High Momentum Dilepton Production from Jets in a Quark Gluon Plasma

We discuss the emission of high momentum lepton pairs in central Au+Au collisions at RHIC ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$200 GeV) and Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC ($\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$5500 GeV). Yields of dileptons produced through interactions of jets with thermal partons have been calculated, with next-to-leading order corrections through hard thermal loops (HTL) resummation. They are compared to thermal dilepton emission and the Drell-Yan process. A complete leading order treatment of jet energy loss has been included. Jet-plasma interactions are found to dominate over thermal dilepton emission for all values of the invariant mass $M$. Drell-Yan is the dominant source of high momentum lepton pairs for $M >$ 3 GeV at RHIC, after the background from heavy quark decays is subtracted. At LHC, the range $M<7$ GeV is dominated by jet-plasma interactions. Effects from jet energy loss on jet-plasma interactions turn out to be weak, but non-negligible, reducing the yield of low-mass dileptons by about 30%.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures, discussions adde

Pentaquark baryon production at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider

Production of pentaquark $\Theta^+$ baryons in central relativistic heavy ion collisions is studied in a kinetic model. Assuming that a quark-gluon plasma is produced in the collisions, we first determine the number of $\Theta^+$ produced from the quark-gluon plasma using a parton coalescence model, and then take into consideration its production and absorption in subsequent hadronic matter via the reactions $KN\leftrightarrow\Theta$, $KN\leftrightarrow\pi\Theta$, and \piN\leftrightarrow\bar K\Theta. We find that although the final $\Theta^+$ number is affected by hadronic interactions, it remains sensitive to the initial number of $\Theta^+$ produced from the quark-gluon plasma, particularly in the case of a small $\Theta^+$ width as imposed by the $K^+N$ and $K^+d$ scattering data. Because of small baryon chemical potential in the hot dense matter produced in these collisions, the number of produced anti-$\Theta$ is only slightly smaller than that of $\Theta^+$.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, revised version, to appear in PL

A semi-implicit method for thrombus formation in haemodynamic fluid-structure interaction

Aortic flows with thrombus formation represent a challenging application of fluidstructure interaction (FSI) in biomechanics where blood flow, thrombus, and vessel wall are strongly coupled. Considering patient-specific FSI and thrombus formation on identical time scales remains unfeasible. To resolve this issue, we propose incorporating the dynamics-based thrombus formation model of Menichini et al. [1] into our recently presented semi-implicit, splitstep partitioned FSI scheme for non-Newtonian fluids [2, 3]. Herein, we formulate the basic split-step scheme and present the first promising results, merely coupling the fluid pressure and structure displacement iteratively at each time step

Patient-reported depression measures in cancer: a meta-review

The patient-reported depression measures that perform best in oncology settings have not yet been identified. We did a meta-review to integrate the findings of reviews of more than 50 depression measures used in adults with, or recovering from, any type of cancer. We searched Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, and grey literature from 1999 to 2014 to identify 19 reviews representing 372 primary studies. 11 reviews were rated as being of high quality (defined as meeting at least 20 criteria in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement). The Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) was the most thoroughly evaluated measure, but was limited by cutpoint variability. The HADS had moderate screening utility indices and was least recommended in advanced cancer or palliative care. The Beck Depression Inventory was more generalisable across cancer types and disease stages, with good indices for screening and case finding. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was the best-weighted measure in terms of responsiveness. This meta-review provides a comprehensive overview of the strengths and limitations of available depression measures. It can inform the choice of the best measure for specific settings and purposes

Markers of criticality in phase synchronization

The concept of the brain as a critical dynamical system is very attractive because systems close to criticality are thought to maximize their dynamic range of information processing and communication. To date, there have been two key experimental observations in support of this hypothesis: (i) neuronal avalanches with power law distribution of size and (ii) long-range temporal correlations (LRTCs) in the amplitude of neural oscillations. The case for how these maximize dynamic range of information processing and communication is still being made and because a significant substrate for information coding and transmission is neural synchrony it is of interest to link synchronization measures with those of criticality. We propose a framework for characterizing criticality in synchronization based on an analysis of the moment-to-moment fluctuations of phase synchrony in terms of the presence of LRTCs. This framework relies on an estimation of the rate of change of phase difference and a set of methods we have developed to detect LRTCs. We test this framework against two classical models of criticality (Ising and Kuramoto) and recently described variants of these models aimed to more closely represent human brain dynamics. From these simulations we determine the parameters at which these systems show evidence of LRTCs in phase synchronization. We demonstrate proof of principle by analysing pairs of human simultaneous EEG and EMG time series, suggesting that LRTCs of corticomuscular phase synchronization can be detected in the resting state and experimentally manipulated. The existence of LRTCs in fluctuations of phase synchronization suggests that these fluctuations are governed by non-local behavior, with all scales contributing to system behavior. This has important implications regarding the conditions under which one should expect to see LRTCs in phase synchronization. Specifically, brain resting states may exhibit LRTCs reflecting a state of readiness facilitating rapid task-dependent shifts toward and away from synchronous states that abolish LRTCs

Building in Hongkong. Field Excursion of the Department of Civil Engineering of the HTWG Konstanz 2012

Hongkong steht als Welthandelsmetropole auch für Superlative des Bauens. Dies gilt für die in britischer Zeit errichteten Bauten, aber auch für die nach der Übergabe an China entstandenen Hochhäuser und Brückenbauwerke. Der Exkursionsbericht der Fakultät Bauingenieurwesen der HTWG Konstanz gibt einen Eindruck von diesen Aktivitäten. Er schildert Brücken- und Hochhausbauten, Tunnelbaustellen und die Baustelle eines Klärschlammverbrennungswerks, die während einer Exkursionswoche im September 2012 besichtigt wurden. Darüber hinaus gibt er einen Einblick in die wirtschaftliche Dynamik der Stadt.As a global metropolis Hongkong also stands for outstanding building activities. The report depicts the impressions during a student field excursion of the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz, Germany, to construction sites in Hongkong in September 2012

Phi meson production in Au+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt (s)=200 GeV

We report the STAR measurement of Phi meson production in Au+Au and p+p collisions at sqrt (s)=200 GeV. Using the event mixing technique, the Phi spectra and yields are obtained at mid-rapidity for five centrality bins in Au+Au collisions and for non-singly-diffractive p+p collisions. It is found that the Phi transverse momentum distributions from Au+Au collisions are better fitted with a single-exponential while the p+p spectrum is better described by a double-exponential distribution. The measured nuclear modification factors indicate that Phi production in central Au+Au collisions is suppressed relative to peripheral collisions when scaled by the number of binary collisions. The systematics of versus centrality and the constant Phi/K- ratio versus beam species, centrality, and collision energy rule out kaon coalescence as the dominant mechanism for Phi production.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Formation of dense partonic matter in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC: Experimental evaluation by the PHENIX collaboration

Extensive experimental data from high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions were recorded using the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The comprehensive set of measurements from the first three years of RHIC operation includes charged particle multiplicities, transverse energy, yield ratios and spectra of identified hadrons in a wide range of transverse momenta (p_T), elliptic flow, two-particle correlations, non-statistical fluctuations, and suppression of particle production at high p_T. The results are examined with an emphasis on implications for the formation of a new state of dense matter. We find that the state of matter created at RHIC cannot be described in terms of ordinary color neutral hadrons.Comment: 510 authors, 127 pages text, 56 figures, 1 tables, LaTeX. Submitted to Nuclear Physics A as a regular article; v3 has minor changes in response to referee comments. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm