The bibliography compilation on magnetic monopoles is updated to include references from 2000 till mid 2011. It is intended to contain all experimental papers on the subject and only the theoretical papers which have specific experimental implications.
The research activities in collaboration with Enzo Flaminio are summarized and discussed.
A short historical review is made of charged particle production at high energy proton synchrotrons and at pp and {p}p colliders. The review concerns mainly low p_t processes, including diffraction processes, and fragmentation of nuclei in nucleus-nu
cleus collisions. A short recollection is made of the first studies of high p_t processes. Conclusions and perspectives follow.
The ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope, at a depth of 2475 m in the Mediterranean Sea, near Toulon, is taking data in its final configuration of 12 detection lines. Each line is equipped with 75 photomultipliers (PMT) housed in glass pressure sphe
res arranged in 25 triplets at depths between 100 and 450 m above the sea floor. The PMTs look down at 45^o to have better sensitivity to the Cherenkov light from upgoing muons produced in the interactions of high energy neutrinos traversing the Earth. Such neutrinos may arrive from a variety of astrophysical sources, though the majority are atmospheric neutrinos. The data from 5 lines in operation in 2007 yielded a sufficient number of downgoing muons with which to study the detector performances, the vertical muon intensity and reconstruct the first upgoing neutrino induced muons.
A brief historical review is made of the hadron-hadron (hh) total cross section and hadron-nucleus absorption cross section measurements, made mainly at high energy proton synchrotrons. Then I shall discuss low p_tprocesses, including diffraction pro
cesses and fragmentation of nuclei in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Nucleus-nucleus collisions at higher energy colliders are then considered, mainly in the context of the search for the gluon quark plasma. Conclusions and a short discussion on perspectives follow.
We present new measurements of the total and partial fragmentation cross sections in the energy range 0.3-10 A GeV of 56Fe, 28Si and 12C beams on polyethylene, CR39 and aluminum targets. The exposures were made at BNL, USA and HIMAC, Japan. The CR39
nuclear track detectors were used to identify the incident and survived beams and their fragments. The total fragmentation cross sections for all targets are almost energy independent while they depend on the target mass. The measured partial fragmentation cross sections are also discussed.
Bose-Einstein correlations in pairs of identical particles were analyzed in e+ e- multihadron annihilations at ~91.2 GeV at LEP. The first studies involved identical charged pions and the emitting source size was determined. Then the study of charged
kaons suggested that the radius depends on the mass of the emitted particles. Subsequenty the dependence of the source radius on the event multiplicity was analyzed. The study of the correlations in neutral pions and neutral kaons extended these concepts to neutral particles. The shape of the source was analyzed in 3 dimensions and was found not to be spherically symmetric. In recent studies at LEP the correlations were analyzed in intervals of the average pair transverse momentum and of the pair rapidity to study the correlations between the pion production points and their momenta (position-momentum correlations). The latest e+ e- data are consistent with an expanding source.
The CERN to Gran Sasso Neutrino beam (CNGS) was commissioned at CERN in early August 2006 and was first sent at low intensity to Gran Sasso on August 17, 2006. The Borexino, LVD and OPERA experiments continued the commissioning of their detectors and
started taking data with practically no dead time. The CNGS collected several hundred events with clean time distributions.
New calibrations of CR39 and Makrofol nuclear track detectors have been obtained using 158 A GeV Pb (82+) and In (49+) ions; a new method for the bulk etch rate determination, using both cone height and base diameter measurements was developed. The C
R39 charge resolution based on the etch-pit base area measurement is adequate to identify nuclear fragments in the interval 7 <= Z/beta <= 49. For CR39 the detection threshold is at REL~50 MeV cm^2/g, corresponding to a nuclear fragment with Z/beta~7. Base cone area distributions for Makrofol foils exposed to Pb (82+) ions have shown for the first time all peaks due to nuclear fragments with Z > 50; the distribution of the etched cone heights shows well separated individual peaks for Z/beta = 78 - 83 (charge pickup). The Makrofol detection threshold is at REL 2700 MeV cm^2/g, corresponding to a nuclear fragment with Z/beta~50.
The strange quark matter (SQM) may be the ground state of QCD; nuggets of SQM could be present in cosmic rays (CR). SLIM is a large area experiment, using CR39 and Makrofol track etch detectors, presently deployed at the high altitude CR Laboratory o
f Chacaltaya, Bolivia. We discuss the expected properties of SQM, from the point of view of its search with SLIM. We present also some preliminary results from SLIM.
