121711542
Drift chambers with controlled charge collection geometry for the NA34/Helios experiment
We report on the design and performance of a set of drift chambers for the NA34/HELIOS experiment at the CERN-SPS. The chambers are operated with CO2 at low drift velocity and have a field geometry allowing a controllable track sample length and isochronous charge collection. In beam tests using a silicon microstrip hodoscope as external track reference, we measure a two-track separation of 600 μm and, at a drift velocity of 8.9 μm/ns, an absolute single track percision of 60 μ on average the total drift distance of 20 mm. The influence of the track sample length on the chamber performance is studied and a value of 2.5–3.0 mm is found as an optimum.
123064237
The charged trigger of the experiment E835 at Fermilab
Abstract Fermilab experiment E835 studies the charmonium states primarily through their electromagnetic decays. A kinematical charged trigger has been designed to select the electromagnetic final states e + e − and e + e − X and the hadronic decay c c → φφ →4 K ± . A detailed description of the charged trigger is presented here. The design, its implementation and the performances are given.
119627299
HIGH-RESOLUTION SILICON DETECTORS FOR COLLIDING BEAM PHYSICS
Abstract Resolution and linearity of the position measurement of Pisa multi-electrode silicon detectors are presented. The detectors are operated in slightly underdepleted mode and take advantage of their intrinsic resistivity for resistive charge partition between adjacent strips. 22 μm resolution is achieved with readout lines spaced 300 μm. Possible applications in colliding beam experiments for the detection of secondary vertices are discussed.
119936495
Hadronic Physics with Antiprotons at FAIR
The physics program of the future FAIR facility covers a wide range of topics that address central issues of strong interactions and QCD. The antiproton beam of unprecedented quality in the momentum range from 1 GeV/c to 15 GeV/c will allow to make high precision, high statistics measurements, from charmonium spectroscopy to the search for exotic hadrons and the study of nucleon structure, from the study of in-medium modifications of hadron masses to the physics of hypernuclei. These topics form the scientific program of the PANDA experiment. In addition to that the possibility to polarize antiprotons will provide the possibility to perform new, unique measurements of single- and double-spin observables, which are part of the experimental program of PAX.
108986863
Performance measurements of histe-V VLPC photon detectors for E835 at FNAL
A set of 144 VLPC chips has been used by experiment E835 at FNAL for the readout of its scintillating fiber detector. During the data taking, the fibers have been exposed to rates up to 2.5×104 mips/sec, corresponding to 3.5×106 photons/sec on each VLPC pixel surface. This paper reports about a study on rate dependence of gain and quantum efficiency throughout the run, as well as VLPC failure statistics during operation. No significant aging effects are observed. A review about the overall system performance is given.
125331327
The Fermilab anti-p accumulator ring for the charmonium experiment
55785106
WINGS-SPE II: A catalog of stellar ages and star formation histories, stellar masses and dust extinction values for local clusters galaxies
Context. The WIde-field Nearby Galaxy clusters Survey (wings) is a project whose primary goal is to study the galaxy populations in clusters in the local universe (z < 0.07) and of the influence of environment on their stellar populations. This survey has provided the astronomical community with a high quality set of photometric and spectroscopic data for 77 and 48 nearby galaxy clusters, respectively. 
Aims. In this paper we present the catalog containing the properties of galaxies observed by the wings SPEctroscopic (WINGS-SPE) survey, which were derived using stellar populations synthesis modelling approach. We also check the consistency of our results with other data in the literature. 
Methods. Using a spectrophotometric model that reproduces the main features of observed spectra by summing the theoretical spectra of simple stellar populations of different ages, we derive the stellar masses, star formation histories, average age and dust attenuation of galaxies in our sample. 
Results. similar to 5300 spectra were analyzed with spectrophotometric techniques, and this allowed us to derive the star formation history, stellar masses and ages, and extinction for the wings spectroscopic sample that we present in this paper. 
Conclusions. The comparison with the total mass values of the same galaxies derived by other authors based on sdss data, confirms the reliability of the adopted methods and data.
18925167
The WINGS survey: a progress report
A two-band (B and V ) wide–field imaging survey of a complete, all–sky X–ray selected sample of 78 clusters in the redshift range z = 0.04 − 0.07 is presented. The aim of this survey is to provide the astronomical community with a complete set of homogeneous, CCD–based surface photometry and morphological data of nearby cluster galaxies located within 1.5 Mpc from the cluster center. The data collection has been completed in seven observing runs at the INT and ESO 2.2-m telescopes. For each cluster, photometric data of about 2500 galaxies (down to V ∼ 23) and detailed morphological information of about 600 galaxies (down to V ∼ 21) are obtained by using specially designed automatic tools. As a natural follow up of the photometric survey, we also illustrate a long term spectroscopic program we are carrying out with the WHT-WYFFOS and AAT-2dF multifiber spectrographs. Star formation rates and histories, as well as metallicity estimates will be derived for about 350 galaxies per cluster from the line indices and equivalent widths measurements, allowing us to explore the link between the spectral properties and the morphological evolution in highto low-density environments, and across a wide range in cluster X-ray luminosities and optical properties.
117368372
The visible environment of gas-accreting galaxies
We studied the environment of a sample of galaxies in which the presence of polar rings or the presence of gas- and stars- counterrotation is observed. These galaxies are believed to have accreted this material, now in peculiar motion, from their environment. 
The variable considered here are the number of possible companions in the field, down to an apparent magnitude 22, their size, their concentration around the accreting galaxy, and a set of related parameters. A control sample of 'normal' galaxies has also been studied. From Kolgomorov-Smirnov tests of the considered variables, no significant differences have been found between the population of objects around the our accreting galaxies and the control sample. 
These results seems to give support to the models suggesting a long formation time for the acquisition process, starting from a diffuse gas instead of fagocitation of small satellite.
23729217
The evolution of early-type galaxies in clusters from z ~ 0.8 to z ~ 0: the ellipticity distribution and the morphological mix
We present the ellipticity distribution and its evolution for early-type galaxies in clusters from z~ 0.8 to the current epoch, based on the WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey (0.04 ≤ z ≤ 0.07) and the ESO Distant Cluster Survey (0.4 ≤ z ≤ 0.8). We first investigate a mass-limited sample and we find that above a fixed mass limit (M_(*) ≥ 10^(10.2) M_⊙), the ellipticity (e) distribution of early-type galaxies notably evolves with redshift. In the local Universe, there are proportionally more galaxies with higher ellipticity, hence flatter, than in distant clusters. This evolution is due partly to the change in 
the mass distribution and mainly to the change in the morphological mix with z among the early types, the fraction of ellipticals goes from ~70 per cent at high z to ~40 per cent at low z). Analysing separately the ellipticity distribution of the different morphological types, we find no evolution both for ellipticals and for S0s. However, for ellipticals a change with redshift in the median value of the distributions is detected. This is due to a larger population of very round (e M_(B)+ 1.208z > −21. Analysing this sample, we do not recover exactly the same results as the mass-limited sample. This indicates that the selection criteria are crucial to characterize the galactic properties: the choice of the magnitude-‘delimited’ sample implies the loss of many less-massive galaxies and so it biases the final conclusions. Moreover, although we are adopting the same selection criteria, our results in the magnitude-‘delimited’ sample are also not in agreement with those of Holden et al. This is due to the fact that our and their low-zsamples have a different magnitude distribution because the Holden et al. sample suffers from incompleteness at faint magnitudes.
119422208
WINGS: a WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster Survey. I. Optical imaging
This is the first paper of a series that will present data and scientific results from the WINGS project, a wide-field, multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopic survey of galaxies in 77 nearby clusters. The sample was extracted from the ROSAT catalogs of X-Ray emitting clusters, with constraints on the redshift (0.04 < z < 0.07) and distance from the galactic plane (|b |≥ 20 deg). The global goal of the WINGS project is the systematic study of the local cosmic variance of the cluster population and of the properties of cluster galaxies as a function of cluster properties and local environment. This data collection will allow the definition of a local, “zero-point” reference against which to gauge the cosmic evolution when compared to more distant clusters. The core of the project consists of wide-field optical imaging of the selected clusters in the B and V bands. We have also completed a multifiber, medium-resolution spectroscopic survey for 51 of the clusters in the master sample. The imaging and spectroscopy data were collected using, respectively, the WFC@INT and WYFFOS@WHT in the northern hemisphere, and the WFI@MPG and 2dF@AAT in the southern hemisphere. In addition, a NIR (J, K )s urvey of∼50 clusters and an Hα + U survey of some 10 clusters are presently ongoing with the WFCAM@UKIRT and WFC@INT, respectively, while a very-wide-field optical survey has also been programmed with OmegaCam@VST. In this paper we briefly outline the global objectives and the main characteristics of the WINGS project. Moreover, the observing strategy and the data reduction of the optical imaging survey (WINGS-OPT) are presented. We have achieved a photometric accuracy of ∼0.025 mag, reaching completeness toV ∼ 23.5. Field size and resolution (FWHM) span the absolute intervals (1.6–2.7) Mpc and (0.7–1.7) kpc, respectively, depending on the redshift and on the seeing. This allows the planned studies to obtain a valuable description of the local properties of clusters and galaxies in clusters.