Evidence of b-Jet Quenching in PbPb Collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV

title: Transverse momentum spectra of charged particles in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 900 GeV with ALICE at the LHC
abstract: The inclusive charged particle transverse momentum distribution is measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 900$~GeV at the LHC using the ALICE detector. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region $(|\eta|_{\rm INEL}=0.483\pm0.001$~(stat.)~$\pm0.007$~(syst.)~GeV/$c$ and $\left_{\rm NSD}=0.489\pm0.001$~(stat.)~$\pm0.007$~(syst.)~GeV/$c$, respectively. The data exhibit a slightly larger $\left$ than measurements in wider pseudorapidity intervals. The results are compared to simulations with the Monte Carlo event generators PYTHIA and PHOJET

title: Alignment of the ALICE inner tracking system with cosmic-ray tracks
abstract: ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 mu m in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton-proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 10(5) charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.

title: High-pT particle correlations in pp collisions at LHC/ALICE*
abstract: Two-particle correlation triggered by high-pT particles allows us to study hard scattering phenomena when full jet reconstruction is challenging. An analysis of the first ALICE pp data where charged and neutral particles isolated or not are used as trigger particles is presented. The two-particle correlation between the trigger (t) and the associate (a) particles is studied as a function of the imbalance parameter and interpreted in terms of the jet fragmentation function.

title: Hard Probes in CMS
abstract: This paper reviews recent experimental results on hard probes in heavy-ion collisions from the CMS Collaboration. These studies include various energy loss phenomena (jet nuclear modification factors, tagged b-quark jets, di-jet and photon-jet energy imbalance); observables characterizing jet properties like jet fragmentation function and jet shapes; and measurements of high-pT charged hadrons from jet fragmentation (nuclear modification factors up to 100 GeV/c. All of the presented results utilize the high statistics PbPb data, about 150 μb−1, collected in late 2011 at the LHC.

title: QGP tomography with photon tagged jets in ALICE
abstract: γ+jet events provide a tomographic measurement of the medium formed in heavy ion collisions at LHC energies. Tagging events with a well identified high pT direct photon and measuring the correlation distribution of hadrons emitted oppositely to the photon in ALICE, allows us to determine, with a good approximation, both the jet fragmentation function and the back-to-back azimuthal alignment of the direct photon and the jet. Comparing these two observables measured in pp collisions with the ones measured in AA collisions will reveal the modifications of the jet structure induced by the medium formed in AA collisions and consequently will infer the medium properties.

title: RHAPSODY. I. STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES AND FORMATION HISTORY FROM A STATISTICAL SAMPLE OF RE-SIMULATED CLUSTER-SIZE HALOS
abstract: We present the rst results from the Rhapsody cluster re-simulation project: a sample of 96 \zoom-in" simulations of dark matter halos of 10 14:8 0:05 h 1 M , selected from a 1 h 3 Gpc 3 volume. This simulation suite is the rst to resolve this many halos with 5 10 6 particles per halo in the cluster mass regime, allowing us to statistically characterize the distribution of and correlation between halo properties at xed mass. We focus on the properties of the main halos and how they are aected by formation history, which we track back to z = 12, over ve decades in mass. We give particular attention to the impact of the formation history on the density proles of the halos. We nd that the deviations from the Navarro{Frenk{White (NFW) model and the Einasto model depend on formation time. Late-forming halos tend to have considerable deviations from both models, partly due to the presence of massive subhalos, while early-forming halos deviate less but still signicantly from the NFW model and are better described by the Einasto model. We nd that the halo shapes depend only moderately on formation time. Departure from spherical symmetry impacts the density proles through the anisotropic distribution of massive subhalos. Further evidence of the impact of subhalos is provided by analyzing the phase-space structure. A detailed analysis of the properties of the subhalo population in Rhapsody is presented in a companion paper.

title: Sussing merger trees: the Merger Trees Comparison Project
abstract: Merger trees follow the growth and merger of dark-matter haloes over cosmic history. As well as giving important insights into the growth of cosmic structure in their own right, they provide an essential backbone to semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. This paper is the first in a series to arise from the Sussing Merger Trees Workshop in which 10 different tree-building algorithms were applied to the same set of halo catalogues and their results compared. Although many of these codes were similar in nature, all algorithms produced distinct results. Our main conclusions are that a useful merger-tree code should possess the following features: (i) the use of particle IDs to match haloes between snapshots; (ii) the ability to skip at least one, and preferably more, snapshots in order to recover subhaloes that are temporarily lost during merging; (iii) the ability to cope with (and ideally smooth out) large, temporary fluctuations in halo mass. Finally, to enable different groups to communicate effectively, we defined a common terminology that we used when discussing merger trees and we encourage others to adopt the same language. We also specified a minimal output format to record the results.

title: Connecting Direct Dark Matter Detection Experiments to Cosmologically Motivated Halo Models
abstract: Several direct detection experiments, including recently CDMS-II, have reported signals consistent with 5 to 10 GeV dark matter (DM) that appear to be in tension with null results from XENON and LUX experiments; these indicate a careful review of the theoretical basis, including the galactic DM velocity distribution function (VDF). We establish a VDF parameter space from DM-only cosmological simulations and illustrate that seemingly contradictory experimental results can be made consistent within this parameter space. Future experimental limits should be reported after they are marginalized over a range of VDF parameters.

title: Sussing merger trees: the impact of halo merger trees on galaxy properties in a semi-analytic model
abstract: A halo merger tree forms the essential backbone of a semi-analytic model for galaxy formation and evolution. Recent studies have pointed out that extracting merger trees from numerical simulations of structure formation is non-trivial; different tree building algorithms can give differing merger histories. These differences should be carefully understood before merger trees are used as input for models of galaxy formation. We investigate the impact of different halo merger trees on a semi-analytic model. We find that the z=0 galaxy properties in our model show differences between trees when using a common parameter set. The star formation history of the Universe and the properties of satellite galaxies can show marked differences between trees with different construction methods. Independently calibrating the semi-analytic model for each tree can reduce the discrepancies between the z=0 global galaxy properties, at the cost of increasing the differences in the evolutionary histories of galaxies. Furthermore, the underlying physics implied can vary, resulting in key quantities such as the supernova feedback efficiency differing by factors of 2. Such a change alters the regimes where star formation is primarily suppressed by supernovae. Therefore, halo merger trees extracted from a common halo catalogue using different, but reliable, algorithms can result in a difference in the semi-analytic model. Given the uncertainties in galaxy formation physics, however, these differences may not necessarily be viewed as significant.

title: TWQCD's dynamical DWF project
abstract: We present an overview of our project of simulation of unquenched lattice QCD with optimal domain-wall quarks, using a GPU cluster currently constituting of 16 units of Nvidia Tesla S1070 plus 64 graphic cards with Nvidia GTX285 (total 128 GPUs with 128 Teraflops peak), attaining sustained computing power of 15.36 Teraflops. The first production run in two-flavor QCD is on-going, using the Iwasaki gauge action on a set of lattices with sizes $ 16^3 \times (32,10,8,6,4) \times (16,32) $ at the lattice spacing $ a \sim 0.1$ fm, with eight sea quark masses down to $ m_\pi \simeq 200 $ MeV. We outline our simulation algorithm, and describe the present status of the production run. Preliminary results of pseudoscalar mass and decay constant are also presented.