In a joint effort the CERES/NA45 and TAPS collaborations have measured low-mass electron pairs in p–Be and p–Au collisions at 450 GeV/c at the CERN SPS. In the range covered up to ≈ 1.5 GeV/c2 the mass spectra from p–Be and p–Au collisions are well explained by electron pairs from decays of neutral mesons. For p–Au our result is new. For p–Be, the simultaneously measured electron pair inclusive pair spectrum in which instrumental uncertainties are highly reduced. We confirm the earlier finding of HELIOS-1 with significantly reduced systematic uncertainties of 23% in the mass range below 450 MeV/c2, and of 28% in the mass range above 750 MeV/c2 at 90% confidence limit. Any unconventional source of electron pairs is limited by these error margins as the percentage fraction of the hadronic contribution.

At the Bonn 2.5 GeV electron synchrotron an angular distribution of the target asymmetry of the reaction γ+d↑→p+n has been measured at photon-lab-energies of 450 and 650 MeV and at proton-CM-angles between 25° and 155°. At 550 MeV the data of our previous run [1] have been improved. Using deuterated ammonia as material for the polarized deuteron target a maximum vector polarization of 44% could be achieved. At 450 and 650 MeV the data are consistent with a smooth sin 2Θ-like distribution. The evidence for a structure around 90° at 550 Mev remains. This might be due to the influence of a higher momentum state (like a dibaryon). The feasibility of measuring the tensor asymmetry of the deuteron photodisintegration with a polarized target has been shown for the first time. Data were taken in a short run for one kinematical setting.

The subthreshold production of neutral pions was studied in the reactions 24 Mg(α,π 0 )X at 43 MeV·. A and 24 Mg( 16 O,π 0 )X at 24 and 33 MeV·. A . The energies and emission angles of the two coincident photons from the π 0 -decay were measured with a lead glass shower detector. The cross sections of 3.5 and 6.6 nb from the 16 O-induced reactions are compatible with other experiments in this energy region. For the α-induced reaction a production cross section of 1.3 nb was found. Here, only 22 MeV above the absolute threshold, the pion emission from an excited Δ -nucleon hole state is strongly suppressed. The differential cross sections at very backward angles are by an order of magnitude bigger than the yields at 90° pointing to a strong absorption of the produced pions by the larger target nucleus.

Making use of 36 pb^-1 of proton-proton collision data at sqrt{s} = 7 TeV, the ATLAS Collaboration has performed a search for diphoton events with large missing transverse energy. Observing no excess of events above the Standard Model prediction, a 95% Confidence Level (CL) upper limit is set on the cross section for new physics of sigma < 0.38 - 0.65 pb in the context of a generalised model of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (GGM) with a bino-like lightest neutralino, and of sigma < 0.18 - 0.23 pb in the context of a specific model with one universal extra dimension (UED). A 95 % CL lower limit of 560 GeV, for bino masses above 50 GeV, is set on the GGM gluino mass, while a lower limit of 1/R > 961 GeV is set on the UED compactification radius R. These limits provide the most stringent tests of these models to date.

The azimuthal correlations of D mesons and charged particles were measured with the ALICE detector in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}=7$ TeV and p-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. D$^0$, D$^+$, and D$^{*+}$ mesons and their charge conjugates with transverse momentum $3<p_{\rm T}<16$ GeV/$c$ and rapidity in the nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass system $|y_{\rm cms}|<0.5$ (pp collisions) and $-0.96<y_{\rm cms}<0.04$ (p-Pb collisions) were correlated to charged particles with $p_{\rm T}>0.3$ Gev/$c$. The properties of the correlation peak induced by the jet containing the D meson, described in terms of the yield of charged particles in the peak and peak width, are compatible within uncertainties between the two collision systems, and described by Monte-Carlo simulations based on the PYTHIA, POWHEG and EPOS 3 event generators.

This letter describes the observation of the light-by-light scattering process, $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow\gamma\gamma$, in Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV. The analysis is conducted using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.73 nb$^{-1}$, collected in November 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Light-by-light scattering candidates are selected in events with two photons produced exclusively, each with transverse energy $E_{\textrm{T}}^{\gamma} > 3$ GeV and pseudorapidity $|\eta_{\gamma}| < 2.37$, diphoton invariant mass above 6 GeV, and small diphoton transverse momentum and acoplanarity. After applying all selection criteria, 59 candidate events are observed for a background expectation of 12 $\pm$ 3 events. The observed excess of events over the expected background has a significance of 8.2 standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross section is 78 $\pm$ 13 (stat.) $\pm$ 7 (syst.) $\pm$ 3 (lumi.) nb.

