The transverse polarization of Λ and Λ¯ hyperons produced in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is measured. The analysis uses 760  μb-1 of minimum bias data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC in the year 2010. The measured transverse polarization averaged over Feynman xF from 5×10-5 to 0.01 and transverse momentum pT from 0.8 to 15 GeV is -0.010±0.005(stat)±0.004(syst) for Λ and 0.002±0.006(stat)±0.004(syst) for Λ¯. It is also measured as a function of xF and pT, but no significant dependence on these variables is observed. Prior to this measurement, the polarization was measured at fixed-target experiments with center-of-mass energies up to about 40 GeV. The ATLAS results are compatible with the extrapolation of a fit from previous measurements to the xF range covered by this measurement.

The COMPASS collaboration at CERN has investigated pion Compton scattering, π-γ→π-γ, at center-of-mass energy below 3.5 pion masses. The process is embedded in the reaction π-Ni→π-γNi, which is initiated by 190 GeV pions impinging on a nickel target. The exchange of quasireal photons is selected by isolating the sharp Coulomb peak observed at smallest momentum transfers, Q2<0.0015  (GeV/c)2. From a sample of 63 000 events, the pion electric polarizability is determined to be απ=(2.0±0.6stat±0.7syst)×10-4  fm3 under the assumption απ=-βπ, which relates the electric and magnetic dipole polarizabilities. It is the most precise measurement of this fundamental low-energy parameter of strong interaction that has been addressed since long by various methods with conflicting outcomes. While this result is in tension with previous dedicated measurements, it is found in agreement with the expectation from chiral perturbation theory. An additional measurement replacing pions by muons, for which the cross-section behavior is unambiguously known, was performed for an independent estimate of the systematic uncertainty.