Rubin-LSST

Abstract:

We use Galaxy Zoo 2 visual classifications to study the morphological signatures of interaction between similar-mass galaxy pairs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find that many observable features correlate with projected pair separation; not only obvious indicators of merging, disturbance and tidal tails, but also more regular features, such as spiral arms and bars. These trends are robustly quantified, using a control sample to account for observational biases, producing measurements of the strength and separation scale of various morphological responses to pair interaction. For example, we find that the presence of spiral features is enhanced at scales < 70 h^-1 kpc, probably due to both increased star formation and the formation of tidal tails. On the other hand, the likelihood of identifying a bar decreases significantly in pairs with separations < 30 h^-1 kpc, suggesting that bars are suppressed by close interactions between galaxies of similar mass. We go on to show how morphological indicators of physical interactions provide a way of significantly refining standard estimates for the frequency of close pair interactions, based on velocity offset and projected separation. The presence of loosely wound spiral arms is found to be a particularly reliable signal of an interaction, for projected pair separations up to ~100 h^-1 kpc. We use this indicator to demonstrate our method, constraining the fraction of low-redshift galaxies in truly interacting pairs, with M_* > 10^9.5 M_Sun and mass ratio < 4, to be between 0.4 - 2.7 per cent.

Abstract:

The observation of a new b baryon via its strong decay into Ξb-π+ (plus charge conjugates) is reported. The measurement uses a data sample of pp collisions at √s=7TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3fb -1. The known Ξb- baryon is reconstructed via the decay chain Ξb-→J/ψΞ-→μ+μ -Λ0π-, with Λ0→pπ-. A peak is observed in the distribution of the difference between the mass of the Ξb-π+ system and the sum of the masses of the Ξb- and π+, with a significance exceeding 5 standard deviations. The mass difference of the peak is 14.84±0.74(stat)±0.28(syst)MeV. The new state most likely corresponds to the JP=3/2+ companion of the Ξb. © 2012 CERN.

Abstract:

A search for neutral Higgs bosons decaying to tau pairs at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is performed using a dataset corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb -1 recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The search is sensitive to both the standard model Higgs boson and to the neutral Higgs bosons predicted by the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM). No excess of events is observed in the tau-pair invariant-mass spectrum. For a standard model Higgs boson in the mass range of 110-145 GeV upper limits at 95% confidence level (CL) on the production cross section are determined. We exclude a Higgs boson with m H=115GeV with a production cross section 3.2 times of that predicted by the standard model. In the MSSM, upper limits on the neutral Higgs boson production cross section times branching fraction to tau pairs, as a function of the pseudoscalar Higgs boson mass, m A, sets stringent new bounds in the parameter space, excluding at 95% CL values of tanβ as low as 7.1 at m A=160GeV in the mhmax benchmark scenario. © 2012 CERN.

Abstract:

A search for the decay of a light Higgs boson (120-140 GeV) to a pair of weakly interacting, long-lived particles in 1.94fb-1 of proton-proton collisions at √s=7TeV recorded in 2011 by the ATLAS detector is presented. The search strategy requires that both long-lived particles decay inside the muon spectrometer. No excess of events is observed above the expected background and limits on the Higgs boson production times branching ratio to weakly interacting, long-lived particles are derived as a function of the particle proper decay length. © 2012 CERN.

Abstract:

We present the Spitzer Extragalactic Representative Volume Survey (SERVS), an 18 square degrees medium-deep survey at 3.6 and 4.5 microns with the post-cryogenic Spitzer Space Telescope to ~2 microJy (AB=23.1) depth of five highly observed astronomical fields (ELAIS-N1, ELAIS-S1, Lockman Hole, Chandra Deep Field South and XMM-LSS). SERVS is designed to enable the study of galaxy evolution as a function of environment from z~5 to the present day, and is the first extragalactic survey both large enough and deep enough to put rare objects such as luminous quasars and galaxy clusters at z>1 into their cosmological context. SERVS is designed to overlap with several key surveys at optical, near- through far-infrared, submillimeter and radio wavelengths to provide an unprecedented view of the formation and evolution of massive galaxies. In this paper, we discuss the SERVS survey design, the data processing flow from image reduction and mosaicing to catalogs, as well as coverage of ancillary data from other surveys in the SERVS fields. We also highlight a variety of early science results from the survey.