New prototype multi-gap resistive plate chambers with long strips
A new kind of Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) has been built for the large-area Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) for the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). These long read-out strip Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (LMRPCs) have an active area of 87.0 � 17.0 cm 2 and ten 250mm-thick gas gaps arranged as a double stack. Each read-out strip is 2.5 cm wide and 90 cm long. The signals are read-out at both ends of each strip. Cosmic ray tests indicate a time resolution of � 70 ps and a detection efficiency of greater than 95%. Beam tests performed at T963 at Fermilab indicate a time resolution of 60–70 ps and a spatial resolution of � 1 cm along the strip direction. & 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

title: Performance of a new LMRPC prototype for the STAR MTD system
abstract: A new prototype of a Long-Strip Multi-Gap Resistive Plate Chamber (LMRPC) for the STAR Muon Telescope Detector (MTD) at RHIC has been developed. This prototype has an active area of 52 x 90 cm(2) and consists of six 250 mu m wide gaps. Each detector has 12 strips, read-out at both ends, which are each 3.8 cm wide and 90 cm long with 0.6 cm intervals. In cosmic-ray tests, the efficiency was larger than 95% and the time resolution was similar to 75 ps for the 94% Freon, 5% iso-butane, and 1% SF6 gas mixture. There was good uniformity in the performance across the different strips. The module was also tested in a proton beam at IHEP in Beijing. The efficiency was close to 100% and the best timing resolution achieved was 55 ps for the 90% Freon, 5% iso-butane, and 5% SF6 gas mixture. Trigger scans along and across the strip direction were also performed. Crown

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: Three-particle coincidence of the long range pseudorapidity correlation in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions.
abstract: We report the first three-particle coincidence measurement in pseudorapidity (Δη) between a high transverse momentum (p⊥) trigger particle and two lower p⊥ associated particles within azimuth |Δϕ|<0.7 in square root of s(NN)=200 GeV d+Au and Au+Au collisions. Charge ordering properties are exploited to separate the jetlike component and the ridge (long range Δη correlation). The results indicate that the correlation of ridge particles are uniform not only with respect to the trigger particle but also between themselves event by event in our measured Δη. In addition, the production of the ridge appears to be uncorrelated to the presence of the narrow jetlike component.

title: A prototype of a high rating MRPC
abstract: Six-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) prototypes with semiconductive glass electrodes (bulk resistivity ~ 1010 Ωcm) were studied for suitability in time-of-flight (TOF) applications at high rates. These studies were performed using a continuous electron beam of 800 MeV at IHEP and an X-ray machine. Time resolutions of about 100 ps and efficiencies larger than 90% were obtained for flux densities up to 28 kHz/cm2.

title: Study on the position resolution of resistive plate chamber
abstract: A prototype RPC detector with a 2-mm readout strip pitch has been built for research into its position resolution. After determining the optimal threshold and working voltage, the efficiency and position resolution of this prototype RPC detector have been studied carefully. Using cosmic-ray muons with different directions and incident positions, we have obtained less than 0.5-mm average statistical errors of position resolution for two different RPC readout structures: 1- and 1.7-mm readout strip widths. The results show that the RPC can also give high position resolution with very little variation from its traditional structure. This will lead to possible applications of the RPC in medical imaging and other domains.

title: The timing properties of a plastic time-of-flight scintillator from a beam test
abstract: The properties of a time-of-flight scintillator bar, EJ-200, wrapped with different reflective materials, were studied using 800MeV/c electron beam at the test beam of IHEP in China. It is 230 cm long with a cross-section of 5 x 6 cm 2, viewed from both ends by R5924 photomultiplier tubes. The results show that the time resolution and the attenuation length depend on the reflective materials.

title: The BESIII muon identification system
abstract: The muon identification system of BESIII experiment at the IHEP is described. The muon counter (MUC) is composed of resistive plate chambers (RPCs) working in self-quenching streamer mode with the gas mixture Ar/C(2)F(4)H(2)/C(4)H(10)=50/42/8. The design, the construction, the mass production and the quality control result of the detectors are described in detail. The paper also presents the performance of the bare RPCs and the superlayer modules with cosmic rays. Finally, the subsystems of MUC, including the RPC superlayer modules, the gas systems, the HV and LV system and the readout electronic system, are also presented.

title: One-side forward-backward asymmetry at the LHC
abstract: Forward-backward asymmetry AFB is an essential observable to study the nature of coupling in the standard model and physics beyond the standard model, as shown at LEP and Tevatron. As a proton-proton collider, the LHC does not have the preferred direction contrary to her counterpart, namely, LEP and Tevatron. Therefore AFB is not applicable at the LHC. However for the proton the momentum of valence quark is usually larger than that of the sea quark. Utilizing this feature we have defined a so-called one-side forward-backward asymmetry AOFB for the top quark pair production at LHC in the previous work. In this paper we extend our studies to the charged leptons and bottom quarks as the final states. Our numerical results show that at the LHC AOFB can be utilized to study the nature of the couplings once enough events are collected.

title: The jet-disk symbiosis model for gamma ray bursts: cosmic ray and neutrino background contribution
abstract: The relation between the cosmological evolution of the jet-disk symbiosis model for GRBs and the cosmic rays energy distribution is presented. We used two different Star Formation Rates (SFR) as a function of redshift and a Luminosity Function (LF) distribution to obtain the distribution in fluence of GRBs in our model and compare it with the data. We show a good agreement between the fluence distribution we obtain and the corrected data for the 4B BATSE catalogue. The results we obtain are generally valid for models that use jet physics to explain GRB properties.

title: Eternal chaotic inflation is prohibited by the weak gravity conjecture
abstract: We investigate whether eternal chaotic inflation can be achieved when the weak gravity conjecture is taken into account. We show that even assisted chaotic inflation with potential λ4 or m22 cannot be eternal. The effective field theory description for the inflaton field breaks down before inflation reaches the eternal regime. We also find that the total number of e-folds is still bounded by the inflationary entropy for the assisted inflation.