J/psi production in Indium-Indium collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon

The NA60 experiment studies muon pair production at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron. In this Letter we report on a precision measurement of J/psi in In-In collisions. We have studied the J/psi centrality distribution, and we have compared it with the one expected if absorption in cold nuclear matter were the only active suppression mechanism. For collisions involving more than approximately 80 participant nucleons, we find that an extra suppression is present. This result is in qualitative agreement with previous Pb-Pb measurements by the NA50 experiment, but no theoretical explanation is presently able to coherently describe both results.     

Measurement of the Q and energy dependence of diffractive interactions at HERA

Diffractive dissociation of virtual photons, , has been studied in ep interactions with the ZEUS detector at HERA. The data cover photon virtualities 0.17 < Q ² < 0.70 GeV² and 3 < Q ² < 80 GeV² with 3 < M_X < 38 GeV, where M_X is the mass of the hadronic final state. Diffractive events were selected by two methods: the first required the detection of the scattered proton in the ZEUS leading proton spectrometer (LPS); the second was based on the distribution of M_X. The integrated luminosities of the low- and high-Q² samples used in the LPS-based analysis are 0.9 pb^-1 and 3.3 pb^-1, respectively. The sample used for the M_X-based analysis corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 6.2 pb^-1. The dependence of the diffractive cross section on W, the virtual photon-proton centre-of-mass energy, and on Q² is studied. In the low-Q² range, the energy dependence is compatible with Regge theory and is used to determine the intercept of the Pomeron trajectory. The W dependence of the diffractive cross section exhibits no significant change from the low-Q² to the high-Q² region. In the low-Q² range, little Q² dependence is found, a significantly different behaviour from the rapidly falling cross section measured for Q ² > 3 GeV². The ratio of the diffractive to the virtual photon-proton total cross section is studied as a function of W and Q². Comparisons are made with a model based on perturbative QCD. Received: 27 March 2002 / Published online: 9 August 2002     

Numerical simulation tests with light dynamical quarks

Two degenerate flavors of quarks are simulated with small masses down to about one fifth of the strange quark mass by using the two-step multi-boson (TSMB) algorithm. The lattice size is with lattice spacing about which is not far from the N _t =4 thermodynamical cross-over line. Autocorrelations of different physical quantities are estimated as a function of the quark mass. The eigenvalue spectra of the Wilson-Dirac operator are investigated. Received: 20 June 2002 / Revised version: 30 August 2002 / Published online: 25 October 2002     

India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)

We present some physics possibilities with an iron calorimeter detector (ICAL) and a status report on the feasibility study to construct such a detector at a future possible India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO). This talk was given at the workshop on high energy physics phenomenology, WHEPP-8, in Jan. 2004, at IIT Bombay.     

Search for an LSP gluino at LEP with the DELPHI detector

In some supersymmetric models, the gluino () is predicted to be light and stable. In that case, it would hadronize to form R-hadrons. In these models, the missing energy signature of the lightest supersymmetric particle is no longer valid, even if R-parity is conserved. Therefore, such a gluino is not constrained by hadron collider results, which looked for the decay . Data collected by the DELPHI detector in 1994 at 91.2 GeV have been analysed to search for events. No deviation from Standard Model predictions is observed and a gluino mass between 2 and 18 GeV/c² is excluded at the 95% confidence level in these models. Then, R-hadrons produced in the squark decays were searched for in the data collected by DELPHI at the centre-of-mass energies of 189 to 208 GeV, corresponding to an overall integrated luminosity of 609 Pb^-1. The observed number of events is in agreement with the Standard Model predictions. Limits at 95% confidence level are derived on the squark masses from the excluded regions in the plane () GeV/c², and GeV/c² for purely left squarks. GeV/c², and GeV/c² independent of the mixing angle. Received: 6 November 2002 / Published online: 15 January 2003     

Exploring new mass regions with the ISOLTRAP spectrometer

First direct mass measurements on rare earth isotopes around ¹⁴⁶Gd have been performed with the Penning trap mass spectrometer ISOLTRAP at ISOLDE/CERN. More than 40 isotopes of the elements Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu, Dy and Ho have been measured with an accuracy of typically 1 × 10^-7. In the case of ¹⁴¹Sm isomeric and ground state (ΔE = 175 keV) were resolved. Since isobaric contaminations are present in the ISOLDE beam, these measurements on rare earth isotopes became only possible after the installation of a new cooler trap which acts an isobar separator. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.