Large Torque Variations in Two Soft Gamma Repeaters
We have monitored the pulse frequencies of the two soft gamma repeaters SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14 through the beginning of year 2001 using primarily Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array observations. In both sources, we observe large changes in the spin-down torque up to a factor of ~4, which persist for several months. Using long-baseline phase-connected timing solutions as well as the overall frequency histories, we construct torque noise power spectra for each SGR. The power spectrum of each source is very red (power-law slope ~-3.5). The torque noise power levels are consistent with some accreting systems on timescales of ~1 yr, yet the full power spectrum is much steeper in frequency than any known accreting source. To the best of our knowledge, torque noise power spectra with a comparably steep frequency dependence have been seen only in young, glitching radio pulsars (e.g., Vela). The observed changes in spin-down rate do not correlate with burst activity; therefore, the physical mechanisms behind each phenomenon are also likely unrelated. Within the context of the magnetar model, seismic activity cannot account for both the bursts and the long-term torque changes unless the seismically active regions are decoupled from one another.

title: Magnetar Twists: Fermi/Gamma ray Burst Monitor (GBM) detection of SGR J1550-5418
abstract: SGRJ1550–5418 (previously known as AXP1E1547.0–5408 or PSRJ1550–5418) went into three active bursting episodes in 2008 October and in 2009 January and March, emitting hundreds of typical Soft Gamma Repeater (SGR) bursts in soft gamma-rays. The second episode was especially intense, and our untriggered burst search on Fermi/GBM data (8−1000 keV) revealed ∼450 bursts emitted over 24 hours during the peak of this activity. Using the GBM data, we identified a ∼150-s-long enhanced persistent emission during 2009 January 22 that exhibited intriguing timing and spectral properties: (i) clear pulsations up to ∼110 keV at the spin period of the neutron star (P ∼ 2.07 s, the fastest of all magnetars), (ii) an additional (to a powerlaw) blackbody component required for the enhanced emission spectra with Sabancı University, Orhanlı-Tuzla, İstanbul 34956, Turkey Space Science Office, VP62, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB, UK Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA Astronomical Institute Anton Pannekoek, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94249, 1090 GE Amsterdam, The Netherlands Universities Space Research Associations, NSSTC, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr., Baltimore, MD, 21218, USA Max-Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, 85748 Garching, Germany Spitzer Science Center/California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA Dynetics, Inc., 1000 Explorer Boulevard, Huntsville, AL 35806, USA

title: Measuring the radio emission of cosmic ray air showers with LOPES
abstract: When ultra high energy cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, they produce a shower of millions of secondary particles. Thereby the charged particles in the shower emit a radio pulse whilst deflected in the Earth's magnetic field. LOPES is a digital antenna array measuring these radio pulses in the frequency range from 40 to 80 MHz. It is located at the site of and triggered by the air shower experiment KASCADE-Grande at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. In its present configuration, it consists of 15 east–west-polarized and 15 north–south-polarized, absolutely calibrated short dipole antennas, as well as 10 LPDAs (with two channels each). Furthermore, it serves as a test bench for technological developments, like new antenna types or a radio-based self-triggering ( LOPES STAR ). To achieve a good angular reconstruction and to digitally form a beam into the arrival direction of the shower, it has a precise time calibration.

title: Hard X-ray light curves of high-mass X-ray binaries
abstract: Using the 7.2 years of continuous data now available from the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) aboard CGRO, we have measured orbital periods and produced folded lightcurves for 8 High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXB). Given the length of the datasets, our determinations are based on many more binary orbits than previous investigations. Thus our source detections have high statistical significance and we are able to follow long-term trends in X-ray output. In particular we focus on two systems: A0538-668 and EXO2030+375 both HMXBs exhibiting Type I outbursts. Recent work on A0538-668 (Alcock et al 1999) reported a 16.65d optical variability due to the orbital period, but only seen during minima of a longer-term variability at 421d. We searched for this signal in the BATSE dataset using an ephemeris derived from Alcock et al ( 1999) & Skinner ( 1982). We found no evidence for such modulation and place an upper limit of 3.0 x 10(exp -3) photon/sq cm.s in the 20-70 keV BATSE energy band , based upon statistical modelling of the signal. EXO2030+375 has exhibited an X-ray active epoch, followed by a quiescent period lasting 2.5yr and since April 1996 has exhibited renewed activity. Previous observations (Reig et a 1998) using RXTE ASM data indicate secondary outbursts occur at apastron passage during the current epoch, but not in the former. We present a lightcurve for the earlier epoch showing convincing evidence for such apastron outbursts. We find apastron outbursts in 3 sources, all having orbital periods greater than 41d. No such signal is conclusively detected in the more rapidly orbiting systems studied.