Following the first science results of the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment, a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber operating from the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota, USA, we report the initial limits on a model-independent non-relativistic effective field theory describing the complete set of possible interactions of a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) with a nucleon. These results utilize the same 5.5 t fiducial mass and 60 live days of exposure collected for the LZ spin-independent and spin-dependent analyses while extending the upper limit of the energy region of interest by a factor of 7.5 to 270 keVnr. No significant excess in this high energy region is observed. Using a profile-likelihood ratio analysis, we report 90% confidence level exclusion limits on the coupling of each individual non-relativistic WIMP-nucleon operator for both elastic and inelastic interactions in the isoscalar and isovector bases.

We report results on a precision measurement of the ratio R=σLσT in deep inelastic electron-nucleon scattering in the kinematic range 0.2≤x≤0.5 and 1≤Q2≤10 (GeV/c)2. Our results show, for the first time, a clear falloff of R with increasing Q2. Our R results are in agreement with QCD predictions only when corrections for target mass effects and some additional higher twist effects are included. At small x, the data on R favor structure functions with a large gluon contribution. We also report results on the differences RA−RD and the cross section ratio σAσD between Fe and Au nuclei and the deuteron. Our results for RA−RD are consistent with zero for all x, Q2 indicating that possible contributions to R from nuclear higher twist effects and spin-0 constituents in nuclei are not different from those in nucleons. The ratios σAσD from all recent experiments, at all x, Q2 values, are now in agreement.

The inclusive production of Ks0, Λ, Λ¯, and Ks0Λ in the p¯Ta reaction at 4 GeV/c was measured and compared with that in the p¯p reaction. The total inelastic and topological cross sections were also measured. The number of Λ’s produced in the p¯Ta reaction was 11.3 times larger than that expected from the geometrical cross section, which is defined as A2/3 times the cross section for the p¯p reaction. The yield ratio Λ¯/Λ was found to be 2×10−2. These values cannot be accounted for by a straightforward extension of the p¯N reaction. Besides, a correlation of 2 vees like Ks0-Λ could not prove their simultaneous production. Nuclear temperatures of 135 and 97 MeV were obtained from the kinetic energy spectra of Ks0 and Λ, respectively. The kinematical characteristics of the Ks0 and Λ produced were analyzed in terms of the fireball model.

Differential cross sections and polarization analyzing powers for proton-deuteron elastic scattering have been measured at 800 MeV incident proton kinetic energy over the range of center-of-mass angles from 14.1° to 153.6°. The differential cross sections are described by the Glauber theory of impulse approximation at forward angles (−t<0.5) and exhibit the exponential dependence on cosθc.m. typical for these energies at backward angles (cosθc.m.<−0.5). The analyzing power shows considerable structure with strong positive peaks at forward and backward angles and a sharp dip at t=−0.4 typical at intermediate energies. There is no evidence for correspondence of the angular dependence of the analyzing power with that for the pp→dπ+ reaction. At large momentum transfer the data favor calculations based on multiple scattering with a modified deuteron form factor rather than N* exchange. NUCLEAR REACTIONS H2(p,p)H2, E=800 MeV, measured σ(θ) and Ay(θ).

The (p,$\gamma$) cross sections of three stable Sr isotopes have been measured in the astrophysically relevant energy range. These reactions are important for the $p$-process in stellar nucleosynthesis and, in addition, the reaction cross sections in the mass region up to 100 are also of importance concerning the $rp$-process associated with explosive hydrogen and helium burning. It is speculated that this $rp$-process could be responsible for a certain amount of $p$-nuclei in this mass region. The (p,$\gamma$) cross sections of $^{84,86,87}$Sr isotopes were determined using an activation technique. The measurements were carried out at the 5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator of the ATOMKI, Debrecen. The resulting cross sections are compared with the predictions of statistical model calculations. The predictions are in good agreement with the experimental results for $^{84}$Sr(p,$\gamma$)$^{85}$Y whereas the other two reactions exhibit differences that increase with mass number. The corresponding astrophysical reaction rates have also been computed.

p p annihilation cross sections into 2-, 4- and 6-prong topologies, and the exclusive annihilation cross sections for the π + π − , K + K − , π + π − π 0 , π + π + π − π − , π + π + π − π − π 0 , π + π + π + π − π − π − , and π + π + π + π − π − π − π 0 channels in the momentum range 374–680 MeV/ c were measured. No prominent structure was observed in the momentum dependence of any of the above cross sections, but a small enhancement in the cross section was observed at 490 MeV/ c corresponding to the S meson mass in the topological, and π + π − π 0 and π + π + π − π − π 0 cross sections. If the extensive of the S meson with a mass and width of 1935.5 and 2.8 MeV/ c 2 is assumed, our measurement gives a total resonant annihilation cross section into charged particles of 10.0±3.0 mb.

