Architecture of the HERA-B data acquisition system
The HERA-B experiment was dedicated for the measurement of CP-violation in decays of neutral B-mesons and for investigating the physics of charmed particles. One of the experimental requirements is a highly selective on-line filtering of data due to high interaction rates and a low signal-to-background ratio. This demands a hierarchical trigger and a high bandwidth data acquisition system. The challenge for the DAQ system is a readout free of deadtime, which requires an unprecedent speed of storing and processing the data. In this paper we will outline the general architecture and hardware implementation of the HERA-B DAQ.

title: Search for neutrino-induced charged current coherent pion production with carbon in a 1.3 GeV wide band muon neutrino beam
abstract: The search for charged-current coherent pion production induced by neutrinos with a mean energy of 1.3 GeV is discussed. The data are collected with a fully active scintillator detector in the K2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. No evidence for coherent pion production is observed and an upper limit of 0.60 × 10−2 is set on the cross section ratio of coherent pion production to the total charged current interaction at the 90% confidence level.

title: Improved measurement of the $\bar{B}^0$ and $B^{-}$ meson lifetimes

title: Measurement of triple gauge-boson couplings at 172 GeV
abstract: The triple gauge-boson couplings, αWΦ, αW and αBΦ, have been measured using 34 semileptonically and 54 hadronically decaying W+W− candidate events. The events were selected in the data recorded during 1996 with the ALEPH detector at 172 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10.65 pb−1. The triple gauge-boson couplings have been measured using optimal observables constructed from kinematic information of W+W− events. The results are in agreement with the Standard Model expectation.

title: Mass limit for the lightest neutralino
abstract: AbstractIndirect limits on the mass of the lightest neutralino are derived from the results of searches for charginos, neutralinos, and sleptons performed with data taken by the ALEPH Collaboration at centre-of-mass energies near the Z peak and at 130 and 136 GeV. Within the context of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and when
$$M_{\tilde \nu } \geqslant 200 GeV/c^2 $$
, the boundMx> 12.8 GeV/c2 at the 95% confidence level applies for any tanβ. The impact of lighter sneutrinos is presented in the framework of SUSY grand unified theories; a massless neutralino is allowed only for a narrow range of tanβ,μ, and the scalar mass parameterm0. Finally, by including Higgs mass constraints and requiring that radiative electroweak symmetry breaking occur, more stringent bounds onMx as a function of tanβ are derived.

title: Indication of electron neutrino appearance from an accelerator-produced off-axis muon neutrino beam.
abstract: The T2K experiment observes indications of ν(μ) → ν(e) appearance in data accumulated with 1.43×10(20) protons on target. Six events pass all selection criteria at the far detector. In a three-flavor neutrino oscillation scenario with |Δm(23)(2)| = 2.4×10(-3)  eV(2), sin(2)2θ(23) = 1 and sin(2)2θ(13) = 0, the expected number of such events is 1.5±0.3(syst). Under this hypothesis, the probability to observe six or more candidate events is 7×10(-3), equivalent to 2.5σ significance. At 90% C.L., the data are consistent with 0.03(0.04) < sin(2)2θ(13) < 0.28(0.34) for δ(CP) = 0 and a normal (inverted) hierarchy.

title: Ultrahigh Energy Neutrinos at the Pierre Auger Observatory
abstract: The observation of ultrahigh energy neutrinos (UHE nu s) has become a priority in experimental astroparticle physics. UHE nu s can be detected with a variety of techniques. In particular, neutrinos can interact in the atmosphere (downward-going nu) or in the Earth crust (Earth-skimming nu), producing air showers that can be observed with arrays of detectors at the ground. With the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory we can detect these types of cascades. The distinguishing signature for neutrino events is the presence of very inclined showers produced close to the ground (i.e., after having traversed a large amount of atmosphere). In this work we review the procedure and criteria established to search for UHE nu s in the data collected with the ground array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. This includes Earth-skimming as well as downward-going neutrinos. No neutrino candidates have been found, which allows us to place competitive limits to the diffuse flux of UHE nu s in the EeV range and above.

title: MOLECULAR GAS STREAMERS FEEDING AND OBSCURING THE ACTIVE NUCLEUS OF NGC 1068
abstract: We report the first direct observations of neutral, molecular gas streaming in the nucleus of NGC 1068 on scales of <30 pc using SINFONI near-infrared integral field spectroscopy. At a resolution of 0075, the flux map of 2.12 μm 1-0 S(1) molecular hydrogen emission around the nucleus in the central arcsec reveals two prominent linear structures leading to the active galactic nucleus from the north and south. The kinematics of the gas in these features are dominated by noncircular motions and indicate that material streams toward the nucleus on highly elliptical or parabolic trajectories, whose orientations are compatible with that of the disk plane of the galaxy. We interpret the data as evidence for fueling of gas to the central region. The radial transport rate from ~30 pc to a few parsecs from the nucleus is ~15 M ☉ yr–1. One of the infalling clouds lies directly in front of the central engine. We interpret it as a tidally disrupted streamer that forms the optically thick outer part of an amorphous clumpy molecular/dusty structure which contributes to the nuclear obscuration.

title: Precise measurement of the radial baryon acoustic oscillation scales in galaxy redshift surveys
abstract: In this paper we present a new method to extract cosmological parameters using the radial scale of the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations as a standard ruler in deep galaxy surveys. The method consists in an empirical parametrization of the radial 2-point correlation function, which provides a robust and precise extraction of the sound horizon scale. Moreover, it uses data from galaxy surveys in a manner that is fully cosmology independent and therefore, unbiased. A study of the main systematic errors and the validation of the method in cosmological simulations are also presented, showing that the measurement is limited only by cosmic variance. We then study the full information contained in the Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, obtaining that the combination of the radial and angular determinations of this scale is a very sensitive probe of cosmological parameters, able to set strong constraints on the dark energy properties, even without combining it with any other probe.

title: Introducing the CTA concept
abstract: The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project.

title: SINFONI’s take on Star Formation, Molecular Gas, and Black Hole Masses in AGN
abstract: We present some preliminary (half-way) results on our adaptive optics spectroscopic survey of AGN at spatial scales down to 0.085”. Most of the data were obtained with SINFONI which provides integral field capability at a spectral resolution of R ∼ 4000. The themes on which we focus in this contribution are: star formation around the AGN, the properties of the molecular gas and its relation to the torus, and the mass of the black hole.