Prospects for γγ→\gamma\gamma\to Higgs observation in ultraperipheral ion collisions at the Future Circular Collider

We study the two-photon production of the Higgs boson, $\rm \gamma\gamma\to H$, at the Future Circular Collider (FCC) in ultraperipheral PbPb and pPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 39$ and 63 TeV. Signal and background events are generated with MADGRAPH 5, including $\gamma$ fluxes from the proton and lead ions in the equivalent photon approximation, yielding $\rm \sigma(\gamma\gamma\to H)$ = 1.75 nb and 1.5 pb in PbPb and pPb collisions respectively. We analyse the H$\,\to b\bar{b}$ decay channel including realistic reconstruction efficiencies for the final-state $b$-jets, showered and hadronized with PYTHIA 8, as well as appropriate selection criteria to reduce the dominant exclusive $\gamma\gamma\to b\bar{b}$ continuum background. Observation of $\rm PbPb\xrightarrow{\gamma\gamma}(Pb)\,H\,(Pb)$ is achievable in the first year with the expected PbPb integrated luminosities.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. PHOTON'17, CERN Proceedings, to appear. References adde

Measurements of \gamma \gamma \to \mbox{Higgs} and γγ→W+W−\gamma \gamma \to W^{+}W^{-} in e+e−e^{+}e^{-} collisions at the Future Circular Collider

The measurements of the two-photon production of the Higgs boson and of $W^{\pm}$ boson pairs in $e^{+}e^{-}$ collisions at the Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee) are investigated. The processes $e^{+}e^{-}\xrightarrow{\gamma \gamma}e^+\,{\rm H}\,e^-,e^+\,{\rm W^+W^-}\,e^-$ are computed using the effective photon approximation for electron-positron beams, and studied in their ${\rm H}\to b\bar{b}$ and ${\rm W^+W^-}\to 4j$ decay final-states including parton showering and hadronization, jet reconstruction, $e^\pm$ forward tagging, and realistic experimental cuts. After selection criteria, up to 75 Higgs bosons and 6600 $\rm W^{\pm}$ pairs will be reconstructed on top of controllable continuum backgrounds at $\sqrt{s} =$240 and 350 GeV for the total expected integrated luminosities, by tagging the scattered $e^\pm$ with near-beam detectors. A 5$\sigma$ observation of $\gamma \gamma \to$H is thereby warranted, as well as high-statistics studies of triple $\rm \gamma WW$ and quartic $\rm \gamma\gamma WW$ electroweak couplings, improving by at least factors of 2 and 10 the current limits on dimension-6 anomalous quartic gauge couplings.Comment: Presented at EDS Blois 2017 Conference , Prague, Czech Republic, June 26--30, 201

Higgs boson production in photon-photon interactions with proton, light-ion, and heavy-ion beams at current and future colliders

The production of the Higgs boson in photon-photon interactions with proton and nucleus beams at three planned or proposed future CERN colliders --- the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), the high-energy LHC (HE-LHC), and the Future Circular Collider (FCC) --- is studied. The cross sections for the process AA$\xrightarrow{\gamma\gamma}$(A)H(A), with the ions A surviving the interaction and the Higgs scalar exclusively produced, are computed with MadGraph 5 modified to include the corresponding elastic $\gamma$ fluxes, for Pb-Pb, Xe-Xe, Kr-Kr, Ar-Ar, O-O, p-Pb, and p-p over the nucleon-nucleon collision energy range $\sqrt{s}\approx 3$--100 TeV. Simulations of the $\gamma\gamma\to H \to b\bar{b}$ decay mode --- including realistic (mis)tagging and reconstruction efficiencies for the final-state b-jets, as well as appropriate kinematical selection criteria to reduce the similarly computed $\gamma\gamma\to b\bar{b},c\bar{c},q\bar{q}$ continuum backgrounds --- have been carried out. Taking into account the expected luminosities for all systems, the yields and significances for observing the Higgs boson in ultraperipheral collisions (UPCs) are estimated. At the HL-LHC and HE-LHC, the colliding systems with larger Higgs significance are Ar-Ar(6.3 TeV) and Kr-Kr(12.5 TeV) respectively, but $3\sigma$ evidence for two-photon Higgs production would require 200 and 30 times larger integrated luminosities than those planned today at both machines. Factors of ten can be gained by running for a year, rather than the typical 1-month heavy-ion LHC operation, but the process will likely remain unobserved until a higher energy hadron collider, such as the FCC, is built. In the latter machine, the $5\sigma$ observation of Higgs production in UPCs is feasible in just the first nominal run of Pb-Pb and p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 39$ and 63 TeV respectively.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Minor mods. to match final PRD versio

