Next Generation Search Interfaces

Astronomers are constantly looking for easier ways to access multiple data sets. While much effort is spent on VO, little thought is given to the types of User Interfaces we need to effectively search this sort of data. For instance, an astronomer might need to search Spitzer, WISE, and 2MASS catalogs and images then see the results presented together in one UI. Moving seamlessly between data sets is key to presenting integrated results. Results need to be viewed using first class, web based, integrated FITS viewers, XY Plots, and advanced table display tools. These components should be able to handle very large datasets. To make a powerful Web based UI that can manage and present multiple searches to the user requires taking advantage of many HTML5 features. AJAX is used to start searches and present results. Push notifications (Server Sent Events) monitor background jobs. Canvas is required for advanced result displays. Lesser known CSS3 technologies makes it all flow seamlessly together. At IPAC, we have been developing our Firefly toolkit for several years. We are now using it to solve this multiple data set, multiple queries, and integrated presentation problem to create a powerful research experience. Firefly was created in IRSA, the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu). Firefly is the core for applications serving many project archives, including Spitzer, Planck, WISE, PTF, LSST and others. It is also used in IRSA's new Finder Chart and catalog and image displays

A next generation measurement of the electric dipole moment of the neutron at the FRM II

In this paper we discuss theoretical motivations and the status of experimental searches to find time-reversal symmetry-violating electric dipole moments (EDM). Emphasis is given to a next generation search for the EDM of the neutron, which is currently being set up at the FRM II neutron source in Garching, with an ultimate sensitivity goal of 5 × 10−28 cm (3σ). The layout of the apparatus allows for the detailed investigation of systematic effects by combining various means of magnetic field control and polarized UCN optics. All major components of the installations are portable and can be installed at the strongest available UCN beam

Measurement of the ionization response of amorphous selenium with 122keV γ\gamma rays

We performed a measurement of the ionization response of 200 $\mu$m-thick amorphous selenium (aSe) layers under drift electric fields of up to 50 V/$\mu$m. The aSe target was exposed to ionizing radiation from a $^{57}$Co radioactive source and the ionization pulses were recorded with high resolution. Using the spectral line from the photoabsorption of 122keV $\gamma$ rays, we measure the charge yield in aSe and the line width as a function of drift electric field. From a detailed microphysics simulation of charge generation and recombination in aSe, we conclude that the strong dependence of recombination on the ionization track density provides the dominant contribution to the energy resolution in aSe. These results provide valuable input to estimate the sensitivity of a proposed next-generation search for the neutrinoless $\beta\beta$ decay of $^{82}$Se that aims to employ imaging sensors with an active layer of aSe.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures. Prepared for submission to JINS

Physics potential of the International Axion Observatory (IAXO)

We review the physics potential of a next generation search for solar axions:the International Axion Observatory (IAXO). Endowed with a sensitivity todiscover axion-like particles (ALPs) with a coupling to photons as small as$g_{a\gamma}\sim 10^{-12}$ GeV$^{-1}$, or to electrons $g_{ae}\sim$10$^{-13}$,IAXO has the potential to find the QCD axion in the 1 meV$\sim$1 eV mass rangewhere it solves the strong CP problem, can account for the cold dark matter ofthe Universe and be responsible for the anomalous cooling observed in a numberof stellar systems. At the same time, IAXO will have enough sensitivity todetect lower mass axions invoked to explain: 1) the origin of the anomalous"transparency" of the Universe to gamma-rays, 2) the observed soft X-ray excessfrom galaxy clusters or 3) some inflationary models. In addition, we reviewstring theory axions with parameters accessible by IAXO and discuss theirpotential role in cosmology as Dark Matter and Dark Radiation as well as theirconnections to the above mentioned conundrums

DMRadio-m3^3: A Search for the QCD Axion Below 1 μ1\,\mueV

The QCD axion is one of the most compelling candidates to explain the dark matter abundance of the universe. With its extremely small mass ($\ll 1\,\mathrm{eV}/c^2$), axion dark matter interacts as a classical field rather than a particle. Its coupling to photons leads to a modification of Maxwell's equations that can be measured with extremely sensitive readout circuits. DMRadio-m$^3$ is a next-generation search for axion dark matter below $1\,\mu$eV using a $>4$ T static magnetic field, a coaxial inductive pickup, a tunable LC resonator, and a DC-SQUID readout. It is designed to search for QCD axion dark matter over the range $20\,\mathrm{neV}\lesssim m_ac^2\lesssim 800\,\mathrm{neV}$ ($5\,\mathrm{MHz}<\nu<200\,\mathrm{MHz}$). The primary science goal aims to achieve DFSZ sensitivity above $m_ac^2\approx 120$ neV (30 MHz), with a secondary science goal of probing KSVZ axions down to $m_ac^2\approx40\,\mathrm{neV}$ (10 MHz).Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Updated to fix small errors and correct acknowledgement

VITR: Augmenting Vision Transformers with Relation-Focused Learning for Cross-Modal Information Retrieval

Relation-focused cross-modal information retrieval focuses on retrieving information based on relations expressed in user queries, and it is particularly important in information retrieval applications and next-generation search engines. While pre-trained networks like Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training (CLIP) have achieved state-of-the-art performance in cross-modal learning tasks, the Vision Transformer (ViT) used in these networks is limited in its ability to focus on image region relations. Specifically, ViT is trained to match images with relevant descriptions at the global level, without considering the alignment between image regions and descriptions. This paper introduces VITR, a novel network that enhances ViT by extracting and reasoning about image region relations based on a Local encoder. VITR comprises two main components: (1) extending the capabilities of ViT-based cross-modal networks to extract and reason with region relations in images; and (2) aggregating the reasoned results with the global knowledge to predict the similarity scores between images and descriptions. Experiments were carried out by applying the proposed network to relation-focused cross-modal information retrieval tasks on the Flickr30K, RefCOCOg, and CLEVR datasets. The results revealed that the proposed VITR network outperformed various other state-of-the-art networks including CLIP, VSE$\infty$, and VSRN++ on both image-to-text and text-to-image cross-modal information retrieval tasks