Performance of a Multigap RPC prototype for the LHCb Muon system
Several technologies are under consideration for the muon system of the LHCb experiment. Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) are one of the favourite candidates for the outer areas where the particle fluxes are expected to be at most some kHz/cm 2 . This work describes the results obtained with a Multigap RPC prototype under various beam conditions at the CERN facilities.

title: Searches for Majorana neutrinos in $B^-$ decays
abstract: Searches for heavy Majorana neutrinos in B- decays in final states containing hadrons plus a \mu- \mu- pair have been performed using 0.41/fb of data collected with the LHCb detector in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The D+ \mu- \mu- and D*+ \mu- \mu- final states can arise from the presence of virtual Majorana neutrinos of any mass. Other final states containing \pi+, Ds+, or D0\pi+ can be mediated by an on-shell Majorana neutrino. No signals are found and upper limits are set on Majorana neutrino production as a function of mass, and also on the B- decay branching fractions.

title: Search for CP violation in the decay $D^+ \to \pi^-\pi^+\pi^+$
abstract: A search for CP violation in the phase space of the decay $D^+\to\pi^-\pi^+\pi^+$ is reported using $pp$ collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb$^{-1}$, collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The Dalitz plot distributions for $3.1\times 10^6$ $D^+$ and $D^-$ candidates are compared with binned and unbinned model-independent techniques. No evidence for CP violation is found.

title: Time resolution limits of the MWPCs for the LHCb muon system
abstract: Detailed simulations of the timing properties of the Multi-Wire-Proportional-Chambers of the LHCb muon system are compared with actual measurements. The simulated time resolution is in good agreement with the measurement which allows to study the resolution limiting parameters like diffusion, charge deposit fluctuations, cluster position fluctuations, electronics noise, track position and wire spacing to show how they affect the performance of the system. Methods to improve the time resolution of the muon chambers are discussed.

title: Study of $\eta-\eta^{\prime}$ mixing from measurement of $B^0_{(s)} \rightarrow J/\psi \eta^{(\prime)}$ decay rates
abstract: A study of $B^0$~and $B^0_s$ meson decays into $J/\psi\eta$~and $J/\psi\eta^{\prime}$ final states is performed using a data set of proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8TeV, collected by the LHCb experiment and corresponding to 3.0fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity. The decay $B^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \eta^{\prime}$ is observed for thefirst time. The following ratios of branching fractions are measured: $$ \frac{\mathcal{B}(B^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \eta^{\prime})}{\mathcal{B}(B^0_s \rightarrow J/\psi \eta^{\prime})} = (2.28\pm0.65\,(stat)\,\pm0.10\,(syst)\,\pm0.13\,(f_{s}/f_{d}))\times10^{-2},$$ $$ \frac{\mathcal{B}(B^0 \rightarrow J/\psi \eta)}{\mathcal{B}(B^0_s \rightarrow J/\psi \eta)} = (1.85\pm0.61\,(stat)\,\pm0.09\,(syst)\,\pm0.11\,(f_{s}/f_{d}))\times10^{-2},$$ where the third uncertainty is related to the present knowledge of $f_{s}/f_{d}$, the ratio between the probabilities for a $b$ quark to form a $B^0_s$ or $B^0$ meson. The branching fraction ratios are used to determine the parameters of $\eta-\eta^{\prime}$ meson mixing. In addition, the first evidence for the decay $B^0_s \rightarrow \psi(2S) \eta^{\prime}$ is reported, and the relative branching fraction is measured, 
$$\frac{\mathcal{B}(B^0_s \rightarrow \psi(2S) \eta^{\prime})}{\mathcal{B}(B^0_s \rightarrow J/\psi \eta^{\prime})} = (38.7\pm9.0\,(stat)\,\pm1.3\,(syst)\,\pm0.9(\mathcal{B}))\times10^{-2},$$ 
where the third uncertainty is due to the limited knowledge of the branching fractions of $J/\psi$ and $\psi(2S)$~mesons.

title: Study of beauty hadron decays into pairs of charm hadrons
abstract: First observations of the decays Λb 0 → Λc +D(s) - are reported using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3fb-1 collected at 7 and 8 TeV center-of-mass energies in proton-proton collisions with the LHCb detector. In addition, the most precise measurement of the branching fraction B(Bs 0→D+Ds -) is made and a search is performed for the decays B(s) 0→Λc +Λc -. The results obtained are B(Λb 0→Λc +D-)/ B(Λb 0→Λc +D s -)=0.042±0.003(stat)±0.003(syst), [B(Λb 0→Λc +D s -)/B(B0→D+D s -)]/[B(Λb 0→Λ c +π-)/B(B0→D +π-)]=0.96±0.02(stat)±0.06(syst),B(B s 0→D+Ds -)/ B(B0→D+Ds -)=0. 038±0.004(stat)±0.003(syst),B(B0→Λ c +Λc -)/B(B , B(Bs 0→Λc +Λ c -)/B(Bs 0→D+D s -)<0.30[95%C.L.]. Measurement of the mass of the Λb 0 baryon relative to the B0 meson gives M(Λb 0)-M(B0)=339. 72±0.24(stat)±0.18(syst)MeV/c2. This result provides the most precise measurement of the mass of the Λb 0 baryon to date.

