78 research outputs found
The SABRE South Experiment at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory
The SABRE (Sodium iodide with Active Background REjection) experiment aims to
detect an annual rate modulation from dark matter interactions in ultra-high
purity NaI(Tl) crystals in order to provide a model independent test of the
signal observed by DAMA/LIBRA. It is made up of two separate detectors; SABRE
South located at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory (SUPL), in regional
Victoria, Australia, and SABRE North at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso
(LNGS). SABRE South is designed to disentangle seasonal or site-related effects
from the dark matter-like modulated signal by using an active veto and muon
detection system. Ultra-high purity NaI(Tl) crystals are immersed in a linear
alkyl benzene (LAB) based liquid scintillator veto, further surrounded by
passive steel and polyethylene shielding and a plastic scintillator muon veto.
Significant work has been undertaken to understand and mitigate the background
processes, that take into account radiation from the detector materials, from
both intrinsic and cosmogenic activated processes, and to understand the
performance of both the crystal and veto systems. SUPL is a newly built
facility located 1024 m underground (about 2900 m water equivalent) within the
Stawell Gold Mine and its construction has been completed in mid-2022. The
laboratory will house rare event physics searches, including the upcoming SABRE
dark matter experiment, as well as measurement facilities to support low
background physics experiments and applications such as radiobiology and
quantum computing. The SABRE South commissioning is expected to occur in 2023.
This paper describes the setup and projections for the experiment, and the
description of the underground laboratory.Comment: Proceedings of the 15th Asia Pacific Physics Conferenc
Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Dantrolene-Like Hydrazide and Hydrazone Analogues as Multitarget Agents for Neurodegenerative Diseases
Dantrolene, a drug used for the management of malignant hyperthermia, had been recently evaluated for prospective repurposing as multitarget agent for neurodegenerative syndromes, including Alzheimer's disease (AD). Herein, twenty-one dantrolene-like hydrazide and hydrazone analogues were synthesized with the aim of exploring structure-activity relationships (SARs) for the inhibition of human monoamine oxidases (MAOs) and acetylcholinesterase (AChE), two well-established target enzymes for anti-AD drugs. With few exceptions, the newly synthesized compounds exhibited selectivity toward MAO B over either MAO A or AChE, with the secondary aldimine 9 and phenylhydrazone 20 attaining IC50 values of 0.68 and 0.81 μM, respectively. While no general SAR trend was observed with lipophilicity descriptors, a molecular simplification strategy allowed the main pharmacophore features to be identified, which are responsible for the inhibitory activity toward MAO B. Finally, further in vitro investigations revealed cell protection from oxidative insult and activation of carnitine/acylcarnitine carrier as concomitant biological activities responsible for neuroprotection by hits 9 and 20 and other promising compounds in the examined series
Characterization of SABRE crystal NaI-33 with direct underground counting
Ultra-pure NaI(Tl) crystals are the key element for a model-independent verification of the long standing DAMA result and a powerful means to search for the annual modulation signature of dark matter interactions. The SABRE collaboration has been developing cutting-edge techniques for the reduction of intrinsic backgrounds over several years. In this paper we report the first characterization of a 3.4 kg crystal, named NaI-33, performed in an underground passive shielding setup at LNGS. NaI-33 has a record low K contamination of 4.3 ± 0.2 ppb as determined by mass spectrometry. We measured a light yield of 11.1 ± 0.2 photoelectrons/keV and an energy resolution of 13.2% (FWHM/E) at 59.5 keV. We evaluated the activities of Ra and Th inside the crystal to be 5.9±0.6μBq/kg and 1.6±0.3μBq/kg, respectively, which would indicate a contamination from U and Th at part-per-trillion level. We measured an activity of 0.51 ± 0.02 mBq/kg due to Pb out of equilibrium and a α quenching factor of 0.63 ± 0.01 at 5304 keV. We illustrate the analyses techniques developed to reject electronic noise in the lower part of the energy spectrum. A cut-based strategy and a multivariate approach indicated a rate, attributed to the intrinsic radioactivity of the crystal, of ∼ 1 count/day/kg/keV in the [5–20] keV region.The SABRE program is supported by funding from INFN (Italy), NSF (US
The SABRE Proof of Principle
SABRE is a dark matter direct detection experiment based on NaI(Tl) scintillating crystals. The primary goal of the experiment is to test the dark matter interpretation of the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal. To reach its purpose, SABRE will operate an array of ultra-low background NaI(Tl) crystals within an active veto, based on liquid scintillator. Finally two twin detectors will be used, one in the northern hemisphere at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy (LNGS) and the other, first of its kind, in the southern hemisphere, in the Stawell Underground Physic Laboratory (SUPL). The collaboration has successfully developed a NaI(Tl) crystal with the impressive potassium content of about 4 ppb, according to the mass spectroscopy measurements. A value that, if confirmed, would be about 3 times lower than the DAMA/LIBRA crystals one. The first phase of the SABRE experiment, called SABRE Proof of Principle (PoP), aims to prove the achieved radiopurity by direct measurement of crystals at LNGS. This work reports the status of the PoP setup and the recent progresses on the development of low radioactivity NaI(Tl) crystals
The ARGO-YBJ Experiment Progresses and Future Extension
Gamma ray source detection above 30TeV is an encouraging approach for finding
galactic cosmic ray origins. All sky survey for gamma ray sources using wide
field of view detector is essential for population accumulation for various
types of sources above 100GeV. To target the goals, the ARGO-YBJ experiment has
been established. Significant progresses have been made in the experiment. A
large air shower detector array in an area of 1km2 is proposed to boost the
sensitivity. Hybrid detection with multi-techniques will allow a good
discrimination between different types of primary particles, including photons
and protons, thus enable an energy spectrum measurement for individual specie.
