149 research outputs found
The CNGS Neutrino Beam
The CERN to Gran Sasso Neutrino beam (CNGS) was commissioned at CERN in early
August 2006 and was first sent at low intensity to Gran Sasso on August 17,
2006. The Borexino, LVD and OPERA experiments continued the commissioning of
their detectors and started taking data with practically no dead time. The CNGS
collected several hundred events with clean time distributions.Comment: 11 pages, 14 EPS figures. Lecture given at the 2nd Latin American
School on Cosmic Rays and Astrophysics, Puebla, Mexico, 30th August - 8th
September 200
Effects of Embryonic Exposure to Salinity Stress or Hypoxia on Post-metamorphic Growth and Survival of the Polychaete Capitella teleta
Although a good number of studies have investigated the impact of larval experience on aspects of post-metamorphic performance, only a few have considered the potential impact of stresses experienced by brooded embryos. In this study we separately investigated the impact of salinity stress (as low as 10) and hypoxia (1 ml O2 1 sub-1) experienced by brooded embryos of the deposit-feeding polychaete Capitella teleta on hatching success, metamorphosis, post-metamorphic survival, and post-metamorphic growth. Salinity reduction from 30 to 10 or 15 reduced relative hatching success, presumably by reducing embryonic survival, but generally had no negative latent effects on juvenile survival or growth. Prolonged exposure to hypoxic conditions had no negative effects, as seen on measurements recorded, other than abandonment of brood tubes by some females. There were no negative effects on days to emergence from brood tubes, numbers of larvae emerging from brood tubes, juvenile survival, or juvenile growth. Future studies should consider the potential role of maternal behavior in protecting embryos from at least short-term exposures to hypoxia, and the capacity for anaerobic metabolism in both embryos and adults of this species
Electron neutrino tagging through tertiary lepton detection
We discuss an experimental technique aimed at tagging electron neutrinos in
multi-GeV artificial sources on an event-by-event basis. It exploits in a novel
manner calorimetric and tracking technologies developed in the framework of the
LHC experiments and of rare kaon decay searches. The setup is suited for
slow-extraction, moderate power beams and it is based on an instrumented decay
tunnel equipped with tagging units that intercept secondary and tertiary
leptons from the bulk of undecayed \pi^+ and protons. We show that the taggers
are able to reduce the \nue contamination originating from K_e3 decays by about
one order of magnitude. Only a limited suppression (~60%) is achieved for \nue
produced by the decay-in-flight of muons; for low beam powers, similar
performance as for K_e3 can be reached supplementing the tagging system with an
instrumented beam dump.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures; minor changes, version to appear in EPJ
Electronics design of the RPC system for the OPERA muon spectrometer
The present document describes the front-end electronics of the RPC system that instruments the magnet muon spectrometer of the OPERA experiment. The main task of the OPERA spectrometer is to provide particle tracking
information for muon identification and simplify the matching between the Precision Trackers. As no trigger has been foreseen for the experiment, the spectrometer
electronics must be self-triggered with single-plane readout capability. Moreover, precision time information must be added within each event frame for off-line reconstruction. The read-out electronics is made of three different stages: the Front-End Boards (FEBs) system, the Controller Boards (CBs) system and the Trigger Boards(TBs) system. The FEB system provides discrimination of the strip incoming signals; a FAST-OR output of the input signals is also available for trigger plane signal generation. FEB signals are acquired by the CB system that provides the zero suppression and manages the communication to the DAQ and Slow Control. A Trigger Board allows to operate in both self-trigger mode (the FEB’s FAST-OR signal starts the plane acquisition) or in external-trigger mode (different conditions can be set on the FAST-OR signals generated from different planes)
The OPERA experiment Target Tracker
The main task of the Target Tracker detector of the long baseline neutrino
oscillation OPERA experiment is to locate in which of the target elementary
constituents, the lead/emulsion bricks, the neutrino interactions have occurred
and also to give calorimetric information about each event. The technology used
consists in walls of two planes of plastic scintillator strips, one per
transverse direction. Wavelength shifting fibres collect the light signal
emitted by the scintillator strips and guide it to both ends where it is read
by multi-anode photomultiplier tubes. All the elements used in the construction
of this detector and its main characteristics are described.Comment: 25 pages, submitted to Nuclear Instrument and Method
Neutrino hierarchy from CP-blind observables with high density magnetized detectors
High density magnetized detectors are well suited to exploit the outstanding
purity and intensities of novel neutrino sources like Neutrino Factories and
Beta Beams. They can also provide independent measurements of leptonic mixing
parameters through the observation of atmospheric muon-neutrinos. In this
paper, we discuss the combination of these observables from a multi-kton iron
detector and a high energy Beta Beam; in particular, we demonstrate that even
with moderate detector granularities the neutrino mass hierarchy can be
determined for values greater than 4.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures. Added a new section discussing systematic errors
(sec 5.2); sec.5.1 and 4 have been extended. Version to appear in EPJ
A minimal Beta Beam with high-Q ions to address CP violation in the leptonic sector
In this paper we consider a Beta Beam setup that tries to leverage at most
existing European facilities: i.e. a setup that takes advantage of facilities
at CERN to boost high-Q ions (8Li and 8B) aiming at a far detector located at L
= 732 Km in the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory. The average neutrino energy
for 8Li and 8B ions boosted at \gamma ~ 100 is in the range E_\nu = [1,2] GeV,
high enough to use a large iron detector of the MINOS type at the far site. We
perform, then, a study of the neutrino and antineutrino fluxes needed to
measure a CP-violating phase delta in a significant part of the parameter
space. In particular, for theta_13 > 3 deg, if an antineutrino flux of 3 10^19
useful 8Li decays per year is achievable, we find that delta can be measured in
60% of the parameter space with 6 10^18 useful 8B decays per year.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, added references and corrected typo
Muon and Cosmogenic Neutron Detection in Borexino
Borexino, a liquid scintillator detector at LNGS, is designed for the
detection of neutrinos and antineutrinos from the Sun, supernovae, nuclear
reactors, and the Earth. The feeble nature of these signals requires a strong
suppression of backgrounds below a few MeV. Very low intrinsic radiogenic
contamination of all detector components needs to be accompanied by the
efficient identification of muons and of muon-induced backgrounds. Muons
produce unstable nuclei by spallation processes along their trajectory through
the detector whose decays can mimic the expected signals; for isotopes with
half-lives longer than a few seconds, the dead time induced by a muon-related
veto becomes unacceptably long, unless its application can be restricted to a
sub-volume along the muon track. Consequently, not only the identification of
muons with very high efficiency but also a precise reconstruction of their
tracks is of primary importance for the physics program of the experiment. The
Borexino inner detector is surrounded by an outer water-Cherenkov detector that
plays a fundamental role in accomplishing this task. The detector design
principles and their implementation are described. The strategies adopted to
identify muons are reviewed and their efficiency is evaluated. The overall muon
veto efficiency is found to be 99.992% or better. Ad-hoc track reconstruction
algorithms developed are presented. Their performance is tested against muon
events of known direction such as those from the CNGS neutrino beam, test
tracks available from a dedicated External Muon Tracker and cosmic muons whose
angular distribution reflects the local overburden profile. The achieved
angular resolution is 3-5 deg and the lateral resolution is 35-50 cm, depending
on the impact parameter of the crossing muon. The methods implemented to
efficiently tag cosmogenic neutrons are also presented.Comment: 42 pages. 32 figures on 37 files. Uses JINST.cls. 1 auxiliary file
(defines.tex) with TEX macros. submitted to Journal of Instrumentatio
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