Energy and system-size dependence of two- and four-particle $v_2$ measurements in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and their implications on flow fluctuations and nonflow
We present STAR measurements of azimuthal anisotropy by means of the two- and four-particle cumulants $v_2$ ($v_2\{2\}$ and $v_2\{4\}$) for Au+Au and Cu+Cu collisions at center of mass energies $\sqrt{s_{_{\mathrm{NN}}}} = 62.4$ and 200 GeV. The difference between $v_2\{2\}^2$ and $v_2\{4\}^2$ is related to $v_{2}$ fluctuations ($\sigma_{v_2}$) and nonflow $(\delta_{2})$. We present an upper limit to $\sigma_{v_2}/v_{2}$. Following the assumption that eccentricity fluctuations $\sigma_{\epsilon}$ dominate $v_2$ fluctuations $\frac{\sigma_{v_2}}{v_2} \approx \frac{\sigma_{\epsilon}}{\epsilon}$ we deduce the nonflow implied for several models of eccentricity fluctuations that would be required for consistency with $v_2\{2\}$ and $v_2\{4\}$. We also present results on the ratio of $v_2$ to eccentricity.

title: Measurements of $D^{0}$ and $D^{*}$ Production in $p$ + $p$ Collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV
abstract: We report measurements of charmed-hadron ($D^{0}$, $D^{*}$) production cross sections at mid-rapidity in $p$ + $p$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 200 GeV by the STAR experiment. Charmed hadrons were reconstructed via the hadronic decays $D^{0}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}$, $D^{*+}\rightarrow D^{0}\pi^{+}\rightarrow K^{-}\pi^{+}\pi^{+}$ and their charge conjugates, covering the $p_T$ range of 0.6$-$2.0 GeV/$c$ and 2.0$-$6.0 GeV/$c$ for $D^{0}$ and $D^{*+}$, respectively. From this analysis, the charm-pair production cross section at mid-rapidity is $d\sigma/dy|_{y=0}^{c\bar{c}}$ = 170 $\pm$ 45 (stat.) $^{+38}_{-59}$ (sys.) $\mu$b. The extracted charm-pair cross section is compared to perturbative QCD calculations. The transverse momentum differential cross section is found to be consistent with the upper bound of a Fixed-Order Next-to-Leading Logarithm calculation.

title: An Experimental Exploration of the QCD Phase Diagram: The Search for the Critical Point and the Onset of De-confinement
abstract: The QCD phase diagram lies at the heart of what the RHIC Physics Program is
all about. While RHIC has been operating very successfully at or close to its
maximum energy for almost a decade, it has become clear that this collider can
also be operated at lower energies down to 5 GeV without extensive upgrades. An
exploration of the full region of beam energies available at the RHIC facility
is imperative. The STAR detector, due to its large uniform acceptance and
excellent particle identification capabilities, is uniquely positioned to carry
out this program in depth and detail. The first exploratory beam energy scan
(BES) run at RHIC took place in 2010 (Run 10), since several STAR upgrades,
most importantly a full barrel Time of Flight detector, are now completed which
add new capabilities important for the interesting physics at BES energies. In
this document we discuss current proposed measurements, with estimations of the
accuracy of the measurements given an assumed event count at each beam energy.

title: Observation of an energy-dependent difference in elliptic flow between particles and antiparticles in relativistic heavy ion collisions.
abstract: Elliptic flow (v(2)) values for identified particles at midrapidity in Au + Au collisions, measured by the STAR experiment in the beam energy scan at RHIC at sqrt[s(NN)] = 7.7-62.4 GeV, are presented. A beam-energy-dependent difference of the values of v(2) between particles and corresponding antiparticles was observed. The difference increases with decreasing beam energy and is larger for baryons compared to mesons. This implies that, at lower energies, particles and antiparticles are not consistent with the universal number-of-constituent-quark scaling of v(2) that was observed at sqrt[s(NN)] = 200 GeV.

title: Recent Heavy Flavor Results at RHIC
abstract: We summarize the recent experimental results of heavy favor physics from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) at Long Island, New York, USA.We will discuss the directly reconstructed open charm mesons as well as electrons from heavy favor hadron decays. The charm and bottom quark production cross-sections have also been measured. We will also discuss JPsi and Upsilon states in p+p and heavy ion collisions. The studies described here were carried out and reported by the STAR and PHENIX collaborations at RHIC.

title: Higher moments of net proton multiplicity distributions at RHIC.
abstract: We report the first measurements of the kurtosis (κ), skewness (S), and variance (σ2) of net-proton multiplicity (Np-Np) distributions at midrapidity for Au+Au collisions at square root of s(NN)=19.6, 62.4, and 200 GeV corresponding to baryon chemical potentials (μB) between 200 and 20 MeV. Our measurements of the products κσ2 and Sσ, which can be related to theoretical calculations sensitive to baryon number susceptibilities and long-range correlations, are constant as functions of collision centrality. We compare these products with results from lattice QCD and various models without a critical point and study the square root of s(NN) dependence of κσ2. From the measurements at the three beam energies, we find no evidence for a critical point in the QCD phase diagram for μB below 200 MeV.

