NEXT: double beta decay experiment
The discovery of neutrino oscillation has reactivated the search of the elusive neutrino-less double beta decays ( ββ 0 ν ). The goal of the next generation of experiments is to cover values of effective neutrino mas down to 20meV, the so-called inverse hierarchy region. Several experiments are looking for this disintegration using different techniques. The challenges of these experiments are an excellent energy resolution and large background rejection factor. The Xenon is naturally enriched with ββ 0 ν candidate emitter, 136 Xe, and shows excellent energy resolution when used as a calorimeter. In gaseous phase, the electrons can be tracked reducing considerable external backgrounds. The NEXT collaboration is designing a pressurized gaseous enriched Xenon detector of about 100 kg to be operated at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Huesca (Spain).

title: Mass limit for the lightest neutralino
abstract: AbstractIndirect limits on the mass of the lightest neutralino are derived from the results of searches for charginos, neutralinos, and sleptons performed with data taken by the ALEPH Collaboration at centre-of-mass energies near the Z peak and at 130 and 136 GeV. Within the context of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and when
$$M_{\tilde \nu } \geqslant 200 GeV/c^2 $$
, the boundMx> 12.8 GeV/c2 at the 95% confidence level applies for any tanβ. The impact of lighter sneutrinos is presented in the framework of SUSY grand unified theories; a massless neutralino is allowed only for a narrow range of tanβ,μ, and the scalar mass parameterm0. Finally, by including Higgs mass constraints and requiring that radiative electroweak symmetry breaking occur, more stringent bounds onMx as a function of tanβ are derived.

title: Measurement of triple gauge-boson couplings at 172 GeV
abstract: The triple gauge-boson couplings, αWΦ, αW and αBΦ, have been measured using 34 semileptonically and 54 hadronically decaying W+W− candidate events. The events were selected in the data recorded during 1996 with the ALEPH detector at 172 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.65 pb−1. The triple gauge-boson couplings have been measured using optimal observables constructed from kinematic information of W+W− events. The results are in agreement with the Standard Model expectation.

title: Improved measurement of the $\bar{B}^0$ and $B^{-}$ meson lifetimes

title: Search for neutrino-induced charged current coherent pion production with carbon in a 1.3 GeV wide band muon neutrino beam
abstract: The search for charged-current coherent pion production induced by neutrinos with a mean energy of 1.3 GeV is discussed. The data are collected with a fully active scintillator detector in the K2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. No evidence for coherent pion production is observed and an upper limit of 0.60 × 10−2 is set on the cross section ratio of coherent pion production to the total charged current interaction at the 90% confidence level.

title: Architecture of the HERA-B data acquisition system
abstract: The HERA-B experiment was dedicated for the measurement of CP-violation in decays of neutral B-mesons and for investigating the physics of charmed particles. One of the experimental requirements is a highly selective on-line filtering of data due to high interaction rates and a low signal-to-background ratio. This demands a hierarchical trigger and a high bandwidth data acquisition system. The challenge for the DAQ system is a readout free of deadtime, which requires an unprecedent speed of storing and processing the data. In this paper we will outline the general architecture and hardware implementation of the HERA-B DAQ.

title: Near IR diffraction-limited integral-field SINFONI spectroscopy of the Circinus galaxy
abstract: Using the adaptive optics assisted near infrared integral field spectrometer SINFONI on the VLT, we have obtained observations of the Circinus galaxy on parsec scales. The morphologies of the H2 (1-0)S(1) 2.12 μm and Brγ 2.17 μm emission lines are only slightly different, but their velocity maps are similar and show a gradient along the major axis of the galaxy, consistent with rotation. Since Vrot/σ ≈ 1 suggests that random motions are also important, it is likely that the lines arise in a rotating spheroid or thickened disk around the AGN. Comparing the Brγ flux to the stellar continuum indicates that the star formation in this region began ∼108 yr ago. We also detect the [Si vi ] 1.96 μm, [Al ix ] 2.04 μm and [Ca viii ] 2.32 μm coronal lines. In all cases we observe a broad blue wing, indicating the presence of two or more components in the coronal line region. A correlation between the ionisation potential and the asymmetry of the profiles was found for these high excitation species.

title: Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory
abstract: The observation of ultrahigh energy neutrinos (UHE nu s) has become a priority in experimental astroparticle physics. UHE nu s can be detected with a variety of techniques. In particular, neutrinos can interact in the atmosphere (downward-going nu) or in the Earth crust (Earth-skimming nu), producing air showers that can be observed with arrays of detectors at the ground. With the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory we can detect these types of cascades. The distinguishing signature for neutrino events is the presence of very inclined showers produced close to the ground (i.e., after having traversed a large amount of atmosphere). In this work we review the procedure and criteria established to search for UHE nu s in the data collected with the ground array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. This includes Earth-skimming as well as downward-going neutrinos. No neutrino candidates have been found, which allows us to place competitive limits to the diffuse flux of UHE nu s in the EeV range and above.

title: A Search for Point Sources of EeV Neutrons
abstract: A thorough search of the sky exposed at the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory reveals no statistically significant excess of events in any small solid angle that would be indicative of a flux of neutral particles from a discrete source. The search covers from -90 degrees to +15 degrees in declination using four different energy ranges above 1 EeV (10(18) eV). The method used in this search is more sensitive to neutrons than to photons. The upper limit on a neutron flux is derived for a dense grid of directions for each of the four energy ranges. These results constrain scenarios for the production of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays in the Galaxy.

title: Precise measurement of the radial baryon acoustic oscillation scales in galaxy redshift surveys
abstract: In this paper we present a new method to extract cosmological parameters using the radial scale of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations as a standard ruler in deep galaxy surveys. The method consists in an empirical parametrization of the radial 2-point correlation function, which provides a robust and precise extraction of the sound horizon scale. Moreover, it uses data from galaxy surveys in a manner that is fully cosmology independent and therefore, unbiased. A study of the main systematic errors and the validation of the method in cosmological simulations are also presented, showing that the measurement is limited only by cosmic variance. We then study the full information contained in the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, obtaining that the combination of the radial and angular determinations of this scale is a very sensitive probe of cosmological parameters, able to set strong constraints on the dark energy properties, even without combining it with any other probe.

title: SINFONI’s take on Star Formation, Molecular Gas, and Black Hole Masses in AGN
abstract: We present some preliminary (half-way) results on our adaptive optics spectroscopic survey of AGN at spatial scales down to 0.085”. Most of the data were obtained with SINFONI which provides integral field capability at a spectral resolution of R ∼ 4000. The themes on which we focus in this contribution are: star formation around the AGN, the properties of the molecular gas and its relation to the torus, and the mass of the black hole.