Professor Brian Foster OBE, FRS

Abstract:

A critical review is given of the current status of cosmological nucleosynthesis. In the framework of the Standard Model with 3 types of relativistic neutrinos, the baryon-to-photon ratio, $\eta$, corresponding to the inferred primordial abundances of deuterium and helium-4 is consistent with the independent determination of $\eta$ from observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. However the primordial abundance of lithium-7 inferred from observations is significantly below its expected value. Taking systematic uncertainties in the abundance estimates into account, there is overall concordance in the range $\eta = (5.7-6.7)\times 10^{-10}$ at 95% CL (corresponding to a cosmological baryon density $\Omega_B h^2 = 0.021 - 0.025$). The D and He-4 abundances, when combined with the CMB determination of $\eta$, provide the bound $N_\nu=3.28 \pm 0.28$ on the effective number of neutrino species. Other constraints on new physics are discussed briefly.

Abstract:

Abstract: The production of beauty and charm quarks in ep interactions has been studied with the ZEUS detector at HERA for exchanged four-momentum squared 5 < Q2< 1000 GeV2using an integrated luminosity of 354 pb−1. The beauty and charm content in events with at least one jet have been extracted using the invariant mass of charged tracks associated with secondary vertices and the decay-length significance of these vertices. Differential cross sections as a function of Q2, Bjorken x, jet trans- verse energy and pseudorapidity were measured and compared with next-to-leading-order QCD calculations. The beauty and charm contributions to the proton structure functions were extracted from the double-differential cross section as a function of x and Q2. The running beauty-quark mass, mbat the scale mb, was determined from a QCD fit at next-to-leading order to HERA data for the first time and found to be mb(mb) = 4.07 ± 0.14 (fit)− 0.07+ 0.01(mod.)− 0.00+ 0.05(param.)− 0.05+ 0.08(theo.) GeV.

Abstract:

The production of D 0, D *+, D +, Ds+ and Λc+ charm hadrons and their antiparticles in ep scattering at HERA has been studied with the ZEUS detector, using a total integrated luminosity of 372 pb-1. The fractions of charm quarks hadronising into a particular charm hadron were derived. In addition, the ratio of neutral to charged D-meson production rates, the fraction of charged D mesons produced in a vector state, and the stangeness-suppression factor have been determined. The measurements have been performed in the photoproduction regime. The charm hadrons were reconstructed in the range of transverse momentum p T > 3.8 GeV and pseudorapidity |η| < 1.6. The charm fragmentation fractions are compared to previous results from HERA and from e + e - experiments. The data support the hypothesis that fragmentation is independent of the production process. © 2013 SISSA.

Abstract:

Charm production in deep inelastic ep scattering was measured with the ZEUS detector using an integrated luminosity of 354 pb-1. Charm quarks were identified by reconstructing D± mesons in the D ± → K∓π±π ± decay channel. Lifetime information was used to reduce combinatorial background substantially. Differential cross sections were measured in the kinematic region 5 < Q 2 < 1000 GeV 2, 0.02 < y < 0.7, 1.5 < p T (D ±) < 15 GeV and |η(D ±)| < 1.6, where Q 2 is the photon virtuality, y is the inelasticity, and p T (D ±) and η(D ±) are the transverse momentum and the pseudorapidity of the D ± meson, respectively. Next-to-leading-order QCD predictions are compared to the data. The charm contribution, F2cc̄, to the proton structure-function F 2 was extracted. © 2013 SISSA.