title: A Decade in the Life of EXO 2030+375: A Multiwavelength Study of an Accreting X-Ray Pulsar
abstract: Using BATSE and RXTE observations from 1991 April to 2001 August, we have detected 71 outbursts from 82 periastron passages of EXO 2030+375, a 42 s transient X-ray pulsar with a Be star companion, including several outbursts from 1993 August to 1996 April, when the source was previously believed to be quiescent. Combining BATSE, RXTE, and EXOSAT data, we have derived an improved orbital solution. Applying this solution results in a smooth profile for the spin-up rate during the giant outburst and results in evidence for a correlation between the spin-up rate and observed flux in the brighter BATSE outbursts. Infrared and H? measurements show a decline in the density of the circumstellar disk around the Be star. This decline is followed by a sudden drop in the X-ray flux and a turnover from a spin-up trend to spin-down in the frequency history. This is the first Be/X-ray binary that shows an extended interval, about 2.5 yr, in which the global trend is spin-down, but the outbursts continue. In 1995 the orbital phase of EXO 2030+375's outbursts shifted from peaking about 6 days after periastron to peaking before periastron. The outburst phase slowly recovered to peaking at about 2.5 days after periastron. We interpret this shift in orbital phase followed by a slow recovery as evidence of a global one-armed oscillation propagating in the Be disk. This is further supported by changes in the shape of the H? profile, which are commonly believed to be produced by a reconfiguration of the Be disk. The truncated viscous decretion disk model provides an explanation for the long series of normal outbursts and the evidence of an accretion disk in the brighter normal outbursts. Long-term multiwavelength observations such as these clearly add considerably to our knowledge of Be/X-ray binaries and the relationship among optical, infrared, and X-ray observations.

title: High Resolution Optics & Detector Systems for Hard X-rays
abstract: We describe development of hard x-ray focusing optics telescopes at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC).

title: First Results of the Full-Scale OSQAR Photon Regeneration Experiment
abstract: Recent intensive theoretical and experimental studies shed light on possible new physics beyond the standard model of particle physics, which can be probed with sub-eV energy experiments. In the second run of the OSQAR photon regeneration experiment, which looks for the conversion of photon to axion (or Axion-Like Particle), two spare superconducting dipole magnets of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have been used. In this paper we report on first results obtained from a light beam propagating in vacuum within the 9 T field of two LHC dipole magnets. No excess of events above the background was detected and the two-photon couplings of possible new scalar and pseudo-scalar particles could be constrained.

title: Search for new physics with jets and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at $ \sqrt {s} = 7 $ TeV
abstract: A search for new physics is presented based on an event signature of at least three jets accompanied by large missing transverse momentum, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 pb−1 collected in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt {s} = 7 $ TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. No excess of events is observed above the expected standard model backgrounds, which are all estimated from the data. Exclusion limits are presented for the constrained minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model. Cross section limits are also presented using simplified models with new particles decaying to an undetected particle and one or two jets.

title: Search for signatures of extra dimensions in the diphoton mass spectrum at the large hadron collider.
abstract: A search for signatures of extra spatial dimensions in the diphoton invariant-mass spectrum has been performed with the CMS detector at the LHC. No excess of events above the standard model expectation is observed using a data sample collected in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.2 fb(-1). In the context of the large-extra-dimensions model, lower limits are set on the effective Planck scale in the range of 2.3-3.8 TeV at the 95% confidence level. These limits are the most restrictive bounds on virtual-graviton exchange to date. The most restrictive lower limits to date are also set on the mass of the first graviton excitation in the Randall-Sundrum model in the range of 0.86-1.84 TeV, for values of the associated coupling parameter between 0.01 and 0.10.

title: Measurement of the ZZ production cross section and search for anomalous couplings in 2ℓ2ℓ′ final states in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV
abstract: A bstractA measurement is presented of the ZZ production cross section in the ZZ → 2ℓ2ℓ′ decay mode with ℓ = e, μ and ℓ′ = e, μ, τ in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV with the CMS experiment at the LHC. Results are based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb−1. The measured cross section $ \sigma \left( {\mathrm{pp}\to \mathrm{ZZ}} \right)=6.24_{-0.80}^{+0.86}\left( {\mathrm{stat}.} \right)_{-0.32}^{+0.41}\left( {\mathrm{syst}.} \right)\pm 0.14\left( {\mathrm{lumi}.} \right)\mathrm{pb} $ is consistent with the standard model predictions. The following limits on ZZZ and ZZγ anomalous trilinear gauge couplings are set at 95% confidence level: $ -0.011<f_4^{\mathrm{Z}}<0.012,-0.012<f_5^{\mathrm{Z}}<0.012,-0.013<f_4^{\upgamma}<0.015 $, and $ -0.014<f_5^{\upgamma}<0.014 $.

title: Search for same-sign top-quark pair production at $ \sqrt {s} = 7 $ TeV and limits on flavour changing neutral currents in the top sector
abstract: An inclusive search for same-sign top-quark pair production in pp collisions at $ \sqrt {s} = 7 $ TeV is performed using a data sample recorded with the CMS detector in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb−1. This analysis is motivated by recent studies of $ \text{p}\bar{\text{p}} \to \text{t}\bar{\text{t}} $ reporting mass-dependent forward-backward asymmetries larger than expected from the standard model. These asymmetries could be due to Flavor Changing Neutral Currents (FCNC) in the top sector induced by t-channel exchange of a massive neutral vector boson (Z′). Models with such a Z′ also predict enhancement of same-sign top-pair production in pp or $ \text{p}\bar{\text{p}} $ collisions. Limits are set as a function of the Z′ mass and its couplings to u and t quarks. These limits disfavour the FCNC interpretation of the Tevatron results.