Probing strongly interacting W's at the ILC with polarized beams

We study the possibility of fingerprinting a strongly interacting $W$ boson sector which is consistent with present day LHC searches at the ILC with longitudinal as well as transversely polarized electron and positron beams. We account for the final state interaction using a suitable Omn\`es formalism in terms of a plausible resonance description, and carry out thorough analyses of cross sections, asymmetries and angular distributions of the $W's$. We carry out a comparison with other extensions of the Standard Model, where heavy additional $Z'$ bosons arise naturally. We also consider the effect of the strong final state interaction on a correlation that depends on $(\phi_--\phi_+)$, where the $\phi_\mp$ are the azimuthal angles of decay leptons, and find that it is a useful discriminant.Comment: 25 pages latex using JHEP style files, 14 figures; v2 is a slightly expanded version of v1, reference added, discussions improved, some figures have been changed; corresponds to version accepted for publication in JHE

MAGIC and Fermi-LAT gamma-ray results on unassociated HAWC sources

The HAWC Collaboration released the 2HWC catalogue of TeV sources, in which 19 show no association with any known high-energy (HE; E greater than or similar to 10 GeV) or very-high-energy (VHE; E greater than or similar to 300 GeV) sources. This catalogue motivated follow-up studies by both the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) and Fermi-LAT (Large Area Telescope) observatories with the aim of investigating gamma-ray emission over a broad energy band. In this paper, we report the results from the first joint work between High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC), MAGIC, and Fermi-LAT on three unassociated HAWC sources: 2HWC J2006+341, 2HWC J1907+084*, and 2HWC J1852+013*. Although no significant detection was found in the HE and VHE regimes, this investigation shows that a minimum 1 degrees extension (at 95 per cent confidence level) and harder spectrum in the GeV than the one extrapolated from HAWC results are required in the case of 2HWC J1852+013*, whilst a simply minimum extension of 0.16 degrees (at 95 per cent confidence level) can already explain the scenario proposed by HAWC for the remaining sources. Moreover, the hypothesis that these sources are pulsar wind nebulae is also investigated in detail

Deaths and Medical Visits Attributable to Environmental Pollution in the United Arab Emirates

<div><p>Background</p><p>This study estimates the potential health gains achievable in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with improved controls on environmental pollution. The UAE is an emerging economy in which population health risks have shifted rapidly from infectious diseases to chronic conditions observed in developed nations. The UAE government commissioned this work as part of an environmental health strategic planning project intended to address this shift in the nature of the country’s disease burden.</p> <p>Methods and Findings</p><p>We assessed the burden of disease attributable to six environmental exposure routes outdoor air, indoor air, drinking water, coastal water, occupational environments, and climate change. For every exposure route, we integrated UAE environmental monitoring and public health data in a spatially resolved Monte Carlo simulation model to estimate the annual disease burden attributable to selected pollutants. The assessment included the entire UAE population (4.5 million for the year of analysis). The study found that outdoor air pollution was the leading contributor to mortality, with 651 attributable deaths (95% confidence interval [CI] 143–1,440), or 7.3% of all deaths. Indoor air pollution and occupational exposures were the second and third leading contributors to mortality, with 153 (95% CI 85–216) and 46 attributable deaths (95% CI 26–72), respectively. The leading contributor to health-care facility visits was drinking water pollution, to which 46,600 (95% CI 15,300–61,400) health-care facility visits were attributed (about 15% of the visits for all the diseases considered in this study). Major study limitations included (1) a lack of information needed to translate health-care facility visits to quality-adjusted-life-year estimates and (2) insufficient spatial coverage of environmental data.</p> <p>Conclusions</p><p>Based on international comparisons, the UAE’s environmental disease burden is low for all factors except outdoor air pollution. From a public health perspective, reducing pollutant emissions to outdoor air should be a high priority for the UAE’s environmental agencies.</p> </div