Institut de Physique

Abstract The Astropy Project supports and fosters the development of open-source and openly developed Python packages that provide commonly needed functionality to the astronomical community. A key element of the Astropy Project is the core package astropy , which serves as the foundation for more specialized projects and packages. In this article, we provide an overview of the organization of the Astropy project and summarize key features in the core package, as of the recent major release, version 2.0. We then describe the project infrastructure designed to facilitate and support development for a broader ecosystem of interoperable packages. We conclude with a future outlook of planned new features and directions for the broader Astropy Project.

Geant4 is a software toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through matter. It is used by a large number of experiments and projects in a variety of application domains, including high energy physics, astrophysics and space science, medical physics and radiation protection. Its functionality and modeling capabilities continue to be extended, while its performance is enhanced. An overview of recent developments in diverse areas of the toolkit is presented. These include performance optimization for complex setups; improvements for the propagation in fields; new options for event biasing; and additions and improvements in geometry, physics processes and interactive capabilities

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector is described. The detector operates at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It was conceived to study proton-proton (and lead-lead) collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 14 TeV (5.5 TeV nucleon-nucleon) and at luminosities up to 1034 cm−2 s−1 (1027 cm−2 s−1). At the core of the CMS detector sits a high-magnetic-field and large-bore superconducting solenoid surrounding an all-silicon pixel and strip tracker, a lead-tungstate scintillating-crystals electromagnetic calorimeter, and a brass-scintillator sampling hadron calorimeter. The iron yoke of the flux-return is instrumented with four stations of muon detectors covering most of the 4π solid angle. Forward sampling calorimeters extend the pseudorapidity coverage to high values (|η| ≤ 5) assuring very good hermeticity. The overall dimensions of the CMS detector are a length of 21.6 m, a diameter of 14.6 m and a total weight of 12500 t.

It is found that the level fluctuations of the quantum Sinai's billiard are consistent with the predictions of the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of random matrices. This reinforces the belief that level fluctuation laws are universal.

Monte Carlo simulation is an essential tool in emission tomography that can assist in the design of new medical imaging devices, the optimization of acquisition protocols and the development or assessment of image reconstruction algorithms and correction techniques. GATE, the Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission, encapsulates the Geant4 libraries to achieve a modular, versatile, scripted simulation toolkit adapted to the field of nuclear medicine. In particular, GATE allows the description of time-dependent phenomena such as source or detector movement, and source decay kinetics. This feature makes it possible to simulate time curves under realistic acquisition conditions and to test dynamic reconstruction algorithms. This paper gives a detailed description of the design and development of GATE by the OpenGATE collaboration, whose continuing objective is to improve, document and validate GATE by simulating commercially available imaging systems for PET and SPECT. Large effort is also invested in the ability and the flexibility to model novel detection systems or systems still under design. A public release of GATE licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License can be downloaded at http:/www-lphe.epfl.ch/GATE/. Two benchmarks developed for PET and SPECT to test the installation of GATE and to serve as a tutorial for the users are presented. Extensive validation of the GATE simulation platform has been started, comparing simulations and measurements on commercially available acquisition systems. References to those results are listed. The future prospects towards the gridification of GATE and its extension to other domains such as dosimetry are also discussed.

We report the observation of a narrow charmoniumlike state produced in the exclusive decay process ${B}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{K}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}J/\ensuremath{\psi}$. This state, which decays into ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}}J/\ensuremath{\psi}$, has a mass of $3872.0\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.6\mathrm{(}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{)}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5\mathrm{(}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{)}\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{M}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}$, a value that is very near the ${M}_{{D}^{0}}+{M}_{{D}^{*0}}$ mass threshold. The results are based on an analysis of 152M $B$-$\overline{B}$ events collected at the $\ensuremath{\Upsilon}(4S)$ resonance in the Belle detector at the KEKB collider. The signal has a statistical significance that is in excess of $10\ensuremath{\sigma}$.

Hartree-Fock calculations for spherical nuclei using Skyrme's density-dependent effective nucleon-nucleon interaction are discussed systematically. Skyrme's interaction is described and the general formula for the mean energy of a spherical nucleus derived. Hartree-Fock equations are obtained by varying the mean energy with respect to the single-particle wave functions of occupied states. Relations between the parameters of the Skyrme force and various general properties of nuclear matter and finite nuclei are analyzed. Calculations have been made for closed-shell nuclei using two rather different sets of parameters, both of which give good binding energies and radii for $^{16}\mathrm{O}$ and $^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$. Both interactions give good binding energies and charge radii for all closed-shell nuclei. Calculated electron scattering angular distributions agree qualitatively with experiment, and for one interaction there is good quantitative agreement. The single-particle energies calculated with the two interactions are somewhat different owing to a different nonlocality of the Hartree-Fock potentials, but both interactions give the correct order and density of single-particle levels near the Fermi level. They differ most strongly in their predictions for the energies of $1s$ single-particle states.

