We present the first measurements of transverse momentum spectra of $\pi^{\pm}$, $K^{\pm}$, $p(\bar{p})$ at midrapidity ($|y| < 0.1$) in U+U collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 193 GeV with the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The centrality dependence of particle yields, average transverse momenta, particle ratios and kinetic freeze-out parameters are discussed. The results are compared with the published results from Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} =$ 200 GeV in STAR. The results are also compared to those from A Multi Phase Transport (AMPT) model.

The reaction $\gamma p \rightarrow p \pi^0 \eta$ has been studied with the CBELSA/TAPS detector at the electron stretcher accelerator ELSA in Bonn for incident photon energies from threshold up to 3.1 GeV. This paper has been motivated by the recently claimed observation of a narrow structure in the M$_{N\eta}$ invariant mass distribution at a mass of 1678 MeV/$c^2$. The existence of this structure cannot be confirmed in the present work. Instead, for E$_{\gamma}$ = 1400 - 1500 MeV and the cut M$_{p\pi^0} \le 1190 $ MeV/$c^2$ a statistically significant structure in the M$_{p\eta}$ invariant mass distribution near 1700 MeV/$c^2$ is observed with a width of $\Gamma\approx 35$ MeV/$c^2$ while the mass resolution is $\sigma_{res}$ = 5 MeV/$c^2$. Increasing the incident photon energy from 1420 to 1540 MeV this structure shifts in mass from $\approx$ 1700MeV/c$^2$ to $\approx$ 1725 MeV/$c^2$; the width increases to about 50 MeV/$c^2$ and decreases thereafter. The cross section associated with this structure reaches a maximum of $\approx$ 100 nb around E$_{\gamma} \approx$ 1490 MeV (W $\approx $ 1920 MeV), which coincides with the $p a_0$ threshold. Three scenarios are discussed which might be the origin of this structure in the M$_{p\eta}$ invariant mass distribution. The most likely interpretation is that it is due to a triangular singularity in the $\gamma p \rightarrow p a_0 \rightarrow p \pi^0 \eta$ reaction

Understanding gluon density distributions and how they are modified in nuclei are among the most important goals in nuclear physics. In recent years, diffractive vector meson production measured in ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) at heavy-ion colliders has provided a new tool for probing the gluon density. In this Letter, we report the first measurement of $J/\psi$ photoproduction off the deuteron in UPCs at the center-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}=200~\rm GeV$ in d$+$Au collisions. The differential cross section as a function of momentum transfer $-t$ is measured. In addition, data with a neutron tagged in the deuteron-going Zero-Degree Calorimeter is investigated for the first time, which is found to be consistent with the expectation of incoherent diffractive scattering at low momentum transfer. Theoretical predictions based on the Color Glass Condensate saturation model and the gluon shadowing model are compared with the data quantitatively. A better agreement with the saturation model has been observed. With the current measurement, the results are found to be directly sensitive to the gluon density distribution of the deuteron and the deuteron breakup, which provides insights into the nuclear gluonic structure.

The quasifree $\overrightarrow{\gamma} d\to\pi^0n(p)$ photon beam asymmetry, $\Sigma$, has been measured at photon energies, $E_\gamma$, from 390 to 610 MeV, corresponding to center of mass energy from 1.271 to 1.424 GeV, for the first time. The data were collected in the A2 hall of the MAMI electron beam facility with the Crystal Ball and TAPS calorimeters covering pion center-of-mass angles from 49 to 148$^\circ$. In this kinematic region, polarization observables are sensitive to contributions from the $\Delta (1232)$ and $N(1440)$ resonances. The extracted values of $\Sigma$ have been compared to predictions based on partial-wave analyses (PWAs) of the existing pion photoproduction database. Our comparison includes the SAID, MAID, and Bonn-Gatchina analyses; while a revised SAID fit, including the new $\Sigma$ measurements, has also been performed. In addition, isospin symmetry is examined as a way to predict $\pi^0n$ photoproduction observables, based on fits to published data in the channels $\pi^0p$, $\pi^+n$, and $\pi^-p$.

New high precision total and differential cross sections are reported for the $dp\to {}^3\textrm{He}\,\eta$ reaction close to threshold. The measurements were performed using the magnetic spectrometer ANKE, which is an internal fixed target facility at the COSY cooler synchrotron. The data were taken for deuteron beam momenta between $3.14641~\textrm{GeV}/c$ and $3.20416~\textrm{GeV}/c$, which corresponds to the range in excess energy $Q$ for this reaction between $1.14~\textrm{MeV}$ and $15.01~\textrm{MeV}$. The normalization was established through the measurement in parallel of deuteron-proton elastic scattering and this was checked through the study of the $dp\to {}^3\textrm{He}\,\pi^0$ reaction. The previously indicated possible change of sign of the slope of the differential cross sections near the production threshold, which could be explained by a rapid variation of the $s$- and $p$-wave interference term, is not confirmed by the new data. The energy dependence of the total cross section and the $90^{\circ}$ slope parameter are well explained by describing the final state interaction in terms of a complex Jost function and the results are significant in the discussion of $\eta$-mesic nuclei. In combination with recently published WASA-at-COSY data [P. Adlarson $et\, al.$, Phys. Lett. B 782, 297 (2018)], a smooth variation of the slope parameter is achieved up to an excess energy of $80.9~\textrm{MeV}$.

