Search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a W or a Z boson and decaying to bottom quarks

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology 89:1 (2014)

Authors:

S Chatrchyan, V Khachatryan, AM Sirunyan, A Tumasyan, W Adam, T Bergauer, M Dragicevic, J Erö, C Fabjan, M Friedl, R Frühwirth, VM Ghete, N Hörmann, J Hrubec, M Jeitler, W Kiesenhofer, V Knünz, M Krammer, I Krätschmer, D Liko, I Mikulec, D Rabady, B Rahbaran, C Rohringer, H Rohringer, R Schöfbeck, J Strauss, A Taurok, W Treberer-Treberspurg, W Waltenberger, CE Wulz, V Mossolov, N Shumeiko, J Suarez Gonzalez, S Alderweireldt, M Bansal, S Bansal, T Cornelis, EA De Wolf, X Janssen, A Knutsson, S Luyckx, L Mucibello, S Ochesanu, B Roland, R Rougny, Z Staykova, H Van Haevermaet, P Van Mechelen, N Van Remortel, A Van Spilbeeck, F Blekman, S Blyweert, J D'Hondt, N Heracleous, A Kalogeropoulos, J Keaveney, S Lowette, M Maes, A Olbrechts, S Tavernier, W Van Doninck, P Van Mulders, GP Van Onsem, I Villella, C Caillol, B Clerbaux, G De Lentdecker, L Favart, APR Gay, T Hreus, A Léonard, PE Marage, A Mohammadi, L Perniè, T Reis, T Seva, L Thomas, C Vander Velde, P Vanlaer, J Wang, V Adler, K Beernaert, L Benucci, A Cimmino, S Costantini, S Dildick, G Garcia, B Klein, J Lellouch, A Marinov, J McCartin, AA Ocampo Rios, D Ryckbosch, M Sigamani, N Strobbe, F Thyssen, M Tytgat, S Walsh, E Yazgan

Abstract:

A search for the standard model Higgs boson (H) decaying to bb̄ when produced in association with a weak vector boson (V) is reported for the following channels: W(μν)H, W(eν)H, W(τν)H, Z(μμ)H, Z(ee)H, and Z(νν)H. The search is performed in data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 inverse femtobarns at √s=7 TeV and up to 18.9 fb-1 at √s=8 TeV, recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. An excess of events is observed above the expected background with a local significance of 2.1 standard deviations for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV, consistent with the expectation from the production of the standard model Higgs boson. The signal strength corresponding to this excess, relative to that of the standard model Higgs boson, is 1.0±0.5. © 2014 CERN. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

A JVLA 10~degree^2 deep survey

(2014)

Authors:

Matthew Jarvis, Sanjay Bhatnagar, Marcus Brüggen, Chiara Ferrari, Ian Heywood, Martin Hardcastle, Eric Murphy, Russ Taylor, Oleg Smirnov, Chris Simpson, Vernesa Smolcic, Jeroen Stil, K van der Heyden

Abstract:

(Abridged)One of the fundamental challenges for astrophysics in the 21st century is finding a way to untangle the physical processes that govern galaxy formation and evolution. Given the importance and scope of this problem, the multi-wavelength astronomical community has used the past decade to build up a wealth of information over specific extragalactic deep fields to address key questions in galaxy formation and evolution. These fields generally cover at least 10square degrees to facilitate the investigation of the rarest, typically most massive, galaxies and AGN. Furthermore, such areal coverage allows the environments to be fully accounted for, thereby linking the single halo to the two-halo terms in the halo occupation distribution. Surveys at radio wavelengths have begun to lag behind those at other wavelengths, especially in this medium-deep survey tier. However, the survey speed offered by the JVLA means that we can now reach a point where we can begin to obtain commensurate data at radio wavelengths to those which already exists from the X-ray through to the far-infrared over ~10 square degrees. We therefore present the case for a 10 square degree survey to 1.5uJy at L-band in A or B Array, requiring ~4000 hours to provide census of star-formation and AGN-accretion activity in the Universe. For example, the observations will allow galaxies forming stars at 10Msolar/yr to be detected out to z~1 and luminous infrared galaxies (1000Msolar/yr to be found out to z~6. Furthermore, the survey area ensures that we will have enough cosmic volume to find these rare sources at all epochs. The bandwidth will allow us to determine the polarisation properties galaxies in the high-redshift Universe as a function of stellar mass, morphology and redshift.