In view of practical nuclear structure calculations the Paris $N\ensuremath{-}N$ potential is parametrized in a simple analytical form. This parametrization consists of a regularized discrete superposition of Yukawa-type terms. Results for phase shifts and deuteron parameters are presented as well as nuclear matter binding energy obtained with this potential.NUCLEAR REACTIONS Nucleon-nucleon interaction, parametrization of the Paris $N\ensuremath{-}N$ potential. 0 to 330 MeV $N\ensuremath{-}N$ phase shifts.

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched, as an international collaboration hosted by CERN. This study covers a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee) and an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), which could, successively, be installed in the same 100 km tunnel. The scientific capabilities of the integrated FCC programme would serve the worldwide community throughout the 21st century. The FCC study also investigates an LHC energy upgrade, using FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the second volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the electron-positron collider FCC-ee. After summarizing the physics discovery opportunities, it presents the accelerator design, performance reach, a staged operation scenario, the underlying technologies, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, and an implementation plan. FCC-ee can be built with today's technology. Most of the FCC-ee infrastructure could be reused for FCC-hh. Combining concepts from past and present lepton colliders and adding a few novel elements, the FCC-ee design promises outstandingly high luminosity. This will make the FCC-ee a unique precision instrument to study the heaviest known particles (Z, W and H bosons and the top quark), offering great direct and indirect sensitivity to new physics.

We present the compilation catalogue of redshift-independent distances included in the HyperLEDA database. It is actively maintained to be up-to-date, and the current version counts 6640 distance measurements for 2335 galaxies compiled from 430 published articles. Each individual series is recalibrated onto a common distance scale based on a carefully selected set of high-quality measurements. This information together with data on H i line width, central velocity dispersion, magnitudes, diameters, and redshift is used to derive a homogeneous distance estimate and physical properties of galaxies, such as their absolute magnitudes and intrinsic size.

The mechanism of ablation of solids by intense femtosecond laser pulses is described in an explicit analytical form. It is shown that at high intensities when the ionization of the target material is complete before the end of the pulse, the ablation mechanism is the same for both metals and dielectrics. The physics of this new ablation regime involves ion acceleration in the electrostatic field caused by charge separation created by energetic electrons escaping from the target. The formulas for ablation thresholds and ablation rates for metals and dielectrics, combining the laser and target parameters, are derived and compared to experimental data. The calculated dependence of the ablation thresholds on the pulse duration is in agreement with the experimental data in a femtosecond range, and it is linked to the dependence for nanosecond pulses.

We report the first measurement of charged particle elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] =2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region (|η|<0.8) and transverse momentum range 0.2<p t<5.0 GeV/c. The elliptic flow signal v₂, measured using the 4-particle correlation method, averaged over transverse momentum and pseudorapidity is 0.087 ± 0.002(stat) ± 0.003(syst) in the 40%-50% centrality class. The differential elliptic flow v₂ p t reaches a maximum of 0.2 near p t =3 GeV/c. Compared to RHIC Au-Au collisions at sqrt[S(NN)] 200 GeV, the elliptic flow increases by about 30%. Some hydrodynamic model predictions which include viscous corrections are in agreement with the observed increase.

The ratio of the proton's elastic electromagnetic form factors, ${G}_{{E}_{p}}{/G}_{{M}_{p}}$, was obtained by measuring ${P}_{t}$ and ${P}_{\ensuremath{\ell}}$, the transverse and the longitudinal recoil proton polarization, respectively. For elastic $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{e}p\ensuremath{\rightarrow}e\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{p}$, ${G}_{{E}_{p}}{/G}_{{M}_{p}}$ is proportional to ${P}_{t}{/P}_{\ensuremath{\ell}}$. Simultaneous measurement of ${P}_{t}$ and ${P}_{\ensuremath{\ell}}$ in a polarimeter provides good control of the systematic uncertainty. The results for the ratio ${G}_{{E}_{p}}{/G}_{{M}_{p}}$ show a systematic decrease as ${Q}^{2}$ increases from 0.5 to $3.5{\mathrm{GeV}}^{2}$, indicating for the first time a definite difference in the spatial distribution of charge and magnetization currents in the proton.

A new $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-cluster wave function is proposed which is of the $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-particle condensate type. Applications to ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ and ${}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ show that states of low density close to the 3 and 4 $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-particle thresholds in both nuclei are possibly of this kind. It is conjectured that all self-conjugate $4n$ nuclei may show similar features.

Cosmicflows-2 is a compilation of distances and peculiar velocities for over 8000 galaxies. Numerically the largest contributions come from the luminosity-linewidth correlation for spirals, the TFR, and the related Fundamental Plane relation for E/S0 systems, but over 1000 distances are contributed by methods that provide more accurate individual distances: Cepheid, Tip of the Red Giant Branch, Surface Brightness Fluctuation, SNIa, and several miscellaneous but accurate procedures. Our collaboration is making important contributions to two of these inputs: Tip of the Red Giant Branch and TFR. A large body of new distance material is presented. In addition, an effort is made to assure that all the contributions, our own and those from the literature, are on the same scale. Overall, the distances are found to be compatible with a Hubble Constant H_0 = 74.4 +-3.0 km/s/Mpc. The great interest going forward with this data set will be with velocity field studies. Cosmicflows-2 is characterized by a great density and high accuracy of distance measures locally, falling to sparse and coarse sampling extending to z=0.1.

