Abstract
Astronomers do not have a complete picture of the effects of wide-binary companions (semimajor axes greater than 100 au) on the formation and evolution of exoplanets. We investigate these ...effects using new data from Gaia Early Data Release 3 and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission to characterize wide-binary systems with transiting exoplanets. We identify a sample of 67 systems of transiting exoplanet candidates (with well-determined, edge-on orbital inclinations) that reside in wide visual binary systems. We derive limits on orbital parameters for the wide-binary systems and measure the minimum difference in orbital inclination between the binary and planet orbits. We determine that there is statistically significant difference in the inclination distribution of wide-binary systems with transiting planets compared to a control sample, with the probability that the two distributions are the same being 0.0037. This implies that there is an overabundance of planets in binary systems whose orbits are aligned with those of the binary. The overabundance of aligned systems appears to primarily have semimajor axes less than 700 au. We investigate some effects that could cause the alignment and conclude that a torque caused by a misaligned binary companion on the protoplanetary disk is the most promising explanation.
The discovery of a new boson with a mass of approximately 125 GeV in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider1, 2, 3 has heralded a new era in understanding the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking and ...possibly completing the standard model of particle physics4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Since the first observation in decays to γγ, WW and ZZ boson pairs, an extensive set of measurements of the mass10, 11 and couplings to W and Z bosons11, 12, 13, as well as multiple tests of the spin-parity quantum numbers10, 11, 13, 14, have revealed that the properties of the new boson are consistent with those of the long-sought agent responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. An important open question is whether the new particle also couples to fermions, and in particular to down-type fermions, as the current measurements mainly constrain the couplings to the up-type top quark. Determination of the couplings to down-type fermions requires direct measurement of the corresponding Higgs boson decays, as recently reported by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment in the study of Higgs decays to bottom quarks15 and τ leptons16. Here, we report the combination of these two channels, which results in strong evidence for the direct coupling of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to down-type fermions, with an observed significance of 3.8 standard deviations, when 4.4 are expected.
We present the discovery of a highly irradiated and moderately inflated ultra-hot Jupiter, TOI-1431b/MASCARA-5b (HD 201033b), first detected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite mission ...(TESS) and the Multi-site All-Sky CAmeRA (MASCARA). The signal was established to be of planetary origin through radial velocity measurements obtained using SONG, SOPHIE, FIES, NRES, and EXPRES, which show a reflex motion of $K=294.1\pm1.1$ m s$^{-1}$. A joint analysis of the TESS and ground-based photometry and radial velocity measurements reveals that TOI-1431b has a mass of $M_{p}=3.12\pm0.18$ $\rm{M_J}$ ($990\pm60$ M$_{\oplus}$), an inflated radius of $R_{p}=1.49\pm0.05$ $\rm{R_J}$ ($16.7\pm0.6$ R$_{\oplus}$), and an orbital period of $P=2.650237\pm0.000003$ d. Analysis of the spectral energy distribution of the host star reveals that the planet orbits a bright ($\mathrm{V}=8.049$ mag) and young ($0.29^{+0.32}_{-0.19}$ Gyr) Am type star with $T_{\rm eff}=7690^{+400}_{-250}$ $\rm{K}$, resulting in a highly irradiated planet with an incident flux of $\langle F \rangle=7.24^{+0.68}_{-0.64}\times$10$^9$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ ($5300^{+500}_{-470}\mathrm{S_{\oplus}}$) and an equilibrium temperature of $T_{eq}=2370\pm70$ K. TESS photometry also reveals a secondary eclipse with a depth of $127^{+4}_{-5}$ppm as well as the full phase curve of the planet's thermal emission in the red-optical. This has allowed us to measure the dayside and nightside temperature of its atmosphere as $T_\mathrm{day}=3004\pm64$ K and $T_\mathrm{night}=2583\pm63$ K, the second hottest measured nightside temperature. The planet's low day/night temperature contrast ($\sim$420 K) suggests very efficient heat transport between the dayside and nightside hemispheres.
Charge-dependent azimuthal particle correlations with respect to the second-order event plane in pPb and PbPb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV have been studied with ...the CMS experiment at the LHC. The measurement is performed with a three-particle correlation technique, using two particles with the same or opposite charge within the pseudorapidity range abs(eta)<2.4, and a third particle measured in the hadron forward calorimeters (4.4< abs(eta)<5). The observed differences between the same and opposite sign correlations, as functions of multiplicity and eta gap between the two charged particles, are of similar magnitude in pPb and PbPb collisions at the same multiplicities. These results pose a challenge for the interpretation of charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in heavy ion collisions in terms of the chiral magnetic effect.