Galaxy Zoo: An independent look at the evolution of the bar fraction over the last eight billion years from HST-COSMOS

ArXiv 1401.3334 (2014)

Authors:

Thomas Melvin, Karen Masters, Chris Lintott, Robert C Nichol, Brooke Simmons, Steven P Bamford, Kevin RV Casteels, Edmond Cheung, Edward M Edmondson, Lucy Fortson, Kevin Schawinski, Ramin A Skibba, Arfon M Smith, Kyle W Willett

Abstract:

We measure the redshift evolution of the bar fraction in a sample of 2380 visually selected disc galaxies found in Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images. The visual classifications used to identify both the disc sample and to indicate the presence of stellar bars were provided by citizen scientists via the Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (GZH) project. We find that the overall bar fraction decreases by a factor of two, from 22+/-5% at z=0.4 (tlb = 4.2 Gyr) to 11+/-2% at z=1.0 (tlb = 7.8 Gyr), consistent with previous analysis. We show that this decrease, of the strong bar fraction in a volume limited sample of massive disc galaxies [stellar mass limit of log(Mstar/Msun) > 10.0], cannot be due to redshift dependent biases hiding either bars or disc galaxies at higher redshifts. Splitting our sample into three bins of mass we find that the decrease in bar fraction is most prominent in the highest mass bin, while the lower mass discs in our sample show a more modest evolution. We also include a sample of 98 red disc galaxies. These galaxies have a high bar fraction (45+/-5%), and are missing from other COSMOS samples which used SED fitting or colours to identify high redshift discs. Our results are consistent with a picture in which the evolution of massive disc galaxies begins to be affected by slow (secular) internal process at z~1. We discuss possible connections of the decrease in bar fraction to the redshift, including the growth of stable disc galaxies, mass evolution of the gas content in disc galaxies, as well as the mass dependent effects of tidal interactions.

Discovery of Carbon Radio Recombination Lines in absorption towards Cygnus~A

(2014)

Authors:

JBR Oonk, RJ van Weeren, F Salgado, LK Morabito, AGGM Tielens, HJA Rottgering, A Asgekar, GJ White, A Alexov, J Anderson, IM Avruch, F Batejat, R Beck, ME Bell, I van Bemmel, MJ Bentum, G Bernardi, P Best, A Bonafede, F Breitling, M Brentjens, J Broderick, M Brueggen, HR Butcher, B Ciardi, JE Conway, A Corstanje, F de Gasperin, E de Geus, M de Vos, S Duscha, J Eisloeffel, D Engels, J van Enst, H Falcke, RA Fallows, R Fender, C Ferrari, W Frieswijk, MA Garrett, J Griessmeier, JP Hamaker, TE Hassall, G Heald, JWT Hessels, M Hoeft, A Horneffer, A van der Horst, M Iacobelli, NJ Jackson, E Juette, A Karastergiou, W Klijn, J Kohler, VI Kondratiev, M Kramer, M Kuniyoshi, G Kuper, J van Leeuwen, P Maat, G Macario, G Mann, S Markoff, JP McKean, M Mevius, JCA Miller-Jones, JD Mol, DD Mulcahy, H Munk, MJ Norden, E Orru, H Paas, M Pandey-Pommier, VN Pandey, R Pizzo, AG Polatidis, W Reich, AMM Scaife, A Schoenmakers, D Schwarz, A Shulevski, J Sluman, O Smirnov, C Sobey, BW Stappers, M Steinmetz, J Swinbank, M Tagger, Y Tang, C Tasse, S ter Veen, S Thoudam, C Toribio, R van Nieuwpoort, R Vermeulen, C Vocks, C Vogt, RAMJ Wijers, MW Wise, O Wucknitz, S Yatawatta, P Zarka, A Zensus

PESSTO monitoring of SN 2012hn: further heterogeneity among faint Type I supernovae★

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Oxford University Press (OUP) 437:2 (2014) 1519-1533

Authors:

S Valenti, F Yuan, S Taubenberger, K Maguire, A Pastorello, S Benetti, SJ Smartt, E Cappellaro, DA Howell, L Bildsten, K Moore, M Stritzinger, JP Anderson, S Benitez-Herrera, F Bufano, S Gonzalez-Gaitan, MG McCrum, G Pignata, M Fraser, A Gal-Yam, L Le Guillou, C Inserra, DE Reichart, R Scalzo, M Sullivan, O Yaron, DR Young