Projeto cartográfico e implementação de um protótipo de atlas escolar interativo

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Desenvolvimento de um protótipo de um atlas escolar interativo: projeto e produção

This paper aims at presenting an Interactive School Atlas prototype which was developed for cartography and environmental education. The methodology was based on the theoretical study about child mental development of Piaget theory, in order to elaborate strategies that allow the student a better comprehension about the spatial information understanding. It was defined as study case of sixth grade students, because they belong to the Formal Operation stage, in which the children reach the needed mental operations for understanding cartographic key concepts. This Atlas was developed in two stages: cartographic design and Atlas production. The Atlas implementation was developed seeking the use of Multimedia Cartography and animation resources that may attract students and teachers, instigating them to explore the tools and strategies to lead users to a correct interpretation of map contents. The Atlas was implemented by using the Macromedia Flash and Visual Basic softwares and the MapObjects library. Though the map has bot been evaluated yet, one should point out that it was designed according to the theoretical and methodological knowledge of the cognitive development and its relationship to cartographic conceptions, aiming at adapting the product to children cognitive skills.

The Hunt for New Physics at the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider presents an unprecedented opportunity to probe the realm of new physics in the TeV region and shed light on some of the core unresolved issues of particle physics. These include the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking, the origin of mass, the possible constituent of cold dark matter, new sources of CP violation needed to explain the baryon excess in the universe, the possible existence of extra gauge groups and extra matter, and importantly the path Nature chooses to resolve the hierarchy problem - is it supersymmetry or extra dimensions. Many models of new physics beyond the standard model contain a hidden sector which can be probed at the LHC. Additionally, the LHC will be a. top factory and accurate measurements of the properties of the top and its rare decays will provide a window to new physics. Further, the LHC could shed light on the origin of neutralino masses if the new physics associated with their generation lies in the TeV region. Finally, the LHC is also a laboratory to test the hypothesis of TeV scale strings and D brane models. An overview of these possibilities is presented in the spirit that it will serve as a companion to the Technical Design Reports (TDRs) by the particle detector groups ATLAS and CMS to facilitate the test of the new theoretical ideas at the LHC. Which of these ideas stands the test of the LHC data will govern the course of particle physics in the subsequent decades.

Probing bilinear R-parity violating supergravity at the LHC

We study the collider phenomenology of bilinear R-parity violating supergravity, the simplest effective model for supersymmetric neutrino masses accounting for the current neutrino oscillation data. At the CERN Large Hadron Collider the center-of-mass energy will be high enough to probe directly these models through the search for the superpartners of the Standard Model (SM) particles. We analyze the impact of R-parity violation on the canonical supersymmetry searches-that is, we examine how the decay of the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) via bilinear R-parity violating interactions degrades the average expected missing momentum of the reactions and show how this diminishes the reach in the usual channels for supersymmetry searches. However, the R-parity violating interactions lead to an enhancement of the final states containing isolated same-sign di-leptons and trileptons, compensating the reach loss in the fully inclusive channel. We show how the searches for displaced vertices associated to LSP decay substantially increase the coverage in supergravity parameter space, giving the corresponding reaches for two reference luminosities of 10 and 100 fb(-1) and compare with those of the R-parity conserving minimal supergravity model.

Searching supersymmetry at the LHCb with displaced vertices

Supersymmetric theories with bilinear R-parity violation can give rise to the observed neutrino masses and mixings. One important feature of such models is that the lightest supersymmetric particle might have a sufficiently large lifetime to produce detached vertices. Working in the framework of supergravity models, we analyze the potential of the LHCb experiment to search for supersymmetric models exhibiting bilinear R-parity violation. We show that the LHCb experiment can probe a large fraction of the m(0)circle times m(1/2), being able to explore gluino masses up to 1.3 TeV. The LHCb discover potential for these kinds of models is similar to the ATLAS and CMS ones in the low luminosity phase of operation of the LHC.

CERN LHC signals for a neutrino mass model with bilinear R-parity violating minimal anomaly mediated supersymmetry

We investigate a neutrino mass model in which the neutrino data is accounted for by bilinear R-parity violating supersymmetry with anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking. We focus on the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) phenomenology, studying the reach of generic supersymmetry search channels with leptons, missing energy and jets. A special feature of this model is the existence of long-lived neutralinos and charginos which decay inside the detector leading to detached vertices. We demonstrate that the largest reach is obtained in the displaced vertices channel and that practically all of the reasonable parameter space will be covered with an integrated luminosity of 10 fb(-1). We also compare the displaced vertex reaches of the LHC and Tevatron.

Atlas municipais elaborados por professores: a experiência conjunta de Limeira, Rio Claro e Ipeúna

Na última década, as recomendações curriculares de história e geografia para o ensino fundamental incentivaram a produção de atlas municipais, uma vez que permitem incluir num só volume mapas, textos, fotografias, gráficos, entre outras fontes de informação, a respeito do espaço local. Este artigo apresenta uma experiência em que a produção de atlas municipais se tornou projeto de pesquisa colaborativa entre pesquisadores da universidade e professores de geografia, história e ciências de três municípios. Problemas como recorte curricular, linguagem cartográfica e formação de professores consistem nos pontos principais da pesquisa, a qual traz uma contribuição significativa para a constituição de uma linha de pesquisa que vem sendo chamada de cartografia escolar.

Extra dimensions at the CERN LHC via mini-black holes: Effective Kerr-Newman brane-world effects

We solve Einstein equations on the brane to derive the exact form of the brane-world-corrected perturbations in Kerr-Newman singularities, using Randall-Sundrum and Arkani-Hamed-Dimopoulos-Dvali (ADD) models. It is a consequence of such models that Kerr-Newman mini-black holes can be produced in LHC. We use this approach to derive a normalized correction for the Schwarzschild Myers-Perry radius of a static (4+n)-dimensional mini-black hole, using more realistic approaches arising from Kerr-Newman mini-black hole analysis. Besides, we prove that there are four Kerr-Newman black hole horizons in the brane-world scenario we use, although only the outer horizon is relevant in the physical measurable processes. Parton cross sections in LHC and Hawking temperature are also investigated as functions of Planck mass (in the LHC range 1-10 TeV), mini-black hole mass, and the number of large extra dimensions in brane-world large extra-dimensional scenarios. In this case a more realistic brane-effect-corrected formalism can achieve more precisely the effective extra-dimensional Planck mass and the number of large extra dimensions-in the Arkani-Hamed-Dimopoulos-Dvali model-or the size of the warped extra dimension-in Randall-Sundrum formalism.

Searching for anomalous Higgs couplings in peripheral heavy ion collisions at the LHC

We investigate the sensitivity of the heavy ion mode of the LHC to anomalous Higgs boson couplings to photons, H gamma gamma, through the analysis of the processes gamma gamma --> b (b) over bar and gamma gamma --> gamma gamma in peripheral heavy ion collisions. We suggest cuts to improve the signal over background ratio and determine the capability of LHC to impose bounds on anomalous couplings by searching for a Higgs boson signal in these modes. (C) 2001 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Robust CERN LHC Higgs boson search in weak boson fusion

We demonstrate that a CERN LHC Higgs boson search in weak boson fusion production with subsequent decay to weak boson pairs is robust against extensions of the standard model or minimal supersymmetric standard model involving a large number of Higgs doublets. We also show that the transverse mass distribution provides unambiguous discrimination of a continuum Higgs signal from the standard model.

Radion and Higgs signals in peripheral heavy ion collisions at the LHC

We investigate the sensitivity of the heavy ion mode of the LHC to Higgs boson and Radion production via photon-photon fusion through the analysis of the processes gammagamma --> gammagamma, gammagamma --> b (b) over bar, and gammagamma --> gg in peripheral heavy ion collisions. We suggest cuts to improve the Higgs and Radion signal over standard model background ratio and determine the capability of LHC to detect these particles production. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Signature of charged to neutral Higgs boson decay at the LHC in SUSY models

We study the signature of H+/- decay into h(0)W at the LHC in SUSY models. It has only marginal viability in the MSSM. But in the singlet extensions like the NMSSM one can have a spectacular signature for H+/- decay into (h(0), A(0))W over a significant domain of parameter space. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier B.V. B.V. All rights reserved.

Higgs pair production at the LHC in models with universal extra dimensions

In this Letter we study the process of gluon fusion into a pair of Higgs bosons in a model with one universal extra dimension. We find that the contributions from the extra top quark Kaluza-Klem excitations lead to a Higgs pair production cross section at the LHC that can be significantly altered compared to the Standard Model value for small values of the compactification scale. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hidden sector effects on double Higgs production near threshold at the LHC

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Aspects of a dynamical gluon mass approach to elastic hadron scattering at LHC

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)