2,846 research outputs found
D meson nuclear modification factors in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector
The measurement of D meson production provides key tests for parton
energy-loss models, which predict that charm quarks should experience less
in-medium energy loss than light quarks and gluons. The ALICE experiment has
measured the production of prompt D^(0), D^(+) and D^(*+) mesons in pp and
Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC at sqrt(s) = 7 and 2.76 TeV and at sqrt(s_NN) =
2.76 TeV, respectively, via the exclusive reconstruction of their hadronic
decay. The pT-differential production yields in the range 2 < pT < 16 GeV/c at
central rapidity, |y| < 0.5, were used to calculate the nuclear modification
factor. A suppression of a factor 3 to 4 for transverse momenta larger than 5
GeV/c in the 20% most central collisions was observed. Preliminary results in
an extended pT-range, using the data sample collected during the 2011 Pb-Pb
run, together with the first measurement of D^(+)_(s) nuclear modification
factor will be shown
Heavy flavour production at LHC
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will open a new era in high energy physics.
The expected large cross section for heavy flavour production in proton-proton
collisions at = 14 TeV will allow detailed studies of the production
mechanisms and an extensive test of Quantum Chromodynamics. Since charm and
beauty has been proposed as a good probe to study hot and dense QCD matter, the
understanding of the production mechanisms in elementary proton-proton
collisions is of primary importance as a reference for studies in heavy-ion
collisions. In the early phase of LHC operation the experiments will focus on
the investigation of the heavy flavour production mechanisms.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures. Invited overview talk presented at the
Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Krakow, Poland, 16-22 July
2009. Proceedings to be published in Proceedings of Scienc
Plant microRNAs from Moringa oleifera Regulate Immune Response and HIV Infection
Traditional medicine is often chosen due to its affordability, its familiarity with patient's cultural practices, and its wider access to the local community. Plants play an important role in providing indispensable nutrients, while specific small RNAs can regulate human gene expression in a cross-kingdom manner. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of plant-enriched purified extract microRNAs from Moringa oleifera seeds (MO) on the immune response and on HIV infection. Bioinformatic analysis shows that plant microRNAs (p-miRs) from MO belonging to 18 conserved families, including p-miR160h, p-miR166, p-miR482b, p-miR159c, p-miR395d, p-miR2118a, p-miR393a, p-miR167f-3p, and p-miR858b are predicted to target with high affinity BCL2, IL2RA, TNF, and VAV1, all these being involved in the cell cycle, apoptosis, immune response and also in the regulation of HIV pathogenesis. The effects of MO p-miRs transfected into HIV+ PBMCs were analyzed and revealed a decrease in viability associated with an increase of apoptosis; an increase of T helper cells expressing Fas and a decrease of intracellular Bcl2 protein expression. Meanwhile no effects were detected in PBMCs from healthy donors. In CD4(+) T cells, transfection significantly reduced cell activation and modified the T cell differentiation, thereby decreasing both central and effector memory cells while increasing terminal effector memory cells. Interestingly, the p-miRs transfection induces a reduction of intracellular HIV p24 protein and a reduction of viral DNA integration. Finally, we evaluated the effect of synthetic (mimic) p-miR858b whose sequence is present in the MO p-miR pool and predicted to target VAV1, a protein involved in HIV-Nef binding. This protein plays a pivotal role in T cell antigen receptor (TCR) signaling, so triggering the activation of various pathways. The transfection of HIV+ PBMCs with the synthetic p-miR858b showed a reduced expression of VAV1 and HIV p24 proteins. Overall, our evidence defines putative mechanisms underlying a supplementary benefit of traditional medicine, alongside current antiretroviral therapy, in managing HIV infection in resource-limited settings where MO remains widely available
First measurement of production in pp collisions at = 7 TeV
The production of the charm-strange baryon is measured for
the first time at the LHC via its semileptonic decay into e
in pp collisions at TeV with the ALICE detector. The transverse
momentum () differential cross section multiplied by the branching
ratio is presented in the interval 1 8 GeV/ at
mid-rapidity, 0.5. The transverse momentum dependence of the
baryon production relative to the D meson production is
compared to predictions of event generators with various tunes of the
hadronisation mechanism, which are found to underestimate the measured
cross-section ratio.Comment: 22 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 17,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/412
Constraining the magnitude of the Chiral Magnetic Effect with Event Shape Engineering in Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76$ TeV
In ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, the event-by-event variation of
the elliptic flow reflects fluctuations in the shape of the initial state
of the system. This allows to select events with the same centrality but
different initial geometry. This selection technique, Event Shape Engineering,
has been used in the analysis of charge-dependent two- and three-particle
correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV. The
two-particle correlator ,
calculated for different combinations of charges and , is
almost independent of (for a given centrality), while the three-particle
correlator
scales almost linearly both with the event and charged-particle
pseudorapidity density. The charge dependence of the three-particle correlator
is often interpreted as evidence for the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME), a parity
violating effect of the strong interaction. However, its measured dependence on
points to a large non-CME contribution to the correlator. Comparing the
results with Monte Carlo calculations including a magnetic field due to the
spectators, the upper limit of the CME signal contribution to the
three-particle correlator in the 10-50% centrality interval is found to be
26-33% at 95% confidence level.Comment: 20 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 tables, authors from page 15,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/382
Measurement of an excess in the yield of J/ at very low in Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV
We report on the first measurement of an excess in the yield of J/ at
very low transverse momentum ( GeV/) in peripheral hadronic
Pb-Pb collisions at = 2.76 TeV, performed by ALICE at the
CERN LHC. Remarkably, the measured nuclear modification factor of J/ in
the rapidity range reaches about 7 (2) in the range 0-0.3
GeV/ in the 70-90% (50-70%) centrality class. The J/ production cross
section associated with the observed excess is obtained under the hypothesis
that coherent photoproduction of J/ is the underlying physics mechanism.