Abstract: We review the physics opportunities of the Future Circular Collider, covering its e+e-, pp, ep and heavy ion programmes. We describe the measurement capabilities of each FCC component, addressing the study of electroweak, Higgs and strong interactions, the top quark and flavour, as well as phenomena beyond the Standard Model. We highlight the synergy and complementarity of the different colliders, which will contribute to a uniquely coherent and ambitious research programme, providing an unmatchable combination of precision and sensitivity to new physics.

Abstract At sufficiently high temperature and energy density, nuclear matter undergoes a transition to a phase in which quarks and gluons are not confined: the quark–gluon plasma (QGP) 1 . Such an exotic state of strongly interacting quantum chromodynamics matter is produced in the laboratory in heavy nuclei high-energy collisions, where an enhanced production of strange hadrons is observed 2,3,4,5,6 . Strangeness enhancement, originally proposed as a signature of QGP formation in nuclear collisions 7 , is more pronounced for multi-strange baryons. Several effects typical of heavy-ion phenomenology have been observed in high-multiplicity proton–proton (pp) collisions 8,9 , but the enhanced production of multi-strange particles has not been reported so far. Here we present the first observation of strangeness enhancement in high-multiplicity proton–proton collisions. We find that the integrated yields of strange and multi-strange particles, relative to pions, increases significantly with the event charged-particle multiplicity. The measurements are in remarkable agreement with the p–Pb collision results 10,11 , indicating that the phenomenon is related to the final system created in the collision. In high-multiplicity events strangeness production reaches values similar to those observed in Pb–Pb collisions, where a QGP is formed.

We report the observation of gravitational waves from a binary-black-hole coalescence during the first two weeks of LIGO’s and Virgo’s third observing run. The signal was recorded on April 12, 2019 at 05∶30∶44 UTC with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 19. The binary is different from observations during the first two observing runs most notably due to its asymmetric masses: a <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mo>∼</a:mo><a:mn>30</a:mn><a:mtext> </a:mtext><a:mtext> </a:mtext><a:msub><a:mi>M</a:mi><a:mo stretchy="false">⊙</a:mo></a:msub></a:math> black hole merged with a <d:math xmlns:d="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><d:mo>∼</d:mo><d:mn>8</d:mn><d:mtext> </d:mtext><d:mtext> </d:mtext><d:msub><d:mi>M</d:mi><d:mo stretchy="false">⊙</d:mo></d:msub></d:math> black hole companion. The more massive black hole rotated with a dimensionless spin magnitude between 0.22 and 0.60 (90% probability). Asymmetric systems are predicted to emit gravitational waves with stronger contributions from higher multipoles, and indeed we find strong evidence for gravitational radiation beyond the leading quadrupolar order in the observed signal. A suite of tests performed on GW190412 indicates consistency with Einstein’s general theory of relativity. While the mass ratio of this system differs from all previous detections, we show that it is consistent with the population model of stellar binary black holes inferred from the first two observing runs. Published by the American Physical Society 2020

In this paper measurements are presented of ${\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$, ${K}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$, $p$, and $\overline{p}$ production at midrapidity ($|y|&lt;0.5$), in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{{s}_{NN}}=2.76$ TeV as a function of centrality. The measurement covers the transverse-momentum (${p}_{T}$) range from 100, 200, and 300 MeV/$c$ up to 3, 3, and 4.6 GeV/$c$ for $\ensuremath{\pi}$, $K$, and $p$, respectively. The measured ${p}_{T}$ distributions and yields are compared to expectations based on hydrodynamic, thermal and recombination models. The spectral shapes of central collisions show a stronger radial flow than measured at lower energies, which can be described in hydrodynamic models. In peripheral collisions, the ${p}_{T}$ distributions are not well reproduced by hydrodynamic models. Ratios of integrated particle yields are found to be nearly independent of centrality. The yield of protons normalized to pions is a factor $\ensuremath{\sim}$1.5 lower than the expectation from thermal models.

We report the observation of gravitational waves from two compact binary coalescences in LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run with properties consistent with neutron star-black hole (NSBH) binaries. The two events are named GW200105_162426 and GW200115_042309, abbreviated as GW200105 and GW200115; the first was observed by LIGO Livingston and Virgo and the second by all three LIGO-Virgo detectors. The source of GW200105 has component masses, whereas the source of GW200115 has component masses and (all measurements quoted at the 90% credible level). The probability that the secondary's mass is below the maximal mass of a neutron star is 89%-96% and 87%-98%, respectively, for GW200105 and GW200115, with the ranges arising from different astrophysical assumptions. The source luminosity distances are and, respectively. The magnitude of the primary spin of GW200105 is less than 0.23 at the 90% credible level, and its orientation is unconstrained. For GW200115, the primary spin has a negative spin projection onto the orbital angular momentum at 88% probability. We are unable to constrain the spin or tidal deformation of the secondary component for either event. We infer an NSBH merger rate density of when assuming that GW200105 and GW200115 are representative of the NSBH population or under the assumption of a broader distribution of component masses. © 2021. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.