The $\gamma n \to \pi^0 n$ differential cross section evaluated for 27 energy bins span the photon-energy range 290-813 MeV (W = 1.195-1.553 GeV) and the pion c.m. polar production angles, ranging from 18 deg to 162 deg, making use of model-dependent nuclear corrections to extract pi0 production data on the neutron from measurements on the deuteron target. Additionally, the total photoabsorption cross section was measured. The tagged photon beam produced by the 883-MeV electron beam of the Mainz Microtron MAMI was used for the 0-meson production. Our accumulation of 3.6 x 10^6 $\gamma n \to \pi^0 n$ events allowed a detailed study of the reaction dynamics. Our data are in reasonable agreement with previous A2 measurements and extend them to lower energies. The data are compared to predictions of previous SAID, MAID, and BnGa partial-wave analyses and to the latest SAID fit MA19 that included our data. Selected photon decay amplitudes $N^* \to \gamma n$ at the resonance poles are determined for the first time.

We report the direct virtual photon invariant yields in the transverse momentum ranges $1\!<\!p_{T}\!<\!3$ GeV/$c$ and $5\!<\!p_T\!<\!10$ GeV/$c$ at mid-rapidity derived from the dielectron invariant mass continuum region $0.10<M_{ee}<0.28$ GeV/$c^{2}$ for 0-80\% minimum-bias Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. A clear excess in the invariant yield compared to the number-of-binary-collisions ($N_{bin}$) scaled $p+p$ reference is observed in the $p_T$ range $1\!<\!p_{T}\!<\!3$ GeV/$c$. For $p_T\!>6$ GeV/$c$ the production follows $N_{bin}$ scaling. Model calculations with contributions from thermal radiation and initial hard parton scattering are consistent within uncertainties with the direct virtual photon invariant yield.

We present high precision measurements of elliptic flow near midrapidity ($|y|<1.0$) for multi-strange hadrons and $\phi$ meson as a function of centrality and transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at center of mass energy $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=$ 200 GeV. We observe that the transverse momentum dependence of $\phi$ and $\Omega$ $v_{2}$ is similar to that of $\pi$ and $p$, respectively, which may indicate that the heavier strange quark flows as strongly as the lighter up and down quarks. This observation constitutes a clear piece of evidence for the development of partonic collectivity in heavy-ion collisions at the top RHIC energy. Number of constituent quark scaling is found to hold within statistical uncertainty for both 0-30$\%$ and 30-80$\%$ collision centrality. There is an indication of the breakdown of previously observed mass ordering between $\phi$ and proton $v_{2}$ at low transverse momentum in the 0-30$\%$ centrality range, possibly indicating late hadronic interactions affecting the proton $v_{2}$.

A combination is presented of all inclusive deep inelastic cross sections previously published by the H1 and ZEUS collaborations at HERA for neutral and charged current $e^{\pm}p$ scattering for zero beam polarisation. The data were taken at proton beam energies of 920, 820, 575 and 460 GeV and an electron beam energy of 27.5 GeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 1 fb$^{-1}$ and span six orders of magnitude in negative four-momentum-transfer squared, $Q^2$, and Bjorken $x$. The correlations of the systematic uncertainties were evaluated and taken into account for the combination. The combined cross sections were input to QCD analyses at leading order, next-to-leading order and at next-to-next-to-leading order, providing a new set of parton distribution functions, called HERAPDF2.0. In addition to the experimental uncertainties, model and parameterisation uncertainties were assessed for these parton distribution functions. Variants of HERAPDF2.0 with an alternative gluon parameterisation, HERAPDF2.0AG, and using fixed-flavour-number schemes, HERAPDF2.0FF, are presented. The analysis was extended by including HERA data on charm and jet production, resulting in the variant HERAPDF2.0Jets. The inclusion of jet-production cross sections made a simultaneous determination of these parton distributions and the strong coupling constant possible, resulting in $\alpha_s(M_Z)=0.1183 \pm 0.0009 {\rm(exp)} \pm 0.0005{\rm (model/parameterisation)} \pm 0.0012{\rm (hadronisation)} ^{+0.0037}_{-0.0030}{\rm (scale)}$. An extraction of $xF_3^{\gamma Z}$ and results on electroweak unification and scaling violations are also presented.

Collisions between prolate uranium nuclei are used to study how particle production and azimuthal anisotropies depend on initial geometry in heavy-ion collisions. We report the two- and four-particle cumulants, $v_2\{2\}$ and $v_2\{4\}$, for charged hadrons from U+U collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 193 GeV and Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 200 GeV. Nearly fully overlapping collisions are selected based on the amount of energy deposited by spectators in the STAR Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs). Within this sample, the observed dependence of $v_2\{2\}$ on multiplicity demonstrates that ZDC information combined with multiplicity can preferentially select different overlap configurations in U+U collisions. An initial-state model with gluon saturation describes the slope of $v_2\{2\}$ as a function of multiplicity in central collisions better than one based on Glauber with a two-component multiplicity model.