title: Beam break-up estimates for the ERL at BNL
abstract: A prototype Ampere-class superconducting energy recovery linac (ERL) is under advanced construction at BNL. The ERL facility is comprised of a five-cell SC Linac plus a half-cell SC photo-injector RF electron gun, both operating at 703.75 MHz. The facility is designed for either a high-current mode of operation up to 0.5 A at 703.75 MHz or a high-bunch-charge mode of 5 nC at 10 MHz bunch frequency. The R&D facility serves a test bed for an envisioned electron-hadron collider, eRHIC. The high-current, high-charge operating parameters make effective higher-order-mode (HOM) damping mandatory, and requires the determination of HOM tolerances for a cavity upgrade. The niobium cavity has been tested at superconducting temperatures and has provided measured quality factors (Q) for a large number of modes. These numbers were used for the estimate of the beam breakup instability (BBU). The facility will be assembled with a highly flexible lattice covering a vast operational parameter space for verification of the estimates and to serve as a test bed for the concepts directed at future projects.

title: HOM identification by bead pulling in the Brookhaven ERL cavity
abstract: Exploratory measurements of the Brookhaven Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) cavity at superconducting temperature produced a long list of high order modes (HOMs). The niobium 5-cell cavity is terminated at each end with HOM ferrite dampers that successfully reduce the Q -factors to levels required to avoid beam break up (BBU) instabilities. However, a number of un-damped resonances with Q ≥10 6 were found at 4 K and their mode identification forms the focus of this paper. The approach taken here consists of bead pulling on a copper (Cu) replica of the ERL cavity with dampers involving various network analyzer measurements. Several different S 21 transmission measurements are used, including those taken from the fundamental input coupler to the pick-up probe across the cavity, others between beam-position monitor probes in the beam tubes, and also between probes placed into the cells. The bead pull technique suitable for HOM identification with a metallic needle or dielectric bead is detailed. This paper presents the results for HOMs in the first two dipole bands, the un-damped modes in the first quadrupole band, and the identification of several high- Q modes beyond.

title: The entropy sum of (A)dS black holes in four and higher dimensions
abstract: We present the "entropy sum" relation of (A)dS charged black holes in higher-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell gravity, f(R) gravity, Gauss-Bonnet gravity and gauged supergravity. For their "entropy sum" with the necessary effect of the unphysical "virtual" horizon included, we conclude the general results that the cosmological constant dependence and Gauss-Bonnet coupling constant dependence do hold in both the four and six dimensions, while the "entropy sum" is always vanishing in odd dimensions. Furthermore, the "entropy sum" of all horizons is related to the geometry of the horizons in four and six dimensions. In these explicitly four cases, one also finds that the conserved charges M (the mass), Q (the charge from Maxwell field or supergravity) and the parameter a (the angular momentum) play no role in the "entropy sum" relations.

title: NGN, QCD 2 and chiral phase transition from string theory
abstract: We construct a D2-D8-8 configuration in string theory, it can be described at low energy by two dimensional field theory. In the weak coupling region, the low energy theory is a nonlocal generalization of Gross-Neveu(GN) model which dynamically breaks the chiral flavor symmetry U(Nf)L × U(Nf)R at large Nc and finite Nf. However, in the strong coupling region, we can use the SUGRA/Born-Infeld approximation to describe the low energy dynamics of the system. Also, we analyze the low energy dynamics about the configuration of wrapping the one direction of D2 brane on a circle with anti-periodic boundary condition of fermions. The fermions and scalars on D2 branes get mass and decouple from the low energy theory. The IR dynamics is described by the QCD2 at weak coupling. In the opposite region, the dynamics has a holographic dual description. And we have discussed the phase transition of chiral symmetry breaking at finite temperature. Finally, after performing T-duality, this configuration is related to some other brane configurations.

title: Improving application of Bayesian Neural Networks to discriminate neutrino events from backgrounds in reactor neutrino experiments
abstract: The application of Bayesian Neural Networks (BNN) to discriminate neutrino events from backgrounds in reactor neutrino experiments has been described in ref. . In the paper, BNN are also used to identify neutrino events in reactor neutrino experiments, but the numbers of photoelectrons received by PMTs are used as inputs to BNN in the paper, not the reconstructed energy and position of events. The samples of neutrino events and three major backgrounds from the Monte-Carlo simulation of a toy detector are generated in the signal region. Compared to the BNN method in , more 8He/9Li background and uncorrelated background in the signal region can be rejected by the BNN method in the paper, but more fast neutron background events in the signal region are unidentified using the BNN method in the paper. The uncorrelated background to signal ratio and the 8He/9Li background to signal ratio are significantly improved using the BNN method in the paper in comparison with the BNN method in ref. . But the fast neutron background to signal ratio in the signal region is a bit larger than the one in ref. .