title: HATS-1b: The First Transiting Planet Discovered by the HATSouth Survey
abstract: We report the discovery of HATS-1b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting the moderately bright V = 12.05 G dwarf star GSC 6652-00186, and the first planet discovered by HATSouth, a global network of autonomous wide-field telescopes. HATS-1b has a period of P 3.4465 days, mass of Mp 1.86 M J, and radius of Rp 1.30 R J. The host star has a mass of 0.99 M ☉ and radius of 1.04 R ☉. The discovery light curve of HATS-1b has near-continuous coverage over several multi-day timespans, demonstrating the power of using a global network of telescopes to discover transiting planets.

title: Performance of the multianode cylindrical silicon drift detector in the CERES NA45 experiment: first results☆
abstract: A silicon drift detector of circular geometry giving unambiguously the radial and azimuthal coordinates of particle's interaction point for events with high multiplicity is part of the experimental set up of the NA45 experiment at CERN SPS. The paper reviews the characteristics of the detector and of its assembly among the other detectors of the experiment. The first experimental results showing the performance of the detector in term of resolution and its effectiveness in reconstructing the position of the event are reported.

title: Reconciliation of the Surface Brightness Fluctuation and Type Ia Supernova Distance Scales
abstract: We present Hubble Space Telescope measurements of surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) distances to early-type galaxies that have hosted Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia). The agreement in the relative SBF and SN Ia multicolor light-curve shape and delta-m15 distances is excellent. There is no systematic scale error with distance, and previous work has shown that SBFs and SNe Ia give consistent ties to the Hubble flow. However, we confirm a systematic offset of ~0.25 mag in the distance zero points of the two methods, and we trace this offset to their respective Cepheid calibrations. SBFs have in the past been calibrated with Cepheid distances from the H0 Key Project team, while SNe Ia have been calibrated with Cepheid distances from the team composed of Sandage, Saha, and collaborators. When the two methods are calibrated in a consistent way, their distances are in superb agreement. Until the conflict over the long and short extragalactic Cepheid distances among many galaxies is resolved, we cannot definitively constrain the Hubble constant to better than ~10%, even leaving aside the additional uncertainty in the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud, common to both Cepheid scales. However, recent theoretical SBF predictions from stellar population models favor the Key Project Cepheid scale, while the theoretical SN Ia calibration lies between the long and short scales. In addition, while the current SBF distance to M31/M32 is in good agreement with the RR Lyrae and red giant branch distances, calibrating SBFs with the longer Cepheid scale would introduce a 0.3 mag offset with respect to the RR Lyrae scale.

title: The Outer Tracker detector of the HERA-B experiment. Part II: Front-end electronics
abstract: The HERA-B Outer Tracker is a large detector with 112,674 drift chamber channels. It is exposed to a particle flux of up to 2 × 10 5 cm - 2 s - 1 thus coping with conditions similar to those expected for the LHC experiments. The front-end readout system, based on the ASD-8 chip and a customized TDC chip, is designed to fulfil the requirements on low noise, high sensitivity, rate tolerance, and high integration density. The TDC system is based on an ASIC which digitizes the time in bins of about 0.5 ns within a total of 256 bins. The chip also comprises a pipeline to store data from 128 events which is required for a deadtime-free trigger and data acquisition system. We report on the development, installation, and commissioning of the front-end electronics, including the grounding and noise suppression schemes, and discuss its performance in the HERA-B experiment.

title: An HST Study of the Supernovae Accompanying GRB 040924 and GRB 041006
abstract: The authors are grateful for support under the Space Telescope 
Science Institute grant HST-GO-10135. A. M. S. acknowledges 
support by the NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program. 
E. B. is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant 
HST-HF-01171.01 awarded by the STScI, which is operated by 
the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., 
for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. A. G. acknowledges 
support by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF- 
01158.01-A awarded by STScI. K. R. is supported by the Gemini 
Observatory, which provided observations presented in this paper, 
and which is operated by the Association of Universities 
for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement 
with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National 
Science Foundation (United States), the Particle Physics and 
Astronomy Research Council (United Kingdom), the National 
Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian 
Research Council (Australia), CNPq (Brazil), and CONICET 
(Argentina).