Beam energy dependence of moments of the net-charge multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.
We report the first measurements of the moments--mean (M), variance (σ(2)), skewness (S), and kurtosis (κ)--of the net-charge multiplicity distributions at midrapidity in Au+Au collisions at seven energies, ranging from sqrt[sNN]=7.7 to 200 GeV, as a part of the Beam Energy Scan program at RHIC. The moments are related to the thermodynamic susceptibilities of net charge, and are sensitive to the location of the QCD critical point. We compare the products of the moments, σ(2)/M, Sσ, and κσ(2), with the expectations from Poisson and negative binomial distributions (NBDs). The Sσ values deviate from the Poisson baseline and are close to the NBD baseline, while the κσ(2) values tend to lie between the two. Within the present uncertainties, our data do not show nonmonotonic behavior as a function of collision energy. These measurements provide a valuable tool to extract the freeze-out parameters in heavy-ion collisions by comparing with theoretical models.

title: Elliptic flow of non-photonic electrons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = $ 200, 62.4 and 39 GeV
abstract: We present the measurements of elliptic flow ($v_2$) of non-photonic electrons (NPE) by the STAR experiment using 2- and 4-particle correlations, $v_2${2} and $v_2${4}, and the event plane method in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV, and $v_2${2} at 62.4 and 39 GeV. $v_2${2} and $v_2${4} are non-zero at low and intermediate transverse momentum ($p_T$) at 200 GeV, and $v_2${2} is consistent with zero at low $p_T$ at other energies. For Au+Au collisions at $p_T<1$ GeV/c, there is a statistically significant difference between $v_2${2} at 200 GeV and $v_2${2} at the two lower beam energies.

title: Study of hyperon-hyperon correlations and search for $H$-dibaryon using STAR detector at RHIC
abstract: High yield of strange particle production per central collision in nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC and high statistics data set from STAR experiment allow us to measure \Lambda\Lambda correlations. The \Lambda\Lambda correlation measurement is also closely related to a possible six-quark state H-dibaryon, which is yet to be observed experimentally. The first measurement of \Lambda\Lambda correlations in Au+Au collisions for \sqrt{s_{NN}}= 39, 62.4 and 200 GeV and search for H-dibaryon with its weak decay \Lambda p\pi in Au+Au collisions for \sqrt{s_{NN}}= 200 GeV using the STAR experiment at RHIC are presented here.

title: Precision Measurement of the Longitudinal Double-Spin Asymmetry for Inclusive Jet Production in Polarized Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=200  GeV.
abstract: We report a new measurement of the midrapidity inclusive jet longitudinal double-spin asymmetry, A_{LL}, in polarized pp collisions at center-of-mass energy sqrt[s]=200  GeV. The STAR data place stringent constraints on polarized parton distribution functions extracted at next-to-leading order from global analyses of inclusive deep-inelastic scattering (DIS), semi-inclusive DIS, and RHIC pp data. The measured asymmetries provide evidence at the 3σ level for positive gluon polarization in the Bjorken-x region x>0.05.

title: ABC Effect in Basic Double-Pionic Fusion --- Observation of a new resonance?
abstract: P. Adlarson, C. Adolph, W. Augustyniak, V. Baru, 5 M. Bashkanov, F.S. Bergmann, M. Berłowski, H. Bhatt, K.–T. Brinkmann, M. Büscher, 11 H. Calén, H. Clement, D. Coderre, 11, 12 E. Czerwiński, ∗ E. Doroshkevich, C. Ekström, R. Engels, 11 W. Erven, 11 W. Eyrich, P. Fedorets, 5 K. Föhl, K. Fransson, F. Goldenbaum, 11 P. Goslawski, K. Grigoryev, 11, 17 V. Grishina, C.–O. Gullström, J. Hampe, 11, 18 C. Hanhart, 11, 19 L. Heijkenskjöld, V. Hejny, 11 F. Hinterberger, M. Hodana, 11, 13 B. Höistad, M. Jacewicz, M. Janusz, A. Jany, B.R. Jany, L. Jarczyk, J. Jaus, T. Johansson, B. Kamys, G. Kemmerling, 11 O. Khakimova, A. Khoukaz, S. Kistryn, J. Klaja, 11, 13 H. Kleines, 11 B. Kłos, F. Kren, W. Krzemień, P. Kulessa, S. Kullander, A. Kupść, K. Lalwani, B. Lorentz, 11 A. Magiera, R. Maier, 11 P. Marciniewski, B. Mariański, M. Mikirtychiants, 11, 17 P. Moskal, H.–P. Morsch, B.K. Nandi, H. Ohm, 11 A. Passfeld, C. Pauly, 11, † E. Perez del Rio, Y. Petukhov, N. Piskunov, P. Pluciński, P. Podkopał, A. Povtoreyko, D. Prasuhn, 11 A. Pricking, 10 K. Pysz, T. Rausmann, C.F. Redmer, J. Ritman, 11, 12 A. Roy, R.J.M.Y. Ruber, Z. Rudy, S. Schadmand, 11 A. Schmidt, W. Schroeder, T. Sefzick, 11 V. Serdyuk, 11, 24 N. Shah, M. Siemaszko, R. Siudak, T. Skorodko, M. Skurzok, J. Smyrski, V. Sopov, R. Stassen, 11 J. Stepaniak, G. Sterzenbach, 11 H. Stockhorst, 11 H. Ströher, 11 A. Szczurek, A. Täschner, T. Tolba, 11 A. Trzciński, R. Varma, P. Vlasov, G.J. Wagner, W. Węglorz, A. Winnemöller, A. Wirzba, 11, 19 M. Wolke, A. Wrońska, P. Wüstner, 11 P. Wurm, 11 L. Yurev, 11, 24 J. Zabierowski, M.J. Zieliński, W. Zipper, J. Złomańczuk, and P. Żuprański