Inelastic interactions of nuclei accelerated to a momentum of 4.5 GeV/$c$ per projectile nucleon with photoemulsion nuclei have been investigated. The main features of these interactions - mean ranges of $^6$Li nuclei, mean multiplicities of secondaries, the isotopic composition of fragments, fragmentation channels, and the mean transverse momenta of projectile fragments - have been measured. The probability of the charge-exchange reaction featuring lithium nuclei has been determined. The results obtained for the $^6$Li nucleus have been compared with data for other nuclei. The observed features of $^6$Li interactions with other nuclei indicate that the $^6$Li structure in the form of the loosely bound system consisting of an $\alpha$-particle and a deuteron cluster clearly manifests itself in these interactions. Events resulting in the coherent dissociation of $^6$Li nuclei into $^4$He+$d$, $^3$He+$t$, and $t+d+p$ and involving low-lying excitations of $^6$Li have been observed.

The Indiana Silicon Sphere 4π detector has been used to measure light-charged particles and intermediate-mass fragments (IMFs) emitted in the 18–4.8 GeV He3+natAg, Au197 reactions. Ejectile multiplicity and total event kinetic energy distributions scale systematically with projectile energy and target mass, except for the Agnat target at 3.6 and 4.8 GeV. For this system, a saturation in deposition energy is indicated by the data, suggesting the upper projectile energy for stopping has been reached. Maximum deposition energies of ∼950 MeV for the Agnat target and ∼1600 MeV for the Au197 target are inferred from the data. The results also demonstrate the importance of accounting for fast cascade processes in defining the excitation energy of the targetlike residue. Correlations between various observables and the average IMF multiplicity indicate that the total thermal energy and total observed charge provide useful gauges of the excitation energy of the fragmenting system. Comparison of the experimental distributions with intranuclear cascade predictions shows qualitative agreement. © 1996 The American Physical Society.

Differential cross sections for the neutral pion production reaction C12(p,π0)13Ng.s. have been measured at 153.5, 166.1, 186.0, and 204.0 MeV bombarding energy using recoil detection. The shape of the angular distribution agrees well with that of the mirror reaction C12(p,π+)13Cg.s.. Isospin invariance predicts for the ratio of the cross sections σ(p,π+)/σ(p,π0)=2. At 153.5, 166.1, and 186.0, MeV, where (p,π+) cross sections have been reported previously by other groups at the same reduced pion momentum η=pπ/mπc=0.34,0.55,0.78, the ratio of the total cross sections is 2.02±0.14, 3.14±0.12, and 2.12±0.16, respectively. The (p,π0) cross sections at 166 MeV is therefore 1.57±0.06 times larger than expected. For Tp<160 MeV, the experimental cross sections are larger than predicted by a phase space and Coulomb barrier penetration calculation that fits the higher-energy data. Differential cross sections were also obtained for the C12(p,π−)13O reaction, and upper limits set for differential cross sections for radiative capture to the ground state of N13.

A detailed study of pion production in central Mg - Mg collisions at a momentum of 4.3 GeV/c per incident nucleon was carried out using the GIBS set-up. It has been shown that the dependence of the average kinematical characteristics ( and ) of mesons on multiplicity differs from that for NN collisions at the same energy, which is due to nuclear effects. The temperatures of mesons have been estimated using two different selection criteria: in the rapidity interval and at angles in the CMS. A satisfactory fit for mesons can be achieved by using a form involving two temperatures and . The relative yield of the high-temperature component is . The results obtained by the intranuclear cascade model CASIMIR coincide with the experimental data estimated with both methods. From the analysis of angular distributions of mesons the anisotropy coefficient a was obtained. The anisotropy coefficient increases linearly with the kinetic energy (in the CMS). CASIMIR reproduces the increase of a with , but the slope is less steep than from experimental results.

