2,281 research outputs found
Charmless Hadronic B Decays at BaBar
We present recent results on charmless hadronic B decays using data collected
by the BaBar detector at the PEP-II asymmetric-energy e+e- collider at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. We report measurements of branching
fractions and charge asymmetries in several charmless two-body, three-body, and
quasi-two-body decay modes. We also report measurements of polarization in
charmless B decays to exclusive final states with two vector mesons.Comment: Proceedings to the Lake Louise Winter Institute 200
The Connections Between Government Structure and Direct Democracy
The purpose of this prospectus is to examine county-level contextual factors that impact direct democracy mechanisms and voter turnout. The prospectus contains two essays that build upon each other with fitting theoretical frameworks. The first essay investigates the impact of contextual factors on a county government’s decision to permit citizen initiatives. This essay applies new institutionalism theory to understand the current connections between government structure and direct democracy mechanisms within U.S. counties. County governments play a vital role in American democracy, yet little is known about why some counties permit direct democracy mechanisms while others do not. I address a gap in the literature that focuses on policy outcomes that can vary at the county-level due to election laws. Election laws that permit direct democracy mechanisms often benefit voters by initiating or repealing legislation that more closely reflects the citizenry. Given the dearth of research on direct democracy mechanisms at the county-level, I examine the 1) citizen initiative, 2) legislative referendum, 3) popular referendum, and 4) provision for recall. To investigate counties that permit direct democracy mechanisms, I focus on contextual factors that include form of government, socioeconomics, and demographics. I apply a series of cross-sectional logit regressions by using micro-level county data from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) 2014 County Government Survey, American Community Survey (ACS), U.S. Census Bureau, and CDFI fund. Subsequently, I use the models to detect and explain variations of direct democracy that exist in the 3,031 county governments surveyed with populations between 10,000 and 500,000.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/gcua_symposium/1004/thumbnail.jp
Generalized Chaplygin Gas Models tested with SNIa
The so called Generalized Chaplygin Gas (GCG) with the equation of state was recently proposed as a candidate for dark
energy in the Universe. In this paper we confront the GCG with SNIa data.
Specifically we have tested the GCG cosmology in three different classes of
models with (1) , ; (2) ,
and (3) , , as well as the
model withouth any assumption on . The best fitted models are
obtained by minimalizing the function and levels in the
plane. We supplemented our analysis with confidence intervals
in the plane, as well as one-dimensional probability
distribution functions for models parameter. The general conclusion is that
SNIa data strongly support the Chaplygin gas (with ). Extending our
analysisby relaxing the flat prior lead to the result that even though the best
fitted values of are formally non-zero, still they are close to flat
case. It should be viewed as an advantage of the GCG model since in similar
analysisof CDM model high negative value of were found to
be bestfitted to the data and independent inspiration from CMBR and
extragalactic astronomy has been invoked to fix the curvature problem. Our
results show clearly that in Generalized Chaplygin Gas cosmology distant
supernovae should be brighter than in CDM model.This prediction seems
to be confirmed with new Riess high redshift SNIa sample. Moreover, we argue
that with the future SNAP data it would be possible to differentiate between
models with various value of parameter and/or discriminated between
GCG, Cardassian and CDM modelsComment: 54 pages 29 figures improved version analysis flat prior relaxed high
redshift Riess SNIa sample include
Results from the commissioning of the ATLAS Pixel detector
The ATLAS Pixel detector is a high-resolution, low-noise silicon-based device
designed to provide tracking and vertexing information within a distance of 12
cm from the LHC beam axis. It consists of approximately 80 million pixel
channels with radiation-hard front-end electronics connected through optical
fibers to a custom-controlled DAQ system away from the detector. Following the
successful installation of the detector in June 2007, an intense commissioning
period was conducted in the year 2008 and more than 400,000 cosmic-ray tracks
were recorded in conjunction with other ATLAS sub-detectors. By the end of the
year, 96% of the detector was tuned, calibrated, and taking data at 99.8%
tracking hit efficiency and with noise occupancy at the 10^-10 level. We
present here the results of the commissioning, calibration, and data-taking as
well as the outlook for future performance with LHC collision-based data.Comment: 3 pages. Part of the proceedings of the TIPP09 conference, held at
Tsukuba, Japan. Updated the figures in v.2 to reflect the version published
in NIM A
The wave nature of continuous gravitational waves from microlensing
Gravitational wave predicted by General Relativity is the transverse wave of
spatial strain. Several gravitational waveform signals from binary black holes
and from a binary neutron star system accompanied by electromagnetic
counterparts have been recorded by advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo. In analogy
to light, the spatial fringes of diffraction and interference should also exist
as the important features of gravitational waves. We propose that observational
detection of such fringes could be achieved through gravitational lensing of
continuous gravitational waves. The lenses would play the role of the
diffraction barriers. Considering peculiar motions of the observer, the lens
and the source, the spatial amplitude variation of diffraction or interference
fringes should be detectable as an amplitude modulation of monochromatic
gravitational signal.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
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