Revisiting the 'LSND anomaly' II: critique of the data analysis

This paper, together with a preceding paper, questions the so-called 'LSND anomaly': a 3.8 sigma excess of antielectronneutrino interactions over standard backgrounds, observed by the LSND Collaboration in a beam dump experiment with 800 MeV protons. That excess has been interpreted as evidence for the antimuonneutrino to antielectronneutrino oscillation in the \Deltam2 range from 0.2 eV2 to 2 eV2. Such a \Deltam2 range is incompatible with the widely accepted model of oscillations between three light neutrino species and would require the existence of at least one light 'sterile' neutrino. In a preceding paper, it was concluded that the estimates of standard backgrounds must be significantly increased. In this paper, the LSND Collaboration's estimate of the number of antielectronneutrino interactions followed by neutron capture, and of its error, is questioned. The overall conclusion is that the significance of the 'LSND anomaly' is not larger than 2.3 sigma.Comment: 30 pages, 16 figures, 6 table

Reply to 'Corrections to the HARP-CDP Analysis of the LSND Neutrino Oscillation Backgrounds'

The alleged mistakes in recent papers that reanalyze the backgrounds to the 'LSND anomaly' do not exist. We maintain our conclusion that the significance of the 'LSND anomaly' is not 3.8 sigma but not larger than 2.3 sigma.Comment: 3 page

Cross-sections of large-angle hadron production in proton- and pion-nucleus interactions VII: tin nuclei and beam momenta from \pm3 GeV/c to \pm15 GeV/c

We report on double-differential inclusive cross-sections of the production of secondary protons, charged pions, and deuterons, in the interactions with a 5% nuclear interaction length thick stationary tin target, of proton and pion beams with momentum from \pm3 GeV/c to \pm15 GeV/c. Results are given for secondary particles with production angles between 20 and 125 degrees. Cross-sections on tin nuclei are compared with cross-sections on beryllium, carbon, copper, tantalum and lead nuclei.Comment: 68 pages, 13 figure

The HARP Time Projection Chamber: Characteristics and Physics Performance

The HARP spectrometer that took data at the CERN Proton Synchrotron in 2001 and 2002 had as large-angle detector system a Time Projection Chamber (TPC) surrounded by Resistive Plate Chambers. The design of the TPC, experience with its operation, and its good physics performance are described. The successful recovery from track distortions arising from inhomogeneities of the electric and magnetic fields in the TPC volume is discussed

The HARP Resistive Plate Chambers: Characteristics and Physics Performance

The HARP Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) system was designed for time-of-flight measurement in the large-angle acceptance region of the HARP spectrometer. It comprised 46 four-gap glass RPCs covering an area of _8m2. The design of the RPCs, their operation, intrinsic properties, and system performance are described. The intrinsic time resolution of the RPCs is better than 130 ps leading to a system time resolution of _175 ps

Third Addendum to the HARP WhiteBook

In this 'Third Addendum to the HARP WhiteBook', we present a detailed rebuttal to the 27 arguments against our TPC calibration work that were put forward by the 'HARP Collaboration' in their "Comments on 'The Harp Time Projection Chamber: characteristics and physics performance' by V. Ammosov et al.", and show 26 of them to be wrong, or inappropriate, or without substance

The effect of phospholipid composition of reconstituted HDL on its cholesterol efflux and anti-inflammatory properties

goal of this study was to understand how the reconstituted HDL (rHDL) phospholipid (PL) composition affects its cholesterol efflux and anti-inflammatory properties. An ApoA-I mimetic peptide, 5A, was combined with either SM or POPC. Both lipid formulations exhibited similar in vitro cholesterol efflux by ABCA1, but 5A-SM exhibited higher ABCG1- and SR-BI-mediated efflux relative to 5A-POPC (P < 0.05). Injection of both rHDLs in rats resulted in mobilization of plasma cholesterol, although the relative potency was 3-fold higher for the same doses of 5A-SM than for 5A-POPC. Formation of pre HDL was observed following incubation of rHDLs with both human and rat plasma in vitro, with 5A-SM inducing a higher extent of pre formation relative to 5A-POPC. Both rHDLs exhibited anti-inflammatory properties, but 5A-SM showed higher inhibition of TNF-, IL-6, and IL-1 release than did 5A-POPC (P < 0.05). Both 5A-SM and 5A-POPC showed reduction in total plaque area in ApoE(-/-) mice, but only 5A-SM showed a statistically significant reduction over placebo control and baseline (P < 0.01). The type of PL used to reconstitute peptide has significant influence on rHDL's anti-inflammatory and anti-atherosclerosis properties

Measurement of the Z/gamma* + b-jet cross section in pp collisions at 7 TeV

The production of b jets in association with a Z/gamma* boson is studied using proton-proton collisions delivered by the LHC at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and recorded by the CMS detector. The inclusive cross section for Z/gamma* + b-jet production is measured in a sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 inverse femtobarns. The Z/gamma* + b-jet cross section with Z/gamma* to ll (where ll = ee or mu mu) for events with the invariant mass 60 < M(ll) < 120 GeV, at least one b jet at the hadron level with pT > 25 GeV and abs(eta) < 2.1, and a separation between the leptons and the jets of Delta R > 0.5 is found to be 5.84 +/- 0.08 (stat.) +/- 0.72 (syst.) +(0.25)/-(0.55) (theory) pb. The kinematic properties of the events are also studied and found to be in agreement with the predictions made by the MadGraph event generator with the parton shower and the hadronisation performed by PYTHIA.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physic

Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The uncertainty on the calorimeter energy response to jets of particles is derived for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). First, the calorimeter response to single isolated charged hadrons is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo simulation using proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of sqrt(s) = 900 GeV and 7 TeV collected during 2009 and 2010. Then, using the decay of K_s and Lambda particles, the calorimeter response to specific types of particles (positively and negatively charged pions, protons, and anti-protons) is measured and compared to the Monte Carlo predictions. Finally, the jet energy scale uncertainty is determined by propagating the response uncertainty for single charged and neutral particles to jets. The response uncertainty is 2-5% for central isolated hadrons and 1-3% for the final calorimeter jet energy scale.Comment: 24 pages plus author list (36 pages total), 23 figures, 1 table, submitted to European Physical Journal

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011