Pseudoscalar Higgs boson in experiments at <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript> colliders

The potential of experiments at e ⁺ e ^? colliders to search for a signal of a new pseudoscalar Higgs boson and to study its CP properties is analyzed. A new Higgs boson coupling to the b quark and τ lepton, which is parameterized in a model-independent way as m _b /v(a + iγ₅ b), is chosen to be an indicator of its CP nature. We study the e ⁺ e ^? → τ⁺τ^?vv, e ⁺ e ^? → b \(\bar b\)vv, and e ⁺ e ^? → e ⁺ e ^? b \(\bar b\) processes highly sensitive to anomalous Higgs boson couplings due to the dominant contributions from the vector boson fusion processes W*W* → H and Z*Z* → H in the central region. It is shown that the study of polarization of particles in the final state could help to separate the contributions from the scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs bosons. For instance, the consideration of the cascade decays of τ leptons in the e ⁺ e ^? → τ⁺τ^?vv process allows one to determine reliably the CP state of the Higgs boson as well as the value and the sign of the b parameter. As a result of our analysis, we develop a search strategy for a signal of a new pseudoscalar Higgs boson in future experiments at linear e ⁺ e ^? colliders, which will allow one to understand the CP nature of the Higgs boson and set the bounds on its couplings to fermions.     

Deviation from the standard model in the decay <Emphasis Type="Italic">π</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript> → <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">νγ</Emphasis>

A precise investigation of radiative pion decay (π⁺ → e⁺νγ) in a pion beam from the meson factory of the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) was performed by the PIBETA Collaboration with the aid of the PIBETA detector. This resulted in finding 41 601 events of radiative pion decay in three kinematical regions. The absolute values of the branching ratio for radiative pion decay were determined in each of these regions. To a precision approximately four times higher than that known previously, the ratio of the axial-vector to the vector form factor was found to be γ ≡ F _A /F _V = 0.443 (15), the latter being fixed at F _V = 0.0259. The number of events found in the kinematical region specified by photon energies of E_γ > 55.6 MeV, positron energies of E _e > 20.0 MeV, and angles of θ_{γ, e} > 40° between the momenta of the corresponding particles (B region) was 5233. In region B, the measured branching ratio for radiative pion decay, R_π→evγ(expt) = 11.6(3) × 10^?8, proved to be smaller by eight standard deviations than that which follows from the Standard Model, R_π→evγ (theor) = 14.34(1) × 10^?8.     

Near-threshold radiative 3<Emphasis Type="Italic">π</Emphasis> production in <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript> annihilation

We consider the π⁺π^?π₀γ final state in electron-positron annihilation at c.m.s. energies not far from the threshold. Both initial-and final-state radiations of the hard photon are considered, but without interference between them. The amplitude for the final-state radiation is obtained by using the effective Wess-Zumino-Witten Lagrangian for pion-photon interactions valid for low energies. In real experiments, energies are never so small that ρ and ω mesons would have a negligible effect. So a phenomenological Breit-Wigner factor is introduced in the final-state radiation amplitude to account for the vector mesons' influence. Using radiative 3π production amplitudes, a Monte Carlo event generator was developed which could be useful in experimental studies.     

On mass corrections to the decay <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis> → <Emphasis Type="Italic">l</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">l</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript>

The Mellin-Barnes representation is used to improve the theoretical estimate of mass corrections to the width of a light pseudoscalar meson decay into a lepton pair, P → l ⁺ l ⁻. The full resummation of the terms ln(m _l ²/Λ²)(m _l ²/Λ²) ⁿ and (m _l ²/Λ²) ⁿ to the decay amplitude is performed, where m _l is the lepton mass and Λ ≈ m _ρ is the characteristic scale of the P → γ*γ* form factor. The total effect of the mass corrections for the e ⁺ e ⁻ channel is negligible and, for the μ⁺μ⁻channel, its order is of a few percent. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

ALICE-PHOS: acceptance and efficiency correction factors <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>−<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>→<Emphasis Type="Italic">π</Emphasis><Superscript>0</Superscript>+<Emphasis Type="Italic">X</Emphasis> at 10 TeV

In ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions (HIC), the properties of the quark gluon plasma (QGP) can be explored, in particular, via measurements of neutral pions. The π ⁰ is an important probe for both proton and heavy ion physics. In the former case, π ⁰ production provides an important mean of testing pQCD as well as useful data to constrain current and future theoretical models. In the latter case, π ⁰ measurements will serve as a baseline for exploring the nature of the HIC hard scattering. In the ALICE experiment, π ⁰ mesons are identified as they decay into two photons (π ⁰→γ γ) using the high-resolution photon spectrometer (PHOS). PHOS will measure π ⁰ transverse momentum over a wide range, from hundreds of MeV/c to several tens of GeV/c. An estimation of π ⁰ production cross-section in proton–proton collisions is calculated in a next-to-leading order (NLO) approximation and first presented. The π ⁰ geometrical acceptance and the identification efficiency along with the analysis on the invariant mass are the two important correction factors for obtaining a realistic π ⁰ spectrum discussed in this paper.     

Scalar mesons in <Emphasis Type="Italic">η</Emphasis>′ → <Emphasis Type="Italic">ηπ</Emphasis><Superscript>0</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">π</Emphasis><Superscript>0</Superscript> decay

The decay η′ → ηπ ⁰ π ⁰ is studied in the framework of isobar model. It is shown, that good agreement with the experiment is achieved if α ₀- and σ-meson contributions are taken into account. The contribution of α ₀-meson is dominant, but σ-meson is necessary to reproduce the form of the Dalitz plot. Instead of the usual Breit-Wigner form of σ-meson propagator we use parametrization of the ππ-amplitude, which satisfies analyticity, crossing, unitarity and chirality constraints. This amplitude has a pole in the complex plane, which corresponds to σ-meson and describe experimental data on ππ-scattering in K _e4 decay.     

Higher <Emphasis Type="Italic">η</Emphasis><Subscript>c</Subscript>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">nS</Emphasis>) and <Emphasis Type="Italic">η</Emphasis><Subscript>b</Subscript>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">nS</Emphasis>) mesons

The hyperfine splittings in heavy quarkonia are studied in a model-independent way using experimental data on dielectron widths. Relativistic correlations are taken into account together with the smearing of spin-spin interaction. The radius of smearing is fixed by known G/ψ−η _c(1S), ψ(2S)−η _c′(2S) splittings, which appears to be small, r _ss ≅ 0.06 fm. Nevertheless, even with such a small radius, substantial suppression of hyperfine splittings (∼50%) is observed in bottomonium. For nS b states (n = 1, 2, ..., 6), our predicted splittings (in MeV) are 28, 12, 10, 5, 6, 3. For the 3S and 4S charmonium states, the splittings 16(2) and 12(4) MeV are obtained. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Study of Inelastic <Emphasis Type="Italic">A</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">p,p′</Emphasis>)<Emphasis Type="Italic">X</Emphasis> Reaction with Nuclei at 1 GeV

The secondary-proton polarization and differential cross sections for the (p, p') inelastic reaction on ²⁸Si and ⁵⁶Fe nuclei at the initial proton energy of 1 GeV were measured over a wide range of the scattered-proton momenta at a laboratory angle of Θ = 21?. Scattered protons were detected by means of a magnetic spectrometer equipped with a polarimeter based on multiwire proportional chambers and a carbon analyzer. A structure in the polarization and cross section data, which is probably related to quasielastic scattering off nucleon correlations in the ²⁸Si and ⁵⁶Fe nuclei, was observed as earlier in the analogous data for ¹²C and ⁴⁰Ca nuclei. Momentum intervals within which cross-section ratios for nuclei did not depend on the scattered-proton momentum were found.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis><Superscript>±</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis> elastic scattering in the QCD inspired eikonalized model