A search for the 0 + → 2 + neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76 Ge into the first excited state of 76 Se has been carried out using a coincidence technique between Ge and NaI detectors. Since the expected number of counts is very small and mixed with a continuous background of natural radioactivity, special care has been taken to maintain the good energy resolution of the detectors. As a consequence, the experimental data display, after 6207 h statistical time, a coincidence signal of 19.3 ± 5.8 counts, between an energy deposition of 1484.0 ± 0.3 keV in the Ge detectors and 561 ± 10 keV in the NaI detectors. Both Ge and NaI energies are within the experimental errors, compatible with the expected values. No other unidentified coincidence signal has been found in the full Ge-NaI energy matrix, and no similar γγ cascade has been found within our background. Even if the low statistics does not completely rule out the possibility of a statistical fluctuation, this result should encourage further experiments with improved sensitivities.

This paper describes the measurement of elliptic flow of charged particles in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The results are based on an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 ub^-1. Elliptic flow is measured over a wide region in pseudorapidity, |eta| < 2.5, and over a broad range in transverse momentum, 0.5 < p_T < 20 GeV. The elliptic flow parameter v_2 is obtained by correlating individual tracks with the event plane measured using energy deposited in the forward calorimeters. As a function of transverse momentum, v_2(p_T) reaches a maximum at p_T of about 3 GeV, then decreases and becomes weakly dependent on p_T above 7 - 8 GeV. Over the measured pseudorapidity region, v_2 is found to be approximately independent of |eta| for all collision centralities and particle transverse momenta, something not observed in lower energy collisions. The results are discussed in the context of previous measurements at lower collision energies, as well as recent results from the LHC.

A systematic set of measurements of the global transverse energy distributions, dσ/dET and dET/dη, from beams of protons, O16 and Si28 at 14.6A GeV/c, incident on targets ranging from Be to Au is presented. The detector was a semicircular array of lead-glass blocks, covering polar angles 9°<θ<32°, whose total response provides a good measure of the produced particle yield in the central rapidity region of these reactions. Proton-nucleus spectra exhibit a similar shape on the high-energy tail, independent of target, suggesting that produced particles in such events arise mostly from the first collision of the projectile proton. For targets heavier than Cu, the high-energy edges of the oxygen-nucleus spectra, and of the silicon-nucleus spectra, reach ratios consistent with the geometry of central collisions. Angular distributions, dET/dη, are characterized by Gaussian fits, and an acceptance-independent form of the differential cross section is found, based on the maximum value of dET/dη. The projectile dependence of nucleus-nucleus spectra is studied in terms of two very different models: simple energy scaling and the wounded projectile nucleon model of p+A convolutions.

Relativistic iron, lanthanum, holmium, and gold projectile nuclei with several different energies have been fragmented in targets of polyethylene, carbon, aluminum, copper, and lead. Our detectors cleanly resolve the individual charges of the heaviest of these fragments and provide some limited information on the masses. We have measured 1256 elemental partial cross sections for the production of fragments from interactions in these target materials. Values have been derived for another 417 cross sections in a hydrogen medium. These cross sections depend on the energy and mass of the projectile nuclei as well as on the nature of the target. Total charge-changing cross sections were also found, but only in a composite target, and have been shown to be weakly dependent on energy. The mean mass losses observed for fragments that have lost a few protons show that typically many neutrons are lost with each proton, producing fragment nuclei that must be highly proton rich, and consequently very unstable. The cross sections for charge pickup on heavy targets show a rapid increase with decreasing energy, particularly for the heaviest targets. The systematics of the dependencies of the partial cross sections will be discussed in a companion paper.

The absolute differential cross sections for ap elastic scattering and for the sum of elastic and quasielastic aa scattering have been measured at a momentum of 17.9 GeV/c in the four-momentum transfer region (0.01 < | t | < 0.2) GeV2/c2 with normalization errors less than 3%. Such measurements in the energy region of a few GeV have been performed for the first time. The measurements have been carried out using the alpha particle beam with the intensity of (1-5)x105 particles/s extracted from the synchrophasotron during 0.3-0.5s. The cryogen target filled with hydrogen (0.847+-0.001 g/cm2) and helium was used. The substance amount along the particle path constituted 0.11 g/cm2 in an unfilled target. The total cross sections, diffraction cone slope parameters and total elastic cross sections for ap and aa scattering have been obtained. The results are compared with the calculations carried out in the frames of the Glauber-Sitenko diffraction multiple scattering theory. The deviation of the calculated differential cross sections from the experimental ones is observed. In the region of the diffraction cone the deviation has a different sign for ap and aa scattering and amounts to 10-15%

