Single muon angular distributions observed in the LVD particle astrophysics experiment
The first angular distribution data from 5547 hours of operation of the LVD detector are presented. The technique of track reconstruction is described. A total of 452 657 single muons were reconstructed for this period. The data are acceptance corrected in our final plots. The total single muon flux (the total flux from above impinging on a sphere of unit cross sectional area) in the Gran Sasso Laboratory is 1.03 muons per hour per square meter. The total flux crossing a unit horizontal area from above is 0.79 muons per hour per square meter. The acceptance-corrected intensity at cos θ = 1 is 0.349 muons per hour per square meter per steradian (9.7× l0 − 9 muons per second per square centimeter per steradian). We present, for the first time from Gran Sasso Laboratory, data at near-horizontal zenith angles.

title: The ZEPLIN-III dark matter detector: Performance study using an end-to-end simulation tool
abstract: We present results from a GEANT4-based Monte Carlo tool for end-to-end simulations of the ZEPLIN-III dark matter experiment. ZEPLIN-III is a two-phase detector which measures both the scintillation light and the ionisation charge generated in liquid xenon by interacting particles and radiation. The software models the instrument response to radioactive backgrounds and calibration sources, including the generation, ray-tracing and detection of the primary and secondary scintillations in liquid and gaseous xenon, and subsequent processing by data acquisition electronics. A flexible user interface allows easy modification of detector parameters at run time. Realistic datasets can be produced to help with data analysis, an example of which is the position reconstruction algorithm developed from simulated data. We present a range of simulation results confirming the original design sensitivity of a few times 10−8 pb to the WIMP-nucleon cross-section.

title: Particle polarization in inclusive reactions

title: Muon-induced background in the EDELWEISS dark matter search
abstract: A dedicated analysis of the muon-induced background in the EDELWEISS dark matter search has been performed on a data set acquired in 2009 and 2010. The total muon flux underground in the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane (LSM) was measured to be Φ μ = ( 5.4 ± 0.2 - 0.9 + 0.5 )  muons/m 2 /d. The modular design of the μ -veto system allows the reconstruction of the muon trajectory and hence the determination of the angular dependent muon flux in LSM. The results are in good agreement with both MC simulations and earlier measurements. Synchronization of the μ -veto system with the phonon and ionization signals of the Ge detector array allowed identification of muon-induced events. Rates for all muon-induced events Γ μ = ( 0.172 ± 0.012 ) evts / ( kg d ) and of WIMP-like events Γ μ – n = 0.008 - 0.004 + 0.005 evts / ( kg d ) were extracted. After vetoing, the remaining rate of accepted muon-induced neutrons in the EDELWEISS-II dark matter search was determined to be Γ irred μ – n 6 · 10 - 4 evts / ( kg d ) at 90% C.L. Based on these results, the muon-induced background expectation for an anticipated exposure of 3000 kg d for EDELWEISS-III is N 3000 kg d μ – n 0.6 events.

title: Progress report from the UK Dark Matter search at Boulby Mine
abstract: The UK Dark Matter Collaboration is currently running a series of scintillation devices at the Boulby mine in North Yorkshire to search for the neutralino, the hypothetical WIMP solution to the dark matter problem. Results of the current NaI(T1) detector array will be discussed, illustrating a population of events of unknown origin. Diagnostic tests performed to investigate the origin of these anomalous events will be outlined, including alpha, beta and neutron calibrations.

title: The potential of liquid xenon for WIMP search: the ZEPLIN diagnostic array
abstract: A Liquid Xenon based WIMP detector diagnostic array is currently developed by the UKDMC with the help of international collaborators. After a brief reminder on the detection principle in Liquid Xenon, the individual detectors will be described. ZEPLIN I, a detector with a 4 kg fiducial mass with a background discrimination based on Pulse Shape Analysis, is already underground and starting operation. Two setups with improved background discrimination tools (as the ionisation is also recorded) are designed and scheduled to move underground in the second half of 2001. Both of them, ZEPLIN II and ZEPLIN III, are predicted to be sensitive to rate of 0.1–0.01 events/kg/day within 2 years of data taking. Furthermore, new ideas for lower background readout devices are studied, in order to avoid the use of PhotoMultiplier Tubes (PMTs).

title: Hadron vertices in composite superstring model
abstract: Hadron vertices for u, d, s quark flavours are formulated in terms of interacting composite strings. The vertices for emission of pi, K mesons and nucleons are presented.

title: HADRON AMPLITUDES IN COMPOSITE SUPERCONFORMAL STRING MODEL
abstract: Dynamics of π, K-mesons interactions is formulated in terms of composite superconformal string model. Supersymmetry is defined on two-dimensional world surface only. Dimensionality of target space equals to four. The model treats usual hadron scale which is of order 1 GeV-2, as string scale α′. Intercept of leading meson trajectory equals to ½. Tree amplitudes are free from ghosts in physical state spectrum in accordance with usual classical superstring amplitudes. Interaction of π-mesons in the chiral limit in the model turns out in correspondence with description in terms of chiral Lagrangian for pions in QCD.

title: Critical Composite Superconformal String
abstract: In the paper the nilpotent conditions of BRST operator for new superconformal string model were found. This string includes anticommutation $2-d$ fields additional to the standard Neveu-Schwarz superconformal set which carry quark quantum numbers. In this case the superconformal symmetry is realized by a non-linear way. In the superconformal composite string new constraints for 1 and 1/2 conformal dimension should be added to the standard system of Virasoro superalgebra constraints for 2 and 3/2 conformal dimensions. The number $N$ of the constraints and numbers $D$ and $D'$ of bosonic and fermionic $2-d$ fields are connected by a simple relationship $D'/2+D-3N-15=0.$ Also perspectives of the critical composite superconformal string are discussed.

title: Production of high-energy muons in extensive air showers from primary el rays
abstract: The primary mechanism for the production of high-energy muons (E/sub / > 5 TeV) in extensive air showers from primary el rays is the production of muon pairs by shower photons in the field of a nucleus.

title: Spinor representations of the Virasoro and super-Virasoro algebras for conformal spin to be equal 1
abstract: It is considered here the possibility of unitary spinor representations of the Virasoro and super-Virasoro algebras for conformal spin to be equal 1 ; k are integers.