Searching for Z′Z' bosons decaying to gluons

The production and decay of a new heavy vector boson, a chromophilic $Z'$ vector boson, is described. The chromophilic $Z'$ couples only to two gluons, but its two-body decays are absent, leading to a dominant decay mode of $Z'\rightarrow q\bar{q}g$. The unusual nature of the interaction predicts a cross-section which grows with $m_{Z'}$ for a fixed coupling and an accompanying gluon with a coupling that rises with its energy. We study the $t\bar{t}g$ decay mode, proposing distinct reconstruction techniques for the observation of an excess and for the measurement of $m_{Z'}$. We estimate the sensitivity of current experimental datasets.Comment: For submission to PR

Fission of actinides through quasimolecular shapes

International audienceThe potential energy of heavy nuclei has been calculated in the quasimolecular shape path from a generalized liquid drop model including the proximity energy, the charge and mass asymmetries and the microscopic corrections. The potential barriers are multiple-humped. The second maximum is the saddle-point. It corresponds to the transition from compact one-body shapes with a deep neck to two touching ellipsoids. The scission point lies at the end of an energy plateau well below the saddle-point and where the effects of the nuclear attractive forces between two separated fragments vanish. The energy on this plateau is the sum of the kinetic and excitation energies of the fragments. The shell and pairing corrections play an essential role to select the most probable fission path. The potential barrier heights agree with the experimental data and the theoretical half-lives follow the trend of the experimental values. A third peak and a shallow third minimum appear in asymmetric decay paths when one fragment is close to a double magic quasi-spherical nucleus, while the smaller one changes from oblate to prolate shapes

Le référentiel taxonomique Florical et les caractéristiques de la flore vasculaire indigène de la Nouvelle-Calédonie

The taxonomic reference base Florical and characteristics of the native vascular flora of New Caledonia. The floristic inventory presented here comprises the evolving computerised database Florical (http://www.botanique.nc/herbier/florical). As of the date of publication, it lists all native vascular plant species (as well as infraspecific taxa) present in the territory of New Caledonia, whether validly published or in press, along with their basionym, organised according to the most recent classifications systems (APG III 2009 for the angiosperms, Smith et at [2006] for the ferns and lycophytes, and Mabberley [2009] for the gymnosperms), accompanied by their status (native or endemic) and the various vegetation types in which they occur. After a brief historical review of our knowledge of New Caledonian botany, the characteristics (richness, composition and endemism) of the different taxonomic groups (ferns and lycophytes, gymnosperms and then angiosperms -mono- and dicotyledons) are analyzed, followed by an assessment of the distribution of these groups among the vegetation types. The vascular flora of New Caledonia is characterised by its high level of richness (3371 species, including 3099 for the flowering plants alone), despite the absence or under-representation of some taxa that are abundantly represented elsewhere in the tropics, and especially by its remarkable distinctiveness (with endemism at the species level reaching 74,7%, and 77.8% for the flowering plants). The flora stands out by the presence of several relictual taxa and a high level of speciation among certain groups, despite the fact that the island was re-colonised relatively recently following the total submersion of its much older basement during the Paleocene and the Oligocene. Details of the measures taken to conserve this extraordinary natural heritage show that only 3.4% of the territory's total surface area is effectively protected. Despite the undeniable progress made in recent years by the authorities concerned, significant work remains to be done, especially in the northern Province

A Global Forum on Ultramafic Ecosystems: From Ultramafic Ecology to Rehabilitation of Degraded Environments

The 9th International Conference on Serpentine Ecology (ICSE) was held in Tirana and Pogradec (Albania) from June 5 to 9, 2017. More than 100 delegates from 29 countries around the world gathered to present their research on recent advances in: (i) ultramafic soils, (ii) biogeochemistry, (iii) diversity of ultramafic flora, microflora and fauna, (iv) ecophysiology of ultramafic-adapted organisms, (v) interactions between ultramafic organisms and their ecology, (vi) nature rehabilitation of degraded ultramafic environments (resulting from mining activities), and (vii) the production of bio-based metals through agromining technology. Additionally, the ICSE featured the first symposium on ultramafic aquatic ecology and ecotoxicology. Albania has one of the most diverse ultramafic floras in Europe. During the conference delegates visited some of the most emblematic ultramafic sites in Albania as well as the first agromining field trial in Europe. Here, we present the major topics and provide some highlights of the 25 contributions in this Special Issue (Vol. 33 no.3 and 4)

Search for new fermions ("quirks") at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider

We report results of a search for particles with anomalously high ionization in events with a high transverse energy jet and large missing transverse energy in $2.4$ fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ collider. Production of such particles (quirks) is expected in scenarios with extra QCD-like {\it SU(N)} sectors, and this study is the first dedicated search for such signatures. We find no evidence of a signal and set a lower mass limit of 107 ~GeV for the mass of a charged quirk with strong dynamics scale $\Lambda$ in the range from 10 keV to 1 MeV.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

Simultaneous measurement of the ratio B(t->Wb)/B(t->Wq) and the top quark pair production cross section with the D0 detector at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

We present the first simultaneous measurement of the ratio of branching fractions, R=B(t->Wb)/B(t->Wq), with q being a d, s, or b quark, and the top quark pair production cross section sigma_ttbar in the lepton plus jets channel using 0.9 fb-1 of ppbar collision data at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV collected with the D0 detector. We extract R and sigma_ttbar by analyzing samples of events with 0, 1 and >= 2 identified b jets. We measure R = 0.97 +0.09-0.08 (stat+syst) and sigma_ttbar = 8.18 +0.90-0.84 (stat+syst)} +/-0.50 (lumi) pb, in agreement with the standard model prediction.Comment: submitted to Phys.Rev.Letter

Precise measurement of the top quark mass in the dilepton channel at D0

We measure the top quark mass (mt) in ppbar collisions at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV using dilepton ttbar->W+bW-bbar->l+nubl-nubarbbar events, where l denotes an electron, a muon, or a tau that decays leptonically. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb-1 collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We obtain mt = 174.0 +- 1.8(stat) +- 2.4(syst) GeV, which is in agreement with the current world average mt = 173.3 +- 1.1 GeV. This is currently the most precise measurement of mt in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure