The NNLO soft function for the pair invariant mass distribution of boosted top quarks
A bstractAt high values of the pair invariant mass the differential cross section for top-quark pair production at hadron colliders factorizes into soft, hard, and fragmentation functions. In this paper we calculate the next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) corrections to the soft function appearing in this factorization formula, thus providing the final piece needed to evaluate at NNLO the differential cross section in the virtual plus soft approximation in the large invariant-mass limit. Technically, this amounts to evaluating the vacuum expectation value of a soft Wilson loop operator built out of light-like Wilson lines for each of the four partons participating in the hard scattering process, with a certain constraint on the total energy of the soft radiation. Our result turns out to be surprisingly simple, because in the sum of all graphs the three and four parton contributions multiply color structures whose coefficients are governed by the non-abelian exponentiation theorem.

title: Higgs boson self-coupling measurements using ratios of cross sections
abstract: A bstractWe consider the ratio of cross sections of double-to-single Higgs boson production at the Large Hadron Collider at 14 TeV. Since both processes possess similar higherorder corrections, leading to a cancellation of uncertainties in the ratio, this observable is well-suited to constrain the trilinear Higgs boson self-coupling. We consider the scale variation, parton density function uncertainties and conservative estimates of experimental uncertainties, applied to the viable decay channels, to construct expected exclusion regions. We show that the trilinear self-coupling can be constrained to be positive with a 600 fb−1 LHC dataset at 95% confidence level. Moreover, we demonstrate that we expect to obtain a ~ +30% and ~ −20% uncertainty on the self-coupling at 3000fb−1 without statistical fitting of differential distributions. The present article outlines the most precise method of determination of the Higgs trilinear coupling to date.

title: Soft gluon resummation effects in single graviton production at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in the Randall-Sundrum model
abstract: We study QCD effects in single graviton production at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the Randall-Sundrum (RS) model. We present in detail the complete next-to-leading order (NLO) QCD corrections to the inclusive total cross sections. The NLO QCD corrections enhance significantly the total cross sections and decrease efficiently the dependence of the total cross sections on the factorization and renormalization scales. We also examine the uncertainty of the total cross sections due to the parton distribution function (PDF) uncertainties. For the differential cross sections on the transverse momentum (q{sub T}) of the graviton, within the CSS resummation formalism, we resum the logarithmically-enhanced terms at small q{sub T} to all orders up to NLO logatithmic accuracy. Combined with the fixed-order calculations, we give consistent predictions for both small q{sub T} and large q{sub T}.

title: RG-improved single-particle inclusive cross sections and forward-backward asymmetry in $ t\bar{t} $ production at hadron colliders
abstract: We use techniques from soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) to derive renormalization-group improved predictions for single-particle inclusive (1PI) observables in top-quark pair production at hadron colliders. In particular, we study the top-quark transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions, the forward-backward asymmetry at the Tevatron, and the total cross section at NLO + NNLL order in resummed perturbation theory and at approximate NNLO in fixed order. We also perform a detailed analysis of power corrections to the leading terms in the threshold expansion of the partonic hard-scattering kernels. We conclude that, although the threshold expansion in 1PI kinematics is susceptible to numerically significant power corrections, its predictions for the total cross section are in good agreement with those obtained by integrating the top-pair invariant-mass distribution in pair invariant-mass kinematics, as long as a certain set of subleading terms appearing naturally within the SCET formalism is included.

title: Higgs boson pair production at the LHC in the $b \bar{b} W^+ W^-$ channel
abstract: We consider Higgs boson pair production at the LHC in the $b \bar{b} W^+ W^-$ channel, with subsequent decay of the $W^+W^-$ pair into $\ell \nu j j$. Employing jet substructure and event reconstruction techniques, we show that strong evidence for this channel can be found at the 14 TeV LHC with 600 fb$^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity, thus improving the current reach for the production of Higgs boson pairs. This measurement will allow to probe the trilinear Higgs boson coupling $\lambda$.

