3,869 research outputs found
Strongest model-independent bound on the lifetime of Dark Matter
Dark Matter is essential for structure formation in the late Universe so it
must be stable on cosmological time scales. But how stable exactly? Only
assuming decays into relativistic particles, we report an otherwise model
independent bound on the lifetime of Dark Matter using current cosmological
data. Since these decays affect only the low- multipoles of the CMB, the
Dark Matter lifetime is expected to correlate with the tensor-to-scalar ratio
as well as curvature . We consider two models, including and
respectively, versus data from Planck, WMAP, WiggleZ and Baryon
Acoustic Oscillations, with or without the BICEP2 data (if interpreted in terms
of primordial gravitational waves). This results in a lower bound on the
lifetime of CDM given by 160Gyr (without BICEP2) or 200Gyr (with BICEP2) at 95%
confidence level.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures. Prepared for submission to JCA
Reactor sterile neutrinos, dark energy and the age of the universe
There are indications that the neutrino oscillation data from reactor
experiments and the LSND and MiniBooNE experiments show a preference for two
sterile neutrino species, both with masses in the eV region. We show that this
result has a significant impact on some important cosmological parameters.
Specifically, we use a combination of CMB, LSS and SN1A data and show that the
existence of two light, sterile neutrinos would rule out the cosmological
constant as dark energy at 95% confidence level, and lower the expansion age of
the universe to 12.58 \pm 0.26 Gyr.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. References
added and typos corrected. Added numerical values for w ranges and Delta
chi^2. Minor extension of discussio
Heavy Flavor Probes of Quark Matter
A brief survey of the role of heavy flavors as a probe of the state of matter
produced by high energy heavy ion collisions is presented. Specific examples
include energy loss, initial state gluon saturation, thermalization and flow.
The formation of quarkonium bound states from interactions in which multiple
heavy quark-antiquark pairs are initially produced is examined in general.
Results from statistical hadronization and kinetic models are summarized. New
predictions from the kinetic model for J/Psi at RHIC are presented.Comment: Based on invited plenary talk at Strange Quark Matter 2004, Cape
Town, South Africa, September 15-20, 2004, references completed, published in
J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 31 (2005) S641-S64
Photoproduction of h_c
Using the NRQCD factorization formalism, we calculate the total cross section
for the photoproduction of h_c mesons. We include color-octet and color-singlet
mechanisms as well as next-to-leading order perturbative QCD corrections. The
theoretical prediction depends on two nonperturbative matrix elements that are
not well determined from existing data on charmonium production. For reasonable
values of these matrix elements, the cross section is large enough that the h_c
may be observable at the E831 experiment and at the HERA experiments.Comment: Revtex file 8 pages, 1 figure. Macros needed: epsf,floats,rotate
Minor typos changed, and reference added. Version to be published in
Phys.Rev.
Light Sneutrino Dark Matter at the LHC
In supersymmetric (SUSY) models with Dirac neutrino masses, a weak-scale
trilinear A-term that is not proportional to the small neutrino Yukawa
couplings can induce a sizable mixing between left and right-handed sneutrinos.
The lighter sneutrino mass eigenstate can hence become the lightest SUSY
particle (LSP) and a viable dark matter candidate. In particular, it can be an
excellent candidate for light dark matter with mass below ~10 GeV. Such a light
mixed sneutrino LSP has a dramatic effect on SUSY signatures at the LHC, as
charginos decay dominantly into the light sneutrino plus a charged lepton, and
neutralinos decay invisibly to a neutrino plus a sneutrino. We perform a
detailed study of the LHC potential to resolve the light sneutrino dark matter
scenario by means of three representative benchmark points with different
gluino and squark mass hierarchies. We study in particular the determination of
the LSP (sneutrino) mass from cascade decays involving charginos, using the mT2
variable. Moreover, we address measurements of additional invisible sparticles,
in our case the lightest neutralino, and the question of discrimination against
the MSSM.Comment: 25 pages, 16 figure
Human candidate gene polymorphisms and risk of severe malaria in children in Kilifi, Kenya: a case-control association study
Background: Human genetic factors are important determinants of malaria risk. We investigated associations between multiple candidate polymorphismsâmany related to the structure or function of red blood cellsâand risk for severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria and its specific phenotypes, including cerebral malaria, severe malaria anaemia, and respiratory distress. Methods: We did a case-control study in Kilifi County, Kenya. We recruited as cases children presenting with severe malaria to the high-dependency ward of Kilifi County Hospital. We included as controls infants born in the local community between Aug 1, 2006, and Sept 30, 2010, who were part of a genetics study. We tested for associations between a range of candidate malaria-protective genes and risk for severe malaria and its specific phenotypes. We used a permutation approach to account for multiple comparisons between polymorphisms and severe malaria. We judged p values less than 0·005 significant for the primary analysis of the association between candidate genes and severe malaria. Findings: Between June 11, 1995, and June 12, 2008, 2244 children with severe malaria were recruited to the study, and 3949 infants were included as controls. Overall, 263 (12%) of 2244 children with severe malaria died in hospital, including 196 (16%) of 1233 with cerebral malaria. We investigated 121 polymorphisms in 70 candidate severe malaria-associated genes. We found significant associations between risk for severe malaria overall and polymorphisms in 15 genes or locations, of which most were related to red blood cells: ABO, ATP2B4, ARL14, CD40LG, FREM3, INPP4B, G6PD, HBA (both HBA1 and HBA2), HBB, IL10, LPHN2 (also known as ADGRL2), LOC727982, RPS6KL1, CAND1, and GNAS. Combined, these genetic associations accounted for 5·2% of the variance in risk for developing severe malaria among individuals in the general population. We confirmed established associations between severe malaria and sickle-cell trait (odds ratio [OR] 0·15, 95% CI 0·11â0·20; p=2·61 Ă 10â58), blood group O (0·74, 0·66â0·82; p=6·26 Ă 10â8), and âα3·7-thalassaemia (0·83, 0·76â0·90; p=2·06 Ă 10â6). We also found strong associations between overall risk of severe malaria and polymorphisms in both ATP2B4 (OR 0·76, 95% CI 0·63â0·92; p=0·001) and FREM3 (0·64, 0·53â0·79; p=3·18 Ă 10â14). The association with FREM3 could be accounted for by linkage disequilibrium with a complex structural mutation within the glycophorin gene region (comprising GYPA, GYPB, and GYPE) that encodes for the rare Dantu blood group antigen. Heterozygosity for Dantu was associated with risk for severe malaria (OR 0·57, 95% CI 0·49â0·68; p=3·22 Ă 10â11), as was homozygosity (0·26, 0·11â0·62; p=0·002). Interpretation: Both ATP2B4 and the Dantu blood group antigen are associated with the structure and function of red blood cells. ATP2B4 codes for plasma membrane calcium-transporting ATPase 4 (the major calcium pump on red blood cells) and the glycophorins are ligands for parasites to invade red blood cells. Future work should aim at uncovering the mechanisms by which these polymorphisms can result in severe malaria protection and investigate the implications of these associations for wider health. Funding: Wellcome Trust, UK Medical Research Council, European Union, and Foundation for the National Institutes of Health as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative
Cosmological parameters constraints from galaxy cluster mass function measurements in combination with other cosmological data
We present the cosmological parameters constraints obtained from the
combination of galaxy cluster mass function measurements (Vikhlinin et al.,
2009a,b) with new cosmological data obtained during last three years: updated
measurements of cosmic microwave background anisotropy with Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observatory, and at smaller angular scales with South
Pole Telescope (SPT), new Hubble constant measurements, baryon acoustic
oscillations and supernovae Type Ia observations.
New constraints on total neutrino mass and effective number of neutrino
species are obtained. In models with free number of massive neutrinos the
constraints on these parameters are notably less strong, and all considered
cosmological data are consistent with non-zero total neutrino mass \Sigma m_\nu
\approx 0.4 eV and larger than standard effective number of neutrino species,
N_eff \approx 4. These constraints are compared to the results of neutrino
oscillations searches at short baselines.
The updated dark energy equation of state parameters constraints are
presented. We show that taking in account systematic uncertainties, current
cluster mass function data provide similarly powerful constraints on dark
energy equation of state, as compared to the constraints from supernovae Type
Ia observations.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy Letter
Hadronic final states in deep-inelastic scattering with Sherpa
We extend the multi-purpose Monte-Carlo event generator Sherpa to include
processes in deeply inelastic lepton-nucleon scattering. Hadronic final states
in this kinematical setting are characterised by the presence of multiple
kinematical scales, which were up to now accounted for only by specific
resummations in individual kinematical regions. Using an extension of the
recently introduced method for merging truncated parton showers with
higher-order tree-level matrix elements, it is possible to obtain predictions
which are reliable in all kinematical limits. Different hadronic final states,
defined by jets or individual hadrons, in deep-inelastic scattering are
analysed and the corresponding results are compared to HERA data. The various
sources of theoretical uncertainties of the approach are discussed and
quantified. The extension to deeply inelastic processes provides the
opportunity to validate the merging of matrix elements and parton showers in
multi-scale kinematics inaccessible in other collider environments. It also
allows to use HERA data on hadronic final states in the tuning of hadronisation
models.Comment: 32 pages, 22 figure
Les Houches 2011: Physics at TeV Colliders New Physics Working Group Report
We present the activities of the "New Physics" working group for the "Physics
at TeV Colliders" workshop (Les Houches, France, 30 May-17 June, 2011). Our
report includes new agreements on formats for interfaces between computational
tools, new tool developments, important signatures for searches at the LHC,
recommendations for presentation of LHC search results, as well as additional
phenomenological studies.Comment: 243 pages, report of the Les Houches 2011 New Physics Group; fix
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