title: Radio pulses and the detection of large air showers

title: Gauge-Higgs unification, neutrino masses, and dark matter in warped extra dimensions
abstract: Gauge-Higgs unification in warped extra dimensions provides an attractive solution to the hierarchy problem. The extension of the standard model gauge symmetry to SO(5)xU(1){sub X} allows the incorporation of the custodial symmetry SU(2){sub R} plus a Higgs boson doublet with the right quantum numbers under the gauge group. In the minimal model, the Higgs mass is in the range 110-150 GeV, while a light Kaluza-Klein excitation of the top quark appears in the spectrum, providing agreement with precision electroweak measurements and a possible test of the model at a high luminosity LHC. The extension of the model to the lepton sector has several interesting features. We discuss the conditions necessary to obtain realistic charged lepton and neutrino masses. After the addition of an exchange symmetry in the bulk, we show that the odd neutrino Kaluza-Klein modes provide a realistic dark-matter candidate, with a mass of the order of 1 TeV, which will be probed by direct dark-matter detection experiments in the near future.

title: Braneworld graviton interactions in early universe phase transitions
abstract: This chapter discusses the Braneworld models that solve the hierarchy problem. The chapter focuses on Randall-Sundrum (RS) type models that embed one or two branes into a five dimensional AdS bulk. In RS 1, a static solution of the 5d Einstein equations is derived with two branes of opposite tension at the orbifold fixed points of the finite fifth dimension. Low-scale gravity leads to low reheating temperatures, and it is possible to obtain temperatures lower than the electroweak scale. This implies that the electroweak phase transition can take place before the completion of reheating. The chapter discusses how the gravitons couple in order to matter fields on the brane. The KK decomposition, graviton propagators and their coupling to matter and gauge fields are considered for toroidal extra dimensions and the analysis for the infinite AdS bulks have to be repeated.

title: Light Dark Matter and the Electroweak Phase Transition in the NMSSM
abstract: We analyze the stability of the vacuum and the electroweak phase transition in the NMSSM close to the Peccei-Quinn symmetry limit. This limit contains light Dark Matter (DM) particles with a mass signicantly smaller than the weak scale and also light CP-even and CP-odd Higgs bosons. Such light particles lead to a consistent relic density and facilitate a large spin-independent direct DM detection cross section, that may accommodate the recently reported signatures at the DAMA and CoGeNT experiments. Studying the one-loop eective potential at nite temperature, we show that when the lightest CP-even Higgs mass is of the order of a few GeV, the electroweak phase transition tends to become rst order and strong. The inverse relationship between the direct-detection cross-section and the lightest CP-even Higgs mass implies that a cross-section of the order of 10 41 cm 2 is correlated with a strong rst order phase transition.

title: Gauge-Higgs Unification and Radiative Electroweak Symmetry Breaking in Warped Extra Dimensions
abstract: of large corrections to the T parameter and the coupling of the Z to the bottom quark. We demonstrate that electroweak symmetry breaking may be realized, with proper generation of the top and bottom quark masses for the same region of bulk mass parameters that lead to good agreement with precision electroweak data in the presence of a light Higgs. We compute the Higgs mass and demonstrate that for the range of parameters for which the Higgs boson has Standard Model-like properties, the Higgs mass is naturally in a range that varies between values close to the LEP experimental limit and about 160 GeV. This mass range may be probed at the Tevatron and at the LHC. We analyze the KK spectrum and briey discuss the phenomenology of the light resonances arising in our model.

title: Indirect probes of the MSSM after the Higgs discovery
abstract: A bstractWe study the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) with minimal flavor violation (MFV), imposing constraints from flavor physics observables and MSSM Higgs searches, in light of the recent discovery of a 125 GeV Higgs boson by ATLAS and CMS. We analyze the electroweak vacuum stability conditions to further restrict the MSSM parameter space. In addition, a connection to ultraviolet physics is shown via an implementation of renormalization group running, which determines the TeV-scale spectrum from a small set of minimal supergravity parameters. Finally, we investigate the impact from dark matter direct detection searches. Our work highlights the complementarity of collider, flavor and dark matter probes in exploring the MSSM, and shows that even in a MFV framework, flavor observables constrain the MSSM parameter space well beyond the current reach of direct SUSY particle searches.