A search for heavy narrow resonances decaying into four-lepton final states from cascade decays of a Z' boson has been performed using proton-proton collision data at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV collected by the ...CMS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 inverse femtobarns. No excess of events over the standard model background expectation is observed. Upper limits for a benchmark model on the product of cross section and branching fraction for the production of these heavy narrow resonances are presented. The limit excludes leptophobic Z' bosons with masses below 2.5 TeV within the benchmark model. This is the first result to constrain a leptophobic Z' resonance in the four-lepton channel.
The WZ production cross section in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 13 TeV is measured with the CMS experiment at the LHC using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.3 ...inverse femtobarns. The measurement is performed in the leptonic decay modes WZ to l nu l' l', where l, l'= e, mu. The measured cross section for the range 60 < ml'l' < 120GeV is sigma(pp to WZ = 39.9 +/- 3.2 (stat) +2.9/-3.1 (syst) +/- 0.4 (theo) +/- 1.3 (lum) pb, consistent with the standard model prediction.
The invariance of the standard model (SM) under the CPT transformation predicts equality of particle and antiparticle masses. This prediction is tested by measuring the mass difference between the ...top quark and antiquark (Delta mt = mt - mt-bar) that are produced in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, using events with a muon or an electron and at least four jets in the final state. The analysis is based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.6 inverse-femtobarns collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, and yields a value of Delta mt = -0.15 +/- 0.19 (stat) +/- 0.09 (syst) GeV, which is consistent with the SM expectation. This result is significantly more precise than previously reported measurements.
The cross section for coherent J/psi photoproduction accompanied by at least one neutron on one side of the interaction point and no neutron activity on the other side, Xn0n, is measured with the CMS ...experiment in ultra-peripheral PbPb collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 2.76 TeV. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 159 inverse microbarns, collected during the 2011 PbPb run. The J/psi mesons are reconstructed in the dimuon decay channel, while neutrons are detected using zero degree calorimeters. The measured cross section is d sigmacoh,Xn0n/d y(J/psi) = 0.36 +/- 0.04\ (stat) +/- 0.04 (syst) mb in the rapidity interval 1.8<abs(y)<2.3. Using a model for the relative rate of coherent photoproduction processes, this Xz,n,z measurement gives a total coherent photoproduction cross section of d sigmacoh/d y(J/psi) = 1.82 +/- 0.22 (stat) +/- 0.20 (syst) +/- 0.19 (theo) mb. The data strongly disfavour the impulse approximation model prediction, indicating that nuclear effects are needed to describe coherent J/psi photoproduction in gamma + Pb interactions. The data are found to be consistent with the leading twist approximation, which includes nuclear gluon shadowing.
The cross section for the production of single top quarks in the t channel is measured in proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV with the CMS detector at the LHC. The analyzed data correspond to an ...integrated luminosity of 2.3 inverse-femtobarns. The event selection requires one muon and two jets where one of the jets is identified as originating from a bottom quark. Several kinematic variables are then combined into a multivariate discriminator to distinguish signal from background events. A fit to the distribution of the discriminating variable yields a total cross section of 232 +/- 13 (stat) +/- 28 (syst) pb and a ratio of top quark and top antiquark production of Rt-ch. = $ 1.81 +/- 0.18 (stat) +/- 0.15 (syst). From the total cross section the absolute value of the CKM matrix element Vtb is calculated to be 1.03 +/- 0.07 (exp) +/- 0.02 (theo). All results are in agreement with the standard model predictions.
The production yields of Upsilon(1S), Upsilon(2S), and Upsilon(3S) quarkonium states are measured through their decays into muon pairs in the CMS detector, in PbPb and pp collisions at the ...centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of 2.76 TeV. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of 166 inverse microbarns and 5.4 inverse picobarns for PbPb and pp collisions, respectively. Differential production cross sections are reported as functions of Upsilon rapidity $y$ up to 2.4, and transverse momentum pt up to 20 GeV/c. A strong centrality-dependent suppression is observed in PbPb relative to pp collisions, by factors of up to ~2 and 8, for the Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) states, respectively. No significant dependence of this suppression is observed as a function of y or pt. The Upsilon(3S) state is not observed in PbPb collisions, which corresponds to a suppression for the centrality-integrated data by at least a factor of ~7 at a 95% confidence level. The observed suppression is in agreement with theoretical scenarios modeling the sequential melting of quarkonium states in a quark gluon plasma.