title: Soft-gluon resummation for boosted top-quark production at hadron colliders
abstract: We investigate the production of highly energetic top-quark pairs at hadron colliders, focusing on the case where the invariant mass of the pair is much larger than the mass of the top quark. In particular, we set up a factorization formalism appropriate for describing the differential partonic cross section in the double soft and small-mass limit, and explain how to resum simultaneously logarithmic corrections arising from soft gluon emission and from the ratio of the pair-invariant mass to that of the top quark to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We explore the implications of our results on approximate next-to-next-to-leading order formulas for the differential cross section in the soft limit, pointing out that they offer a simplified calculational procedure for determining the currently unknown delta-function terms in the limit of high invariant mass.

title: Study of a magnetic alloy-loaded RF cavity for bunch compression at the CSR
abstract: The Heavy Ion Research Facility and Cooling Storage Ring (HIRFL-CSR) accelerator in Lanzhou offers a unique possibility for the generation of high density and short pulse heavy ion beams by non-adiabatic bunch compression longitudinally, which is implemented by a fast jump of the RF-voltage amplitude. For this purpose, an RF cavity with high electric field gradient loaded with Magnetic Alloy cores has been developed. The results show that the resonant frequency range of the single-gap RF cavity is from 1.13 MHz to 1.42 MHz, and a maximum RF voltage of 40 kV with a total length of 100 cm can be obtained, which can be used to compress heavy ion beams of 238U72+ with 250 MeV/u from the initial bunch length of 200 ns to 50 ns with the coaction of the two single-gap RF cavity mentioned above.

title: Warmth Elevating the Depths: Shallower Voids with Warm Dark Matter
abstract: Author(s): Yang, LF; Neyrinck, MC; Aragon-Calvo, MA; Falck, B; Silk,  Warm dark matter (WDM) has been proposed as an alternative to cold dark matter (CDM), to resolve issues such as the apparent lack of satellites around the MilkyWay. Even ifWDMis not the answer to observational issues, it is essential to constrain the nature of the dark matter. The effect of WDM on haloes has been extensively studied, but the small-scale initial smoothing in WDM also affects the present-day cosmic web and voids. It suppresses the cosmic 'subweb' inside voids, and the formation of both void haloes and subvoids. In N-body simulations run with different assumed WDM masses, we identify voids with the ZOBOV algorithm, and cosmic-web components with the ORIGAMI algorithm. As dark-matter warmth increases (i.e. particle mass decreases), void density minima grow shallower, while void edges change little. Also, the number of subvoids decreases. The density field in voids is particularly insensitive to baryonic physics, so if void density profiles and minima could be measured observationally, they would offer a valuable probe of the nature of dark matter. Furthermore, filaments and walls become cleaner, as the substructures in between have been smoothed out; this leads to a clear, mid-range peak in the density PDF.

title: Dark matter contribution to Galactic diffuse gamma ray emission
abstract: Author(s): Yang, Lin F; Silk, Joseph; Szalay, Alexander S; Wyse, Rosemary FG; Bozek, Brandon; Madau,  Observations of diffuse Galactic gamma ray emission (DGE) by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) allow a detailed study of cosmic rays and the interstellar medium. However, diffuse emission models of the inner Galaxy underpredict the Fermi-LAT data at energies above a few GeV and hint at possible nonastrophysical sources including dark matter (DM) annihilations or decays. We present a study of the possible emission components from DM using the high-resolution Via Lactea II N-body simulation of a Milky Way - sized DM halo. We generate full-sky maps of DM annihilation and decay signals that include modeling of the adiabatic contraction of the host density profile, Sommerfeld-enhanced DM annihilations, p-wave annihilations, and decaying DM. We compare our results with the DGE models produced by the Fermi-LAT team over different sky regions, including the Galactic center, high Galactic latitudes, and the Galactic anticenter. This work provides possible smooth component templates of DM to fit the observational data. The subhalo contributions can be considered to provide statistically meaningful templates and demonstrate how spatial profiles are significantly modified according to different annihilation or decay scenarios. We argue that a subhalo-based approach can help constrain the DM physics.