We present an analysis of proton number fluctuations in $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 2.4 GeV Au+Au collisions measured with the High-Acceptance DiElectron Spectrometer (HADES) at GSI. With the help of extensive detector simulations done with IQMD transport model events including nuclear clusters, various nuisance effects influencing the observed proton cumulants have been investigated. Acceptance and efficiency corrections have been applied as a function of fine grained rapidity and transverse momentum bins, as well as considering local track density dependencies. Next, the effects of volume changes within particular centrality selections have been considered and beyond-leading-order corrections have been applied to the data. The efficiency and volume corrected proton number moments and cumulants Kn of orders n = 1, . . . , 4 have been obtained as a function of centrality and phase-space bin, as well as the corresponding correlators C_n . We find that the observed correlators show a power-law scaling with the mean number of protons, i.e. $C_n \propto <N>^n$, indicative of mostly long-range multi-particle correlations in momentum space. We also present a comparison of our results with Au+Au collision data obtained at RHIC at similar centralities, but higher $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$.

Measurements of the double-differential pi+/- production cross-section in the range of momentum 100 MeV/c <= p <= 800 MeV/c and angle 0.35 rad <= theta <= 2.15 rad using pi+/- beams incident on beryllium, aluminium, carbon, copper, tin, tantalum and lead targets are presented. The data were taken with the large acceptance HARP detector in the T9 beam line of the CERN PS. The secondary pions were produced by beams in a momentum range from 3 GeV/c to 12.9 GeV/c hitting a solid target with a thickness of 5% of a nuclear interaction length. The tracking and identification of the produced particles was performed using a small-radius cylindrical time projection chamber (TPC) placed inside a solenoidal magnet. Incident particles were identified by an elaborate system of beam detectors. Results are obtained for the double-differential cross-sections d2sigma/dpdtheta at six incident beam momenta. Data at 3 GeV/c, 5 GeV/c, 8 GeV/c, and 12 GeV/c are available for all targets while additional data at 8.9 GeV/c and 12.9 GeV/c were taken in positive particle beams on Be and Al targets, respectively. The measurements are compared with several generators of GEANT4 and the MARS Monte Carlo simulation.

The rate of neutrino- and antineutrino-induced prompt same-sign dimuon production in steel was measured using a sample of μ−μ− events and 25 μ+μ+ events withPμ>9 GeV/c, produced in 1.5 millionvμ and 0.3 million\(\overline {v_\mu}\) induced charged-current events with energies between 30 GeV and 600 GeV. The data were obtained with the Chicago-Columbia-Fermilab-Rochester (CCFR) neutrino detector in the Fermilab Tevatron Quadrupole Triplet Neutrino Beam during experiments E 744 and E 770. After background subtraction, the prompt rate of same-sign dimuon production is (0.53±0.24)×10−4 pervμ charged-current event and (0.52±0.33)×10−4 per\(\overline {v_\mu}\) charged-current event. The kinematic distributions of the same-sign dimuon events after background subtraction are consistent with those of the non-prompt background due to meson decays in the hadron shower of a charged-current event. Calculations ofc\(\bar c\) gluon bremsstrahlung, based on improved measurements of the charm mass parameter and nucleon structure functions by the CCFR collaboration, yield a prompt rate of (0.09±0.39)×10−4 pervμ charged-current event. In this case,c\(\bar c\) gluon bremsstrahlung is probably not an observable source of prompt same-sign dimuons.

The energy loss spectrum of 150 GeV muons has been measured with a prototype of the ATLAS hadron calorimeter in the H8 beam of the CERN SPS. The differential probability dP/dv per radiation length of a fractional energy loss v = ΔEμ/Eμ has been measured in the range v = 0.01 ÷ 0.95; it is compared with the theoretical predictions for energy losses due to bremsstrahlung and production of electron—positron pairs or of energetic knock-on electrons. The integrated probability \(\int_{0.01}^{0.95}({\rm d}P/{\rm d}v){\rm d}v\) is (1.610 ± 0.015stat ± 0.105syst) · 10−3 in agreement with the theoretical predictions 1.556 · 10−3 and 1.619 · 10−3. Agreement with theory is also found in two intervals of v where production of electron-positron pairs and knock-on electrons dominates. In the region of bremsstrahlung dominance (v = 0.12 ÷ 0.95) the measured integrated probability (1.160 ± 0.040stat ± 0.075syst) · 10−4 is in agreement with the theoretical value of 1.185 · 10−4, obtained using the Petrukhin and Shestakov description of the bremsstrahlung process. The same result is about 3.6 standard deviations (defined as the quadratic sum of statistical and systematic errors) lower than the theoretical prediction of 1.472 · 10−4, obtained using Tsai’s description of bremsstrahlung.