Dark Matter Candidates: What Cold, ..and What's Not

In this brief review of recent theoretical developments associated with the search for dark matter I describe the following: why baryons are now ruled out as dark matter candidates; SUSY WIMPS and signatures in the MSSM and NMSSM why claimed indirect signatures are probably not WIMP related, why axions may be of new interest, how WIMP detection might tell us about the galactic halo, and how theorists are preparing to avoid the next generation of experimental constraints.Comment: 6 pages, Invited Review talk, Neutrino 2006. To appear in Proceeding

Thermal neutrinos from pre-supernova

We would like to discuss prospects for neutrino observations of the core-collapse supernova progenitor during neutrino-cooled stage. We will present new theoretical results on thermal neutrino and antineutrino spectra produced deep inside the pre-supernova core. Three competing processes: pair-, photo and plasma-neutrino production, are taken into account. The results will be used to estimate signal in existing and future neutrino detectors. Chance for supernova prediction is estimated, with possible aid to core-collapse neutrino and gravitational wave detectors in the form of early warning.Comment: 1 page, Contribution to the Proceedings of Neutrino 2006 Conferenc

Youth Focus Groups: Design and Analysis Plan for the BEARS Project

This capstone project produced a qualitative research design and analysis plan for youth focus groups as part of a Quality Improvement project at OneWorld Community Health Center (OWCHC) School-Based Health Center (SBHC) located at Bryan High School (BHS) in a program called BEARS. The intended use of this project is to serve as a reference guide for BEARS program planners to utilize as part of the data collection and analysis processes. The purpose for collecting qualitative data for this project is three-fold. 1. To explore adolescents’ perspectives of risk behaviors and associated health determinants common to their age group 2. Offer an opportunity for students to collaborate about health inequities within their school community and voice suggestions on strategies to address those needs. 3. Provide qualitative findings that program planners can reference when designing interventions. The deliverable from this project will assist OneWorld in capturing qualitative data through a methodical approach and framework, assisting program planners in focus group design, execution and analysis. Additionally, considerations for disseminating the findings is offered for the placement site. The intent of the focus group design is to inform program development by exploring adolescent perspectives of health behaviors and the social, structural and cognitive barriers to optimal health and academic achievement. The researcher constructed the focus group plan using published quantitative data illustrating the prevalence of risk behaviors in the adolescent population. Additionally, published data regarding the relationship of protective factors and social determinants of health on risk behavior in the adolescent population was considered for the focus group design. The Rapid Assessment of Adolescent Preventive Services, Public Health (RAAPS-PH) screening tool will be utilized by OWCHC, SBHC in the BEARS program to capture student reported data regarding risk behaviors, protective factors and social determinants of health. Quantitative data available on a comparative U.S. High School using the same screening tool was utilized as reference group by the researcher when designing the deliverable for this project. The Framework Method was modeled to inform the data management and analysis strategies within the plan proposal and to assist facilitation of the Constant Comparative techniques suggested. As part of the final deliverable, recommendations for data dissemination including ethical considerations were offered. The impacts of this project and subsequent research will continue to inform interventions provided to individual students (tertiary prevention), groups of students (secondary prevention) and from a systems level perspective to inform primary prevention strategies. Long-term public health impacts include a reduction in preventable morbidity and mortality rates in this population and improved graduation rates

Potential for Supernova Neutrino Detection in MiniBooNE

The MiniBooNE detector at Fermilab is designed to search for $\nu_\mu \to \nu_e$ oscillation appearance at $E_\nu \sim 1 {\rm GeV}$ and to make a decisive test of the LSND signal. The main detector (inside a veto shield) is a spherical volume containing 0.680 ktons of mineral oil. This inner volume, viewed by 1280 phototubes, is primarily a \v{C}erenkov medium, as the scintillation yield is low. The entire detector is under a 3 m earth overburden. Though the detector is not optimized for low-energy (tens of MeV) events, and the cosmic-ray muon rate is high (10 kHz), we show that MiniBooNE can function as a useful supernova neutrino detector. Simple trigger-level cuts can greatly reduce the backgrounds due to cosmic-ray muons. For a canonical Galactic supernova at 10 kpc, about 190 supernova $\bar{\nu}_e + p \to e^+ + n$ events would be detected. By adding MiniBooNE to the international network of supernova detectors, the possibility of a supernova being missed would be reduced. Additionally, the paths of the supernova neutrinos through Earth will be different for MiniBooNE and other detectors, thus allowing tests of matter-affected mixing effects on the neutrino signal.Comment: Added references, version to appear in PR

