable DNA "fuel". We show that the fuel complex can be induced to decay with a rate about 1600 times faster than it would decay spontaneously. The original DNA hybridization catalyst [15] achieved a maximal speed-up of roughly 30. The fuel complex discussed here can therefore serve as the basic ingredient for an improved DNA hybridization catalyst. As an example application for DNA hybridization catalysts, we propose a method for implementing arbitrary digital logic circuits

    Low-energy excitations in the three-dimensional random-field Ising model

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    The random-field Ising model (RFIM), one of the basic models for quenched disorder, can be studied numerically with the help of efficient ground-state algorithms. In this study, we extend these algorithm by various methods in order to analyze low-energy excitations for the three-dimensional RFIM with Gaussian distributed disorder that appear in the form of clusters of connected spins. We analyze several properties of these clusters. Our results support the validity of the droplet-model description for the RFIM.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

    Heavy quarkonium: progress, puzzles, and opportunities

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    A golden age for heavy quarkonium physics dawned a decade ago, initiated by the confluence of exciting advances in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and an explosion of related experimental activity. The early years of this period were chronicled in the Quarkonium Working Group (QWG) CERN Yellow Report (YR) in 2004, which presented a comprehensive review of the status of the field at that time and provided specific recommendations for further progress. However, the broad spectrum of subsequent breakthroughs, surprises, and continuing puzzles could only be partially anticipated. Since the release of the YR, the BESII program concluded only to give birth to BESIII; the BB-factories and CLEO-c flourished; quarkonium production and polarization measurements at HERA and the Tevatron matured; and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC have opened a window on the deconfinement regime. All these experiments leave legacies of quality, precision, and unsolved mysteries for quarkonium physics, and therefore beg for continuing investigations. The plethora of newly-found quarkonium-like states unleashed a flood of theoretical investigations into new forms of matter such as quark-gluon hybrids, mesonic molecules, and tetraquarks. Measurements of the spectroscopy, decays, production, and in-medium behavior of c\bar{c}, b\bar{b}, and b\bar{c} bound states have been shown to validate some theoretical approaches to QCD and highlight lack of quantitative success for others. The intriguing details of quarkonium suppression in heavy-ion collisions that have emerged from RHIC have elevated the importance of separating hot- and cold-nuclear-matter effects in quark-gluon plasma studies. This review systematically addresses all these matters and concludes by prioritizing directions for ongoing and future efforts.Comment: 182 pages, 112 figures. Editors: N. Brambilla, S. Eidelman, B. K. Heltsley, R. Vogt. Section Coordinators: G. T. Bodwin, E. Eichten, A. D. Frawley, A. B. Meyer, R. E. Mitchell, V. Papadimitriou, P. Petreczky, A. A. Petrov, P. Robbe, A. Vair

    Time-integrated luminosity recorded by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II e+e- collider

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    This article is the Preprint version of the final published artcile which can be accessed at the link below.We describe a measurement of the time-integrated luminosity of the data collected by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at the ϒ(4S), ϒ(3S), and ϒ(2S) resonances and in a continuum region below each resonance. We measure the time-integrated luminosity by counting e+e-→e+e- and (for the ϒ(4S) only) e+e-→μ+μ- candidate events, allowing additional photons in the final state. We use data-corrected simulation to determine the cross-sections and reconstruction efficiencies for these processes, as well as the major backgrounds. Due to the large cross-sections of e+e-→e+e- and e+e-→μ+μ-, the statistical uncertainties of the measurement are substantially smaller than the systematic uncertainties. The dominant systematic uncertainties are due to observed differences between data and simulation, as well as uncertainties on the cross-sections. For data collected on the ϒ(3S) and ϒ(2S) resonances, an additional uncertainty arises due to ϒ→e+e-X background. For data collected off the ϒ resonances, we estimate an additional uncertainty due to time dependent efficiency variations, which can affect the short off-resonance runs. The relative uncertainties on the luminosities of the on-resonance (off-resonance) samples are 0.43% (0.43%) for the ϒ(4S), 0.58% (0.72%) for the ϒ(3S), and 0.68% (0.88%) for the ϒ(2S).This work is supported by the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada), the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physiquedes Particules (France), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (The Netherlands), the Research Council of Norway, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie IEF program (European Union) and the A.P. Sloan Foundation (USA)

