2,666 research outputs found
European underground laboratories: An overview
Underground laboratories are complementary to those where the research in
fundamental physics is made using accelerators. This report focus on the
logistic and on the background features of the most relevant laboratories in
Europe, stressing also on the low background facilities available. In
particular the report is focus on the laboratories involved in the new
Europeean project ILIAS with the aim to support the European large
infrastructures operating in the astroparticle physics area.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, Invited talk: Topical Workshop in Low
Radioactivity Techniques (Sudbury, Canada) December 12-14, 2004. To be
publish in AIP conference proceeding
Material Sight: A Sensorium for Fundamental Physics
Often our attempts to connect to the spatial and temporal scales of fundamental physics - from the subatomic to the multiverse - provoke a form of perceptual vertigo, especially for non-scientists. When we approach ideas of paralysing abstraction through the perceptual range of our sensing bodies, a ‘phenomenological dissonance’ can be said to be invoked, between material presence and radical remoteness. This relational dynamic, between materiality and remoteness, formed the conceptual springboard for 'Material Sight' (2016-2018), a research project based at three world-leading facilities for fundamental physics, that brought to fruition a body of photographic objects, film works and immersive soundscape that re-presented the spaces of fundamental physics as sites of material encounter. The research was premised on a paradoxical desire to create a sensorium for fundamental physics, asking if photography, film and sound can embody the spaces of experimental science and present them back to scientists and non-scientists alike, not as illustrations of the technical sublime but as sites of phenomenological encounter. This article plots the key conceptual coordinates of 'Material Sight' and looks at how the project’s methodological design – essentially the production of knowledge through the 'act of looking' – emphatically resisted the gravitational pull of art to be instrumentalised as an illustrative device within scientific contexts
Nuclear Physics Neutrino PreTown Meeting: Summary and Recommendations
In preparation for the nuclear physics Long Range Plan exercise, a group of
104 neutrino physicists met in Seattle September 21-23 to discuss both the
present state of the field and the new opportunities of the next decade. This
report summarizes the conclusions of that meeting and presents its
recommendations. Further information is available at the workshop's web site.
This report will be further reviewed at the upcoming Oakland Town Meeting.Comment: Latex, 31 pages. This version has been updated to include final
Comments from the working group
Risk analysis and reliability of the GERDA Experiment extraction and ventilation plant at Gran Sasso mountain underground laboratory of Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics
The aim of this study is the risk analysis evaluation about argon release from the GERDA experiment in the Gran Sasso underground National Laboratories (LNGS) of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN).
The GERDA apparatus, located in Hall A of the LNGS, is a facility with germanium detectors located in a wide tank filled with about 70 m3 of cold liquefied argon. This cryo-tank sits in another water-filled tank (700 m3) at atmospheric pressure.
In such cryogenic processes, the main cause of an accidental scenario is lacking insulation of the cryo-tank.
A preliminary HazOp analysis has been carried out on the whole system. The risk assessment identified two possible top-events: explosion due to a Rapid Phase Transition - RPT and argon runaway evaporation.
Risk analysis highlighted a higher probability of occurrence of the latter top event. To avoid emission in Hall A, the HazOp, Fault Tree and Event tree analyses of the cryogenic gas extraction and ventilation plant have been made. The failures related to the ventilation system are the main cause responsible for the occurrence. To improve the system reliability some corrective actions were proposed: the use of UPS and the upgrade of damper opening devices. Furthermore, the Human Reliability Analysis identified some operating and management improvements: action procedure optimization, alert warnings and staff training.
The proposed model integrates the existing analysis techniques by applying the results to an atypical work environment and there are useful suggestions for improving the system reliability
The XENON1T Data Distribution and Processing Scheme
The XENON experiment is looking for non-baryonic particle dark matter in the
universe. The setup is a dual phase time projection chamber (TPC) filled with
3200 kg of ultra-pure liquid xenon. The setup is operated at the Laboratori
Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy. We present a full overview of the
computing scheme for data distribution and job management in XENON1T. The
software package Rucio, which is developed by the ATLAS collaboration,
facilitates data handling on Open Science Grid (OSG) and European Grid
Infrastructure (EGI) storage systems. A tape copy at the Center for High
Performance Computing (PDC) is managed by the Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM).
Data reduction and Monte Carlo production are handled by CI Connect which is
integrated into the OSG network. The job submission system connects resources
at the EGI, OSG, SDSC's Comet, and the campus HPC resources for distributed
computing. The previous success in the XENON1T computing scheme is also the
starting point for its successor experiment XENONnT, which starts to take data
in autumn 2019.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, CHEP 2018 proceeding
Reducing the impact of radioactivity on quantum circuits in a deep-underground facility
As quantum coherence times of superconducting circuits have increased from
nanoseconds to hundreds of microseconds, they are currently one of the leading
platforms for quantum information processing. However, coherence needs to
further improve by orders of magnitude to reduce the prohibitive hardware
overhead of current error correction schemes. Reaching this goal hinges on
reducing the density of broken Cooper pairs, so-called quasiparticles. Here, we
show that environmental radioactivity is a significant source of nonequilibrium
quasiparticles. Moreover, ionizing radiation introduces time-correlated
quasiparticle bursts in resonators on the same chip, further complicating
quantum error correction. Operating in a deep-underground lead-shielded
cryostat decreases the quasiparticle burst rate by a factor fifty and reduces
dissipation up to a factor four, showcasing the importance of radiation
abatement in future solid-state quantum hardware
CALDER - Neutrinoless double-beta decay identification in TeO bolometers with kinetic inductance detectors
Next-generation experiments searching for neutrinoless double-beta decay must
be sensitive to a Majorana neutrino mass as low as 10 meV. CUORE, an array of
988 TeO bolometers being commissioned at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran
Sasso in Italy, features an expected sensitivity of 50-130 meV at 90% C.L, that
can be improved by removing the background from radioactivity. This is
possible if, in coincidence with the heat release in a bolometer, the Cherenkov
light emitted by the signal is detected. The amount of light detected
is so far limited to only 100 eV, requiring low-noise cryogenic light
detectors. The CALDER project (Cryogenic wide-Area Light Detectors with
Excellent Resolution) aims at developing a small prototype experiment
consisting of TeO bolometers coupled to new light detectors based on
kinetic inductance detectors. The R&D is focused on the light detectors that
could be implemented in a next-generation neutrinoless double-beta decay
experiment.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, added reference to first result
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