Coupling vortex dynamics with collective excitations in Bose-Einstein Condensates

Here we analyze the collective excitations as well as the expansion of a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate with a vortex line at its center. To this end, we propose a variational method where the variational parameters have to be carefully chosen in order to produce reliable results. Our variational calculations agree with numerical simulations of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The system considered here turns out to exhibit four collective modes of which only three can be observed at a time depending of the trap anisotropy. We also demonstrate that these collective modes can be excited using well established experimental methods such as modulation of the s-wave scattering length

Within- and between-group regression for improving the robustness of causal claims in cross-sectional analysis

Background: A major objective of environmental epidemiology is to elucidate exposure-health outcome associations. To increase the variance of observed exposure concentrations, researchers recruit individuals from different geographic areas. The common analytical approach uses multilevel analysis to estimate individual-level associations adjusted for individual and area covariates. However, in cross-sectional data this approach does not differentiate between residual confounding at the individual level and at the area level. An approach allowing researchers to distinguish between within-group effects and between-group effects would improve the robustness of causal claims. Methods: We applied an extended multilevel approach to a large cross-sectional study aimed to elucidate the hypothesized link between drinking water pollution from perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA) and plasma levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) or lymphocyte counts. Using within- and between-group regression of the individual PFOA serum concentrations, we partitioned the total effect into a within- and between-group effect by including the aggregated group average of the individual exposure concentrations as an additional predictor variable. Results: For both biomarkers, we observed a strong overall association with PFOA blood levels. However, for lymphocyte counts the extended multilevel approach revealed the absence of a between-group effect, suggesting that most of the observed total effect was due to individual level confounding. In contrast, for CRP we found consistent between- and within-group effects, which corroborates the causal claim for the association between PFOA blood levels and CRP. Conclusion: Between- and within-group regression modelling augments cross-sectional analysis of epidemiological data by supporting the unmasking of non-causal associations arising from hidden confounding at different levels. In the application example presented in this paper, the approach suggested individual confounding as a probable explanation for the first observed association and strengthened the robustness of the causal claim for the second one

Produtividade do arroz de terras altas influenciada por plantas de cobertura e manejo do solo.

Com o objetivo de avaliar o efeito da utilização de diferentes adubos verdes, plantados no sistema plantio direto (SPD) e convencional (SPC) na produtividade da cultura do arroz, foi conduzido um ensaio, na Fazenda Capivara, Embrapa Arroz e Feijão, no qual foram utilizadas como plantas de cobertura do solo as seguintes culturas: Crotalária (Crotalaria juncea), Feijão Guandú (Cajanus cajan), Mucuna preta (Mucuna aterrima), Sorgo (Sorghum bicolor) e plantas espontâneas e a cultivar de arroz BRS Pepita

Quantum state tomography and quantum logical operations in a three qubits NMR quadrupolar system

In this work, we present an implementation of quantum logic gates and algorithms in a three effective qubits system, represented by a (I = 7/2) NMR quadrupolar nuclei. To implement these protocols we have used the strong modulating pulses (SMP). The various stages of each implementation were verified by quantum state tomography (QST). It is presented here the results for the computational base states, Toffolli logic gates, and Deutsch-Jozsa and Grover algorithms. Also, we discuss the difficulties and advantages of implementing such protocols using the SMP technique in quadrupolar systems.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure