Les modèles composites constituent une extension possible du modèle standard. L'une des conséquences de ces modèles, aux énergies actuellement accessibles dans les accélérateurs de particules, est l'excitation de leptons.<br> Cette thèse présente la recherche de leptons excités à l'aide du détecteur H1 installé sur le collisionneur électron-proton HERA à Hambourg en Allemagne. Les données utilisées sont celles accumulées entre 1994 et 2000, ce qui représente une luminosité intégrée de 120 pb-1. Les analyses effectuées concernent six topologies différentes ce qui couvre la totalité des rapporte de branchement de désexcitation de l'électron et du neutrino excité.<br> Les nombres de candidats trouvés lors de ces analyses est en accord avec les prédictions du modèle standard ce qui signifie qu'aucune preuve de la production de leptons excités n'a été observée à HERA. Ce résultat a été traduit sous la forme de limites d'exclusions sur le couplage des leptons excités (f/Lambda) en fonction de la masse du lepton excité. Pour la première fois à HERA nous avons étudié le cas où la largeur de désintégration naturelle d'un neutrino excité est supérieure à la résolution expérimentale. Pour la première fois aussi, une étude de la variation de la limite en fonction du rapport f'/f a été effectuée. Cette étude a mené à l'établissement d'une limite indépendante de ce rapport.<br> Les limites obtenues étendent les résultats obtenus précédemment à HERA ainsi que ceux des recherches directes au LEP.

The Mre11/Rad50 complex has been implicated in the early steps of DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair through homologous recombination in several organisms. However, the enzymatic properties of this complex are incompatible with the generation of 3’ single-stranded DNA for recombinase loading and strand exchange. In thermophilic Archaea, the mre11 and rad50 genes cluster in an operon with genes encoding a bidirectional DNA helicase, HerA, and a 5’ to 3’ exonuclease, NurA, suggesting these four enzymes function in a common pathway. I show that purified Mre11 and Rad50 from Pyrococcus furiosus act cooperatively with HerA and NurA to resect the 5’ strand at a DNA end under physiological conditions in vitro where HerA and NurA alone do not show detectable activity. Furthermore, I demonstrate that HerA and NurA physically interact, and this interaction stimulates both helicase and nuclease activities. The products of HerA/NurA long-range resection are oligonucleotide products and HerA/NurA activity demonstrates both sequence specificity and a preference to cut at a specific distance from the DNA end. I demonstrate a novel activity of Mre11/Rad50 to make an endonucleolytic cut on the 5’ strand, which is consistent with a role for the Mre11 nuclease in the removal of 5’ protein conjugates. I also show that Mre11/Rad50 stimulates HerA/NurA-mediated resection through two different mechanisms. The first involves an initial Mre11 nucleolytic processing event of the DNA to generate a 3’ ssDNA overhang, which is then resected by HerA/NurA in the absence of Mre11/Rad50. The second mechanism likely involves local unwinding of the DNA end in a process dependent on Rad50 ATPase activity. I propose that this unwinding step facilitates binding of HerA/NurA to the DNA end and efficient resection of the break. Furthermore, the binding affinity of NurA for 3’ overhang and unwound DNA end substrates partially explains the efficiency of the two resection mechanisms. Lastly, 3’ single-stranded DNA generated by these enzymes can be used by the Archaeal RecA homolog RadA to catalyze strand exchange. This work elucidates how the conserved Mre11/Rad50 complex promotes DNA end resection in Archaea, and may serve as a model for DSB processing in eukaryotes. / text

Masters of Science / Upcoming and ongoing 21cm surveys, such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) and Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), will enable imaging of the neutral hydrogen distribution on cosmological scales in the early Universe. These experiments are expected to generate huge imaging datasets that will encode more information than the power spectrum. This provides an alternative unique way to constrain the astrophysical and cosmological parameters, which might break the degeneracies in the power spectral analysis. The global history of reionization remains fairly unconstrained. In this thesis, we explore the viability of directly using the 21cm images to reconstruct and constrain the reionization history. Using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), we create a fast estimator of the global ionization fraction from the 21cm images as produced by our Large Semi-numerical Simulation (SimFast21). Our estimator is able to efficiently recover the ionization fraction (xHII) at several redshifts, z = 7; 8; 9; 10 with an accuracy of 99% as quantified by the coefficient of determination R2 without being given any additional information about the 21cm maps. This approach, contrary to estimations based on the power spectrum, is model independent. When adding the thermal noise and instrumental effects from these 21cm arrays, the results are sensitive to the foreground removal level, affecting the recovery of high neutral fractions. We also observe similar trend when combining all redshifts but with an improved accuracy. Our analysis can be easily extended to place additional constraints on other astrophysical parameters such as the photon escape fraction. This work represents a step forward to extract the astrophysical and cosmological information from upcoming 21cm surveys.

No description available.

In dieser Arbeit wird die Erzeugung der Charmonium-Zustände J/psi und psi(2S) in Proton-Kern-Reaktionen bei Schwerpunktsenergien von 42 GeV untersucht. Die Daten wurden mit dem HERA-B-Experiment aufgenommen, das in HERA den Protonstrahl nutzt, um Protonen an den Kernen verschiedener Drahttargets zu streuen. Mehr als 150 000 J/psi und 2400 psi(2S)-Zerfälle in Myon-Paare wurden beobachtet. Die HERA-B-Daten decken den kinematischen Bereich in Feynman-x (x_F) zwischen -0.36 und 0.10 und im Transversalimpuls (p_T) bis 4.5 GeV/c ab. Die x_F - und p_T-Verteilungen für die Produktion von J/psi und psi(2S) wurden für Kohlenstoff- und Wolfram-Targets gemessen. Die x_F-Verteilung stimmt gut mit nicht-relativistischen QCD-Rechnungen überein. Bei der p_T-Verteilung findet man einen klaren Anstieg des mittleren p_T für schwerere Kerne: Kohlenstoff = 1.244 +- 0.003 +- 0.034 GeV/c und Wolfram = 1.336 +- 0.004 +- 0.041 GeV/c. Der Vergleich der Erzeugungsraten von psi(2S) und J/psi ergibt: (B''_{muon muon} sigma(psi(2S)) ) / (B_{muon muon} sigma(J/psi)) = 165 +- 9 +- 4 ( x 0.0001) für Kohlenstoff und 154 +- 16 +- 8 ( x 0.0001) für Wolfram. Diese Verältnisse wurden auch für die x_F - und p_T-Verteilungen bestimmt. / In this thesis the production of the charmonium states J/psi and psi(2S) in proton-nucleus collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 42 GeV is studied. The data have been taken by the HERA-B experiment which uses the HERA proton beam to scatter protons off the nuclei of different wire targets. Over 150 x 10^3 J/psi and 2400 psi(2S) decaying to muon pairs are observed. The HERA-B data cover the kinematical range in Feynman x (x_F) between -0.36 and 0.10 and in transverse momentum (p_T) up to 4.5 GeV/c. The x_F and p_T differential distributions for the production of J/psi and psi(2S) mesons are measured for carbon and tungsten target materials. The J/psi x_F distribution agrees well with non-relativistic QCD calculations. From the p_T distributions we find a clear increase of the average p_T for heavier nuclei: Carbon = 1.244 +- 0.003 +- 0.034 GeV/c and Tungsten = 1.336 +- 0.004 +- 0.041 GeV/c. We compared the production rates of psi(2S) to J/psi mesons: (B''_{muon muon} sigma(psi(2S)) ) / (B_{muon muon} sigma(J/psi)) = 165 +- 9 +- 4 ( x 0.0001) for carbon and 154 +- 16 +- 8 ( x 0.0001) for tungsten. These ratios have also been determined for the x_F and p_T distributions.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.