Weak proton capture on 3He

The astrophysical S-factor for the proton weak capture on 3He is calculated with correlated-hyperspherical-harmonics bound and continuum wave functions corresponding to realistic Hamiltonians consisting of the Argonne v14 or Argonne v18 two-nucleon and Urbana-VIII or Urbana-IX three-nucleon interactions. The nuclear weak charge and current operators have vector and axial-vector components, that include one- and many-body terms. All possible multipole transitions connecting any of the p 3He S- and P-wave channels to the 4He bound state are considered. The S-factor at a p 3He center-of-mass energy of 10 keV, close to the Gamow-peak energy, is predicted to be 10.1 10^{-20} keV b with the AV18/UIX Hamiltonian, a factor of about 4.5 larger than the value adopted in the standard solar model. The P-wave transitions are found to be important, contributing about 40 % of the calculated S-factor. The energy dependence is rather weak: the AV18/UIX zero-energy S-factor is 9.64 10^{-20} keV b, only 5 % smaller than the 10 keV result quoted above. The model dependence is also found to be weak: the zero-energy S-factor is calculated to be 10.2 10^{-20} keV b with the older AV14/UVIII model, only 6 % larger than the AV18/UIX result. Our best estimate for the S-factor at 10 keV is therefore (10.1 \pm 0.6) 10^{-20} keV b, when the theoretical uncertainty due to the model dependence is included. This value for the calculated S-factor is not as large as determined in fits to the Super-Kamiokande data in which the hep flux normalization is free. However, the precise calculation of the S-factor and the consequent absolute prediction for the hep neutrino flux will allow much greater discrimination among proposed solar neutrino oscillation solutions.Comment: 54 pages RevTex file, 6 PostScript figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Distinctive nuclear signatures of low-energy atmospheric neutrinos

New probes of neutrino mixing are needed to advance precision studies. One promising direction is via the detection of low-energy atmospheric neutrinos (below a few hundred MeV), to which a variety of near-term experiments will have much-improved sensitivity. Here we focus on probing these neutrinos through distinctive nuclear signatures of exclusive neutrino-carbon interactions -- those that lead to detectable nuclear-decay signals with low backgrounds -- in both neutral-current and charged-current channels. The neutral-current signature is a line at 15.11 MeV and the charged-current signatures are two- or three-fold coincidences with delayed decays. We calculate the prospects for identifying such events in the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), a large-scale liquid-scintillator detector. A five-year exposure would yield about 16 neutral-current events (all flavors) and about 16 charged-current events (mostly from $\nu_e + \bar{\nu}_e$, with some from $\nu_\mu + \bar{\nu}_\mu$), and thus roughly 25\% uncertainties on each of their rates. Our results show the potential of JUNO to make the first identified measurement of sub-100 MeV atmospheric neutrinos. They also are a step towards multi-detector studies of low-energy atmospheric neutrinos, with the goal of identifying additional distinctive nuclear signatures for carbon and other targets.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, 1 appendix. Minor changes, matches version published in Phys. Rev.

Detection of Supernova Neutrinos by Neutrino-Proton Elastic Scattering

We propose that neutrino-proton elastic scattering, $\nu + p \to \nu + p$, can be used for the detection of supernova neutrinos in scintillator detectors. Though the proton recoil kinetic energy spectrum is soft, with $T_p \simeq 2 E_\nu^2/M_p$, and the scintillation light output from slow, heavily ionizing protons is quenched, the yield above a realistic threshold is nearly as large as that from $\bar{\nu}_e + p \to e^+ + n$. In addition, the measured proton spectrum is related to the incident neutrino spectrum, which solves a long-standing problem of how to separately measure the total energy and temperature of $\nu_\mu$, $\nu_\tau$, $\bar{\nu}_\mu$, and $\bar{\nu}_\tau$. The ability to detect this signal would give detectors like KamLAND and Borexino a crucial and unique role in the quest to detect supernova neutrinos.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, revtex