Based on our previous study of the QCD inspired eikonalized model for describing vector meson photoproduction, pp, and \(\bar p\) p elastic scattering at high energies, we apply the mode to high energy K ^± p elastic scattering. The total cross section σ _tot(s), differential cross section dσ/dt, the ratio of the real part to imaginary part of the forward scattering amplitude ρ(s), and nuclear slope parameter function β(s) are calculated in the model. Our results show that the theoretical prediction for σ _tot(s) is in a good agreement with the experimental data within error bars of the data. For the other theoretical predictions there are no data to test the predictive power of the model. We need the corresponding experimental data to examinate the validity of our QCD inspired eikonalized model. However, our calculations clearly show that the Odderon exchange in the process makes a significant contribution to the observable of ρ(s) and β(s). Therefore, we may conclude that there is a good opportunity to find the QCD Odderon in the K ^± p elastic scattering at high energies.     

Lie Superalgebra Structures in <Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis><Superscript>⋅</Superscript> (<Emphasis Type="Italic">g</Emphasis>;<Emphasis Type="Italic">g</Emphasis>)

Let g=vect(M) be the Lie (super)algebra of vector fields on any connected (super)manifold M; let - be the change of parity functor, C ⁱ and H ⁱ the space of i-chains and i-cohomology. The Nijenhuis bracket makes into a Lie superalgebra that can be interpreted as the centralizer of the exterior differential considered as a vector field on the supermanifold associated with the de Rham bundle on M. A similar bracket introduces structures of DG Lie superalgebra in L ^* and for any Lie superalgebra g. We use a Mathematica-based package SuperLie (already proven useful in various problems) to explicitly describe the algebras l ^* for some simple finite dimensional Lie superalgebras g and their relatives - the nontrivial central extensions or derivation algebras of the considered simple ones.     

Static spherically symmetric solution of (<Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis> ± <Emphasis Type="Italic">μ</Emphasis><Superscript>4</Superscript>/<Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>) gravity

The static spherically symmetric solution for R ± μ ⁴/R model of f(R) gravity is investigated. We obtain the metric for space-time in the solar system that reduces to the Schwarzschild metric, when μ tends to zero. For the obtained metric, the deviation from Einstein gravity is very small. This result is different from the other results have been obtained by equivalence between f(R) gravity and scalar tensor theory. Also it is shown that the vacuum solution in the solar system depends on the shape of matter distribution which differ from the Einstein’s gravity.     

Investigation of the process <Emphasis Type="Italic">J/ψ</Emphasis> → <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript> with the KEDR detector

The product of the electron width of the J/ψ meson and the probability for its decay to an electron-positron pair was measured by using data from the KEDR experiment at the VEPP-4M electron-positron collider. The result was Γ _ee × Γ _ee /Γ = 0.3392 ± 0.0068(stat.) ± 0.0063(syst.) keV.     

On the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Λ</Emphasis>CDM Universe in <Emphasis Type="Italic">f</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>) gravity

In the context of the so-called Gauss–Bonnet gravity, where the gravitational action includes function of the Gauss–Bonnet invariant, we study cosmological solutions, especially the well-known ΛCDM model. It is shown that the dark energy contribution and even the inflationary epoch can be explained in the frame of this kind of theories with no need of any other kind of component. Other cosmological solutions are constructed and the rich properties that this kind of theories provide are explored.     

Rare decay π<Superscript>0</Superscript> → <Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis><Superscript>−</Superscript> as a test of standard model

Experimental and theoretical progress concerning the rare decay π⁰ → e ⁺ e ⁻ is briefly reviewed. It includes the latest data from KTeV and a new model-independent estimate of the decay branching which show the deviation between experiment and theory at the level of 3.3σ. The predictions for η and η′ decays into lepton pair are presented. We also comment on the impact on the pion rare decay estimate of the data of BABAR collaboration on the pion transition form factor at large momentum transfer.