Fluorescence light detector array will extend the spectrum measurement above
100PeV where the second knee is located. An energy scale determined by balloon
experiments at 10TeV will be propagated to ultra high energy cosmic ray
experiments
Observation of TeV gamma rays from the Cygnus region with the ARGO-YBJ experiment
We report the observation of TeV gamma-rays from the Cygnus region using the
ARGO-YBJ data collected from 2007 November to 2011 August. Several TeV sources
are located in this region including the two bright extended MGRO J2019+37 and
MGRO J2031+41. According to the Milagro data set, at 20 TeV MGRO J2019+37 is
the most significant source apart from the Crab Nebula. No signal from MGRO
J2019+37 is detected by the ARGO-YBJ experiment, and the derived flux upper
limits at 90% confidence level for all the events above 600 GeV with medium
energy of 3 TeV are lower than the Milagro flux, implying that the source might
be variable and hard to be identified as a pulsar wind nebula. The only
statistically significant (6.4 standard deviations) gamma-ray signal is found
from MGRO J2031+41, with a flux consistent with the measurement by Milagro.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
Observation of TeV gamma-rays from the unidentified source HESS J1841-055 with the ARGO-YBJ experiment
We report the observation of a very high energy \gamma-ray source, whose
position is coincident with HESS J1841-055. This source has been observed for
4.5 years by the ARGO-YBJ experiment from November 2007 to July 2012. Its
emission is detected with a statistical significance of 5.3 standard
deviations. Parameterizing the source shape with a two-dimensional Gaussian
function we estimate an extension \sigma=(0.40(+0.32,-0.22}) degree, consistent
with the HESS measurement. The observed energy spectrum is dN/dE =(9.0-+1.6) x
10^{-13}(E/5 TeV)^{-2.32-+0.23} photons cm^{-2} s^{-1} TeV^{-1}, in the energy
range 0.9-50 TeV. The integral \gamma-ray flux above 1 TeV is 1.3-+0.4 Crab
units, which is 3.2-+1.0 times the flux derived by HESS. The differences in the
flux determination between HESS and ARGO-YBJ, and possible counterparts at
other wavelengths are discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, have been accepted for publication in Ap
Mean Interplanetary Magnetic Field Measurement Using the ARGO-YBJ Experiment
The sun blocks cosmic ray particles from outside the solar system, forming a
detectable shadow in the sky map of cosmic rays detected by the ARGO-YBJ
experiment in Tibet. Because the cosmic ray particles are positive charged, the
magnetic field between the sun and the earth deflects them from straight
trajectories and results in a shift of the shadow from the true location of the
sun. Here we show that the shift measures the intensity of the field which is
transported by the solar wind from the sun to the earth.Comment: 6 papges,3 figure
Long-term monitoring of the TeV emission from Mrk 421 with the ARGO-YBJ experiment
ARGO-YBJ is an air shower detector array with a fully covered layer of
resistive plate chambers. It is operated with a high duty cycle and a large
field of view. It continuously monitors the northern sky at energies above 0.3
TeV. In this paper, we report a long-term monitoring of Mrk 421 over the period
from 2007 November to 2010 February. This source was observed by the
satellite-borne experiments Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer and Swift in the X-ray
band. Mrk 421 was especially active in the first half of 2008. Many flares are
observed in both X-ray and gamma-ray bands simultaneously. The gamma-ray flux
observed by ARGO-YBJ has a clear correlation with the X-ray flux. No lag
between the X-ray and gamma-ray photons longer than 1 day is found. The
evolution of the spectral energy distribution is investigated by measuring
spectral indices at four different flux levels. Hardening of the spectra is
observed in both X-ray and gamma-ray bands. The gamma-ray flux increases
quadratically with the simultaneously measured X-ray flux. All these
observational results strongly favor the synchrotron self-Compton process as
the underlying radiative mechanism.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figure
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