Hard Probes in CMS
This paper reviews recent experimental results on hard probes in heavy-ion collisions from the CMS Collaboration. These studies include various energy loss phenomena (jet nuclear modification factors, tagged b-quark jets, di-jet and photon-jet energy imbalance); observables characterizing jet properties like jet fragmentation function and jet shapes; and measurements of high-pT charged hadrons from jet fragmentation (nuclear modification factors up to 100 GeV/c. All of the presented results utilize the high statistics PbPb data, about 150 μb−1, collected in late 2011 at the LHC.

title: Two particle correlations: A probe of the LHC QCD medium
abstract: The properties of γ-jet pairs emitted in heavy-ion collisions provide an accurate mean to perform a tomographic measurement of the medium created in the collision through the study of the medium modified jet properties. The idea is to measure the distribution of hadrons emitted on the opposite side of the direct photon. The feasibility of such measurements is studied by applying the approach on the simulation data, we have demonstrated that this method allows us to measure, with a good approximation, both the jet fragmentation and the back-to-back azimuthal alignment of the direct photon and the jet. Comparing these two observables measured in pp collisions with the ones measured in AA collisions reveals the modifications induced by the medium on the jet structure and consequently allows us to infer the medium properties. In this contribution, we discuss a first attempt of such measurements applied to real proton-proton data from the ALICE experiment.

title: CHARM QUARK ENERGY LOSS IN DENSE MATTER WITHIN THE LIGHT-CONE PATH INTEGRAL APPROACH
abstract: The energy loss of heavy quarks traversing color dense matter is calculated with an analytical formula derived within the light-cone path integral (LCPI) approach. We find that the energy loss mechanism is dominated by gluon radiation and induces a suppression pattern of charm quark different from the suppression of light quarks. We find also that this radiative energy-loss is proportional to L2 for energetic quarks, but changes to a L dependance with decreasing quark energy, where L is the length of the traversed medium.

title: Photon — jet correlations measurement with ALICE at LHC: a feasibility study in proton-proton collisions
abstract: The feasibility to measure the imbalance distribution between direct isolated photons and charged hadrons is discussed within the context of the ALICE experiment at LHC. The case of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt s $ TeV is studied with Monte-Carlo simulations. Performances for prompt photon identification and rejection of the π0 decay photons are presented. Such a measurement will offer the possibilty to probe the medium formed in AA collisions with jets of energies below 50 GeV, which cannot be reconstructed in the heavy-ion environment.

title: High-pT particle correlations in pp collisions at LHC/ALICE*
abstract: Two-particle correlation triggered by high-pT particles allows us to study hard scattering phenomena when full jet reconstruction is challenging. An analysis of the first ALICE pp data where charged and neutral particles isolated or not are used as trigger particles is presented. The two-particle correlation between the trigger (t) and the associate (a) particles is studied as a function of the imbalance parameter and interpreted in terms of the jet fragmentation function.

title: ALICE EMCal Physics Performance Report

title: TWQCD's dynamical DWF project
abstract: We present an overview of our project of simulation of unquenched lattice QCD with optimal domain-wall quarks, using a GPU cluster currently constituting of 16 units of Nvidia Tesla S1070 plus 64 graphic cards with Nvidia GTX285 (total 128 GPUs with 128 Teraflops peak), attaining sustained computing power of 15.36 Teraflops. The first production run in two-flavor QCD is on-going, using the Iwasaki gauge action on a set of lattices with sizes $ 16^3 \times (32,10,8,6,4) \times (16,32) $ at the lattice spacing $ a \sim 0.1$ fm, with eight sea quark masses down to $ m_\pi \simeq 200 $ MeV. We outline our simulation algorithm, and describe the present status of the production run. Preliminary results of pseudoscalar mass and decay constant are also presented.

title: Connecting Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments to Cosmologically Motivated Halo Models
abstract: Several direct detection experiments, including recently CDMS-II, have reported signals consistent with 5 to 10 GeV dark matter (DM) that appear to be in tension with null results from XENON and LUX experiments; these indicate a careful review of the theoretical basis, including the galactic DM velocity distribution function (VDF). We establish a VDF parameter space from DM-only cosmological simulations and illustrate that seemingly contradictory experimental results can be made consistent within this parameter space. Future experimental limits should be reported after they are marginalized over a range of VDF parameters.

title: RHAPSODY. II. SUBHALO PROPERTIES AND THE IMPACT OF TIDAL STRIPPING FROM A STATISTICAL SAMPLE OF CLUSTER-SIZE HALOS
abstract: We discuss the properties of subhalos in cluster-size halos, using a high-resolution statistical sample: the RHAPSODY simulations introduced in Wu et al. We demonstrate that the criteria applied to select subhalos have significant impact on the inferred properties of the sample, including the scatter in the number of subhalos, the correlation between the subhalo number and formation time, and the shape of subhalos' spatial distribution and velocity structure. We find that the number of subhalos, when selected using the peak maximum circular velocity in their histories (a property expected to be closely related to the galaxy luminosity), is uncorrelated with the formation time of the main halo. This is in contrast to the previously reported correlation from studies where subhalos are selected by the current maximum circular velocity; we show that this difference is a result of the tidal stripping of the subhalos. We also find that the dominance of the main halo and the subhalo mass fraction are strongly correlated with halo concentration and formation history. These correlations are important to take into account when interpreting results from cluster samples selected with different criteria. Our sample also includes a fossil cluster, which is presented separately and placed in the context of the rest of the sample.

title: The Dependence of Subhalo Abundance on Halo Concentration
abstract: Hierarchical structure formation implies that the number of subhalos within a dark matter halo depends not only on halo mass, but also on the formation history of the halo. This dependence on the formation history, which is highly correlated with halo concentration, can account for the super-Poissonian scatter in subhalo occupation at a fixed halo mass that has been previously measured in simulations. Here we propose a model to predict the subhalo abundance function for individual host halos that incorporates both halo mass and concentration. We combine results of cosmological simulations with a new suite of zoom-in simulations of Milky Way-mass halos to calibrate our model. We show that the model can successfully reproduce the mean and the scatter of subhalo occupation in these simulations. The implications of this correlation between subhalo abundance and halo concentration are further investigated. We also discuss cases in which inferences about halo properties can be affected if this correlation between subhalo abundance and halo concentration is ignored; in these cases, our model would give a more accurate inference. We propose that with future deep surveys, satellite occupation in the low-mass regime can be used to verify the existence of halo assembly bias.

title: Halo-to-halo Similarity and Scatter in the Velocity Distribution of Dark Matter
abstract: We examine the velocity distribution function (VDF) in dark matter halos from Milky Way to cluster mass scales. We identify an empirical model for the VDF with a wider peak and a steeper tail than a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, and discuss physical explanations. We quantify sources of scatter in the VDF of cosmological halos and their implication for direct detection of dark matter. Given modern simulations and observations, we find that the most significant uncertainty in the VDF of the Milky Way arises from the unknown radial position of the solar system relative to the dark matter halo scale radius.