1,305 research outputs found
Measurement of Permanent Electric Dipole Moments of Charged Hadrons in Storage Rings
Permanent Electric Dipole Moments (EDMs) of elementary particles violate two
fundamental symmetries: time reversal invariance (T) and parity (P). Assuming
the CPT theorem this implies CP-violation. The CP-violation of the Standard
Model is orders of magnitude too small to be observed experimentally in EDMs in
the foreseeable future. It is also way too small to explain the asymmetry in
abundance of matter and anti-matter in our universe. Hence, other mechanisms of
CP violation outside the realm of the Standard Model are searched for and could
result in measurable EDMs.
Up to now most of the EDM measurements were done with neutral particles. With
new techniques it is now possible to perform dedicated EDM experiments with
charged hadrons at storage rings where polarized particles are exposed to an
electric field. If an EDM exists the spin vector will experience a torque
resulting in change of the original spin direction which can be determined with
the help of a polarimeter. Although the principle of the measurement is simple,
the smallness of the expected effect makes this a challenging experiment
requiring new developments in various experimental areas.
Complementary efforts to measure EDMs of proton, deuteron and light nuclei
are pursued at Brookhaven National Laboratory and at Forschungszentrum Juelich
with an ultimate goal to reach a sensitivity of 10^{-29} e cm.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
Australian Enterococcal Sepsis Outcome Programme, 2011
From 1 January to 31 December 2011, 29 institutions around Australia participated in the Australian Enterococcal Sepsis Outcome Programme (AESOP). The aim of AESOP 2011 was to determine the proportion of enterococcal bacteraemia isolates in Australia that are antimicrobial resistant, with particular emphasis on susceptibility to ampicillin and the glycopeptides, and to characterise the molecular epidemiology of the Enterococcus faecalis and E. faecium isolates. Of the 1,079 unique episodes of bacteraemia investigated, 95.8% were caused by either E. faecalis (61.0%) or E. faecium (34.8%). Ampicillin resistance was detected in 90.4% of E. faecium but not detected in E. faecalis. Using Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute breakpoints (CLSI), vancomycin non-susceptibility was reported in 0.6% and 31.4% of E. faecalis and E. faecium respectively and was predominately due to the acquisition of the vanB operon. Approximately 1 in 6 vanB E. faecium isolates however, had an minimum inhibitory concentration at or below the CLSI vancomycin susceptible breakpoint of ≤ 4 mg/L. Overall, 37% of E. faecium harboured vanA or vanB genes. Although molecular typing identified 126 E. faecalis pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pulsotypes, more than 50% belonged to 2 pulsotypes that were isolated across Australia. E. faecium consisted of 73 PFGE pulsotypes from which 43 multilocus sequence types were identified. Almost 90% of the E. faecium were identified as clonal complex 17 clones, of which approximately half were characterised as sequence type 203, which was isolated Australia-wide. In conclusion, the AESOP 2011 has shown that although polyclonal, enterococcal bacteraemias in Australia are frequently caused by ampicillin-resistant vanB E. faecium
Dark Matter, Muon g-2 and Other SUSY Constraints
Recent developments constraining the SUSY parameter space are reviewed within
the framework of SUGRA GUT models. The WMAP data is seen to reduce the error in
the density of cold dark matter by about a factor of four, implying that the
lightest stau is only 5 -10 GeV heavier than the lightest neutralino when m_0,
m_{1/2} < 1 TeV. The CMD-2 re-analysis of their data has reduced the
disagreement between the Standard Model prediction and the Brookhaven
measurement of the muon magnetic moment to 1.9 sigma, while using the tau decay
data plus CVC, the disagreement is 0.7 sigma. (However, the two sets of data
remain inconsistent at the 2.9 sigma level.) The recent Belle and BABAR
measurements of the B -> phi K CP violating parameters and branching ratios are
discussed. They are analyzed theoretically within the BBNS improved
factorization method. The CP parameters are in disagreement with the Standard
Model at the 2.7 sigma level, and the branching ratios are low by a factor of
two or more over most of the parameter space. It is shown that both anomalies
can naturally be accounted for by adding a non-universal cubic soft breaking
term at M_G mixing the second and third generations.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, plenary talk at Beyond The Desert '03, Castle
Ringberg, Germany, June 9, 2003. Typos correcte
Gravitational Microlensing Evidence for a Planet Orbiting a Binary Star System
The study of extra-solar planetary systems has emerged as a new discipline of
observational astronomy in the past few years with the discovery of a number of
extra-solar planets. The properties of most of these extra-solar planets were
not anticipated by theoretical work on the formation of planetary systems. Here
we report observations and light curve modeling of gravitational microlensing
event MACHO-97-BLG-41, which indicates that the lens system consists of a
planet orbiting a binary star system. According to this model, the mass ratio
of the binary star system is 3.8:1 and the stars are most likely to be a late K