    Centrality dependence of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}} = 2.76 TeV

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    The inclusive transverse momentum (pTp_{\rm T}) distributions of primary charged particles are measured in the pseudo-rapidity range ∣η∣<0.8|\eta|<0.8 as a function of event centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}}=2.76 TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The data are presented in the pTp_{\rm T} range 0.15<pT<500.15<p_{\rm T}<50 GeV/cc for nine centrality intervals from 70-80% to 0-5%. The Pb-Pb spectra are presented in terms of the nuclear modification factor RAAR_{\rm{AA}} using a pp reference spectrum measured at the same collision energy. We observe that the suppression of high-pTp_{\rm T} particles strongly depends on event centrality. In central collisions (0-5%) the yield is most suppressed with RAA≈0.13R_{\rm{AA}}\approx0.13 at pT=6p_{\rm T}=6-7 GeV/cc. Above pT=7p_{\rm T}=7 GeV/cc, there is a significant rise in the nuclear modification factor, which reaches RAA≈0.4R_{\rm{AA}} \approx0.4 for pT>30p_{\rm T}>30 GeV/cc. In peripheral collisions (70-80%), the suppression is weaker with RAA≈0.7R_{\rm{AA}} \approx 0.7 almost independently of pTp_{\rm T}. The measured nuclear modification factors are compared to other measurements and model calculations.Comment: 17 pages, 4 captioned figures, 2 tables, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/284

    Measurement of charm production at central rapidity in proton-proton collisions at s=2.76\sqrt{s} = 2.76 TeV

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    The pTp_{\rm T}-differential production cross sections of the prompt (B feed-down subtracted) charmed mesons D0^0, D+^+, and D∗+^{*+} in the rapidity range ∣y∣<0.5|y|<0.5, and for transverse momentum 1<pT<121< p_{\rm T} <12 GeV/cc, were measured in proton-proton collisions at s=2.76\sqrt{s} = 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis exploited the hadronic decays D0→^0 \rightarrow Kπ\pi, D+→^+ \rightarrow Kππ\pi\pi, D∗+→^{*+} \rightarrow D0π^0\pi, and their charge conjugates, and was performed on a Lint=1.1L_{\rm int} = 1.1 nb−1^{-1} event sample collected in 2011 with a minimum-bias trigger. The total charm production cross section at s=2.76\sqrt{s} = 2.76 TeV and at 7 TeV was evaluated by extrapolating to the full phase space the pTp_{\rm T}-differential production cross sections at s=2.76\sqrt{s} = 2.76 TeV and our previous measurements at s=7\sqrt{s} = 7 TeV. The results were compared to existing measurements and to perturbative-QCD calculations. The fraction of cdbar D mesons produced in a vector state was also determined.Comment: 20 pages, 5 captioned figures, 4 tables, authors from page 15, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/307

    Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=2.76 TeV

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    The elliptic, v2v_2, triangular, v3v_3, and quadrangular, v4v_4, azimuthal anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles, pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the pseudo-rapidity range ∣Ρ∣<0.8|\eta|<0.8 at different collision centralities and as a function of transverse momentum, pTp_{\rm T}, out to pT=20p_{\rm T}=20 GeV/cc. The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on transverse momentum for pT>8p_{\rm T}>8 GeV/cc. The small pTp_{\rm T} dependence of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow fluctuations up to pT=8p_{\rm T}=8 GeV/cc. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least pT=8p_{\rm T}=8 GeV/cc indicating that the particle type dependence persists out to high pTp_{\rm T}.Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186

    Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

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    Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe
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