Effective charging energy for a regular granular metal array

We study the Ambegaokar-Eckern-Sch\"{o}n (AES) model for a regular array of metallic grains coupled by tunnel junctions of conductance $g$ and calculate both paramagnetic and diamagnetic terms in the Kubo formula for the conductivity. We find analytically, and confirm by numerical path integral Monte Carlo methods, that for $0<g<4$ the conductivity obeys an Arrhenius law $\sigma(T)\sim\exp[-E^{*}(g)/T]$ with an effective charging energy $E^{*} (g)$ when the temperature is sufficiently low, due to a subtle cancellation between $T^2$ inelastic-cotunneling contributions in the paramagnetic and diamagnetic terms. We present numerical results for the effective charging energy and compare the results with recent theoretical analyses. We discuss the different ways in which the experimentally observed $\sigma(T)\sim\exp[-\sqrt{T_{0}/T}]$ law could be attributed to disorder.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, ReVTeX; added estimates of effective charging energies and discussion of effects of disorde

Higgs production in bottom quark annihilation: Transverse momentum distribution at NNLO+NNLL

We present the inclusive transverse momentum distribution for Higgs bosons produced in bottom quark annihilation at the LHC. The results are obtained in the five-flavor scheme. The soft and collinear terms at small $p_T$ are resummed through NNLL accuracy and matched to the NNLO transverse momentum distribution at large $p_T$. We find that the theoretical uncertainty, derived from a variation of the unphysical scales entering the calculation, is significantly reduced with respect to lower orders.Comment: 35 pages, 22 figure

W+W−W^+W^- production in Large extra dimension model at next-to-leading order in QCD at the LHC

We present next-to-leading order QCD corrections to production of two $W$ bosons in hadronic collisions in the extra dimension ADD model. Various kinematical distributions are obtained to order $\alpha_s$ in QCD by taking into account all the parton level subprocesses. We estimate the impact of the QCD corrections on various observables and find that they are significant. We also show the reduction in factorization scale uncertainty when ${\cal O}(\alpha_s)$ effects are included.Comment: Journal versio

The August 24, 2002 Coronal Mass Ejection: When a Western Limb Event Connects to Earth

We discuss how some coronal mass ejections (CMEs) originating from the western limb of the Sun are associated with space weather effects such as solar energetic particles (SEPs), shock or geo-effective ejecta at Earth. We focus on the August 24, 2002 coronal mass ejection, a fast (~ 2000 km/s) eruption originating from W81. Using a three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic simulation of this ejection with the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF), we show how a realistic initiation mechanism enables us to study the deflection of the CME in the corona and the heliosphere. Reconnection of the erupting magnetic field with that of neighboring streamers and active regions modify the solar connectivity of the field lines connecting to Earth and can also partly explain the deflection of the eruption during the first tens of minutes. Comparing the results at 1 AU of our simulation with observations by the ACE spacecraft, we find that the simulated shock does not reach Earth, but has a maximum angular span of about 120$^\circ$, and reaches 35$^\circ$ West of Earth in 58 hours. We find no significant deflection of the CME and its associated shock wave in the heliosphere, and we discuss the consequences for the shock angular span.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, IAU 257 Symposium Proceeding