dwarf and an M dwarf with a separation of about 1.8 AU. A planet of about 3
Jupiter masses orbits this system at a distance of about 7 AU. If our
interpretation of this light curve is correct, it represents the first
discovery of a planet orbiting a binary star system and the first detection of
a Jovian planet via the gravitational microlensing technique. It suggests that
giant planets may be common in short period binary star systems.Comment: 11 pages, with 1 color and 2 b/w Figures included (published version
Hadronic production of squark-squark pairs: The electroweak contributions
We compute the electroweak (EW) contributions to squark--squark pair
production processes at the LHC within the framework of the Minimal
Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). Both tree-level EW contributions, of
O(alpha_s alpha + alpha^2), and next-to-leading order (NLO) EW corrections, of
O(alpha_s^2 alpha), are calculated. Depending on the flavor and chirality of
the produced quarks, many interferences between EW-mediated and QCD-mediated
diagrams give non-zero contributions at tree-level and NLO. We discuss the
computational techniques and present an extensive numerical analysis for
inclusive squark--squark production as well as for subsets and single
processes. While the tree-level EW contributions to the integrated cross
sections can reach the 20% level, the NLO EW corrections typically lower the LO
prediction by a few percent.Comment: 36 pages, 18 figure
Search for electric dipole moments at storage rings
Permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) violate parity and time reversal
symmetry. Within the Standard Model (SM) they are many orders of magnitude
below present experimental sensitivity. Many extensions of the SM predict much
larger EDMs, which are therefore an excellent probe for the existence of "new
physics". Until recently it was believed that only electrically neutral systems
could be used for sensitive searches of EDMs. With the introduction of a novel
experimental method, high precision for charged systems will be within reach as
well. The features of this method and its possibilities are discussed.Comment: Proc. EXA2011, 6 pages;
http://www.springerlink.com/content/45l35376832vhrg0
Entanglement in nuclear quadrupole resonance
Entangled quantum states are an important element of quantum information
techniques. We determine the requirements for states of quadrupolar nuclei with
spins >1/2 to be entangled. It was shown that entanglement is achieved at low
temperature by applying a magnetic field to a quadrupolar nuclei possess
quadrupole moments, which interacts with the electricfield gradient produced by
the charge distribution in their surroundings.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
The timing of mandibular tooth formation in two African groups
Background: Ethnic differences in the timing of human tooth development are unclear. Aim: To describe similarities and differences in the timing of tooth formation in two groups of Sudanese children and young adults. Subjects and methods: The sample consisted of healthy individuals from Khartoum, Sudan, aged 2–23 years. The Northern group was of Arab origin (848 males, 802 females) and the Western group was of African origin (846 males, 402 females). Each mandibular left permanent tooth from first incisor to third molar was assessed from dental radiographs into one of 15 development stages. Mean ages at entry for 306 tooth stages were calculated using probit regression in males/females in each group and compared using a t-test. Results: Mean ages were not significantly different in most tooth stage comparisons between ethnic groups for both males (61/75) and females (56/76), despite a tendency of earlier mean ages in the Western group. Mean ages for most tooth stage comparisons between males and females (137/155) were not significantly different within ethnic groups suggesting low sexual dimorphism. Conclusion: The mean ages of most mandibular tooth formation stages were generally not significantly different between ethnic groups or between males and females in this study
Yukawa unification in SO(10) with light sparticle spectrum
We investigate supersymmetric SO(10) GUT model with \mu<0. The requirements
of top-bottom-tau Yukawa unification, correct radiative electroweak symmetry
breaking and agreement with the present experimental data may be met when the
soft masses of scalars and gauginos are non-universal. We show how appropriate
non-universalities can easily be obtained in the SO(10) GUT broken to the
Standard Model. We discuss how values of BR(b-->s \gamma) and (g-2)_\mu
simultaneously in a good agreement with the experimental data can be achieved
in SO(10) model with \mu<0. In the region of the parameter space preferred by
our analysis there are two main mechanisms leading to the LSP relic abundance
consistent with the WMAP results. One is the co-annihilation with the stau and
the second is the resonant annihilation via exchange of the Z boson or the
light Higgs scalar. A very interesting feature of SO(10) models with negative
\mu is that they predict relatively light sparticle spectra. Even the heaviest
superpartners may easily have masses below 1.5 TeV in contrast to multi-TeV
particles typical for models with positive \mu.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure
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