If confirmed, the observation of J/ coherent photoproduction in Pb-Pb
collisions at impact parameters smaller than twice the nuclear radius opens new
theoretical and experimental challenges and opportunities. In particular,
coherent photoproduction accompanying hadronic collisions may provide insight
into the dynamics of photoproduction and nuclear reactions, as well as become a
novel probe of the Quark-Gluon Plasma.Comment: 18 pages, 3 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 13,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/191
Energy dependence of exclusive photoproduction off protons in ultra-peripheral p-Pb collisions at = 5.02 TeV
The ALICE Collaboration has measured the energy dependence of exclusive
photoproduction of vector mesons off proton targets in
ultra-peripheral p-Pb collisions at a centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair
TeV. The ee and decay channels
are used to measure the cross section as a function of the rapidity of the
in the range , corresponding to an energy in the
p centre-of-mass in the interval GeV.
The measurements, which are consistent with a power law dependence of the
exclusive photoproduction cross section, are compared to previous
results from HERA and the LHC and to several theoretical models. They are found
to be compatible with previous measurements.Comment: 25 pages, 3 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 19,
published version, figures at http://alice-publications.web.cern.ch/node/455
Measurement of the production of charm jets tagged with D mesons in pp collisions at = 7 TeV
The production of charm jets in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass
energy of TeV was measured with the ALICE detector at the CERN
Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is based on a data sample corresponding
to a total integrated luminosity of , collected using a
minimum-bias trigger. Charm jets are identified by the presence of a D
meson among their constituents. The D mesons are reconstructed from their
hadronic decay DK. The D-meson tagged jets are
reconstructed using tracks of charged particles (track-based jets) with the
anti- algorithm in the jet transverse momentum range
and pseudorapidity
. The fraction of charged jets containing a D-meson
increases with from to . The distribution of D-meson tagged jets as a
function of the jet momentum fraction carried by the D meson in the
direction of the jet axis () is reported for two ranges
of jet transverse momenta, and
in the intervals
and , respectively. The
data are compared with results from Monte Carlo event generators (PYTHIA 6,
PYTHIA 8 and Herwig 7) and with a Next-to-Leading-Order perturbative Quantum
Chromodynamics calculation, obtained with the POWHEG method and interfaced with
PYTHIA 6 for the generation of the parton shower, fragmentation, hadronisation
and underlying event.Comment: 29 pages, 8 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 24,
published version, figures at http://alice-publications.web.cern.ch/node/525
Multiplicity dependence of jet-like two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at = 5.02 TeV
Two-particle angular correlations between unidentified charged trigger and
associated particles are measured by the ALICE detector in p-Pb collisions at a
nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV. The transverse-momentum
range 0.7 5.0 GeV/ is examined,
to include correlations induced by jets originating from low
momen\-tum-transfer scatterings (minijets). The correlations expressed as
associated yield per trigger particle are obtained in the pseudorapidity range
. The near-side long-range pseudorapidity correlations observed in
high-multiplicity p-Pb collisions are subtracted from both near-side
short-range and away-side correlations in order to remove the non-jet-like
components. The yields in the jet-like peaks are found to be invariant with
event multiplicity with the exception of events with low multiplicity. This
invariance is consistent with the particles being produced via the incoherent
fragmentation of multiple parton--parton scatterings, while the yield related
to the previously observed ridge structures is not jet-related. The number of
uncorrelated sources of particle production is found to increase linearly with
multiplicity, suggesting no saturation of the number of multi-parton
interactions even in the highest multiplicity p-Pb collisions. Further, the
number scales in the intermediate multiplicity region with the number of binary
nucleon-nucleon collisions estimated with a Glauber Monte-Carlo simulation.Comment: 23 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 17,
published version, figures at
http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/161
Anisotropic flow of charged hadrons, pions and (anti-)protons measured at high transverse momentum in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
The elliptic, , triangular, , and quadrangular, , azimuthal
anisotropic flow coefficients are measured for unidentified charged particles,
pions and (anti-)protons in Pb-Pb collisions at TeV
with the ALICE detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Results obtained with the
event plane and four-particle cumulant methods are reported for the
pseudo-rapidity range at different collision centralities and as a
function of transverse momentum, , out to GeV/.
The observed non-zero elliptic and triangular flow depends only weakly on
transverse momentum for GeV/. The small dependence
of the difference between elliptic flow results obtained from the event plane
and four-particle cumulant methods suggests a common origin of flow
fluctuations up to GeV/. The magnitude of the (anti-)proton
elliptic and triangular flow is larger than that of pions out to at least
GeV/ indicating that the particle type dependence persists out
to high .Comment: 16 pages, 5 captioned figures, authors from page 11, published
version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/186
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