CIBERER : Spanish national network for research on rare diseases: A highly productive collaborative initiative

Altres ajuts: Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.CIBER (Center for Biomedical Network Research; Centro de Investigación Biomédica En Red) is a public national consortium created in 2006 under the umbrella of the Spanish National Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII). This innovative research structure comprises 11 different specific areas dedicated to the main public health priorities in the National Health System. CIBERER, the thematic area of CIBER focused on rare diseases (RDs) currently consists of 75 research groups belonging to universities, research centers, and hospitals of the entire country. CIBERER's mission is to be a center prioritizing and favoring collaboration and cooperation between biomedical and clinical research groups, with special emphasis on the aspects of genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular research of RDs. This research is the basis for providing new tools for the diagnosis and therapy of low-prevalence diseases, in line with the International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) objectives, thus favoring translational research between the scientific environment of the laboratory and the clinical setting of health centers. In this article, we intend to review CIBERER's 15-year journey and summarize the main results obtained in terms of internationalization, scientific production, contributions toward the discovery of new therapies and novel genes associated to diseases, cooperation with patients' associations and many other topics related to RD research

Antennas for the detection of radio emission pulses from cosmic-ray induced air showers at the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is exploring the potential of the radio detection technique to study extensive air showers induced by ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) addresses both technological and scientific aspects of the radio technique. A first phase of AERA has been operating since September 2010 with detector stations observing radio signals at frequencies between 30 and 80 MHz. In this paper we present comparative studies to identify and optimize the antenna design for the final configuration of AERA consisting of 160 individual radio detector stations. The transient nature of the air shower signal requires a detailed description of the antenna sensor. As the ultra-wideband reception of pulses is not widely discussed in antenna literature, we review the relevant antenna characteristics and enhance theoretical considerations towards the impulse response of antennas including polarization effects and multiple signal reflections. On the basis of the vector effective length we study the transient response characteristics of three candidate antennas in the time domain. Observing the variation of the continuous galactic background intensity we rank the antennas with respect to the noise level added to the galactic signal

A Search for Photons with Energies Above 2 × 1017^{17} eV Using Hybrid Data from the Low-Energy Extensions of the Pierre Auger Observatory

Ultra-high-energy photons with energies exceeding 10$^{17}$ eV offer a wealth of connections to different aspects of cosmic-ray astrophysics as well as to gamma-ray and neutrino astronomy. The recent observations of photons with energies in the 10$^{15}$ eV range further motivate searches for even higher-energy photons. In this paper, we present a search for photons with energies exceeding 2 × 10$^{17}$ eV using about 5.5 yr of hybrid data from the low-energy extensions of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The upper limits on the integral photon flux derived here are the most stringent ones to date in the energy region between 10$^{17}$ and 10$^{18}$ eV

Design and implementation of the AMIGA embedded system for data acquisition

The Auger Muon Infill Ground Array (AMIGA) is part of the AugerPrime upgrade of the Pierre Auger Observatory. It consists of particle counters buried 2.3 m underground next to the water-Cherenkov stations that form the 23.5 km$^2$ large infilled array. The reduced distance between detectors in this denser area allows the lowering of the energy threshold for primary cosmic ray reconstruction down to about 10$^{17}$ eV. At the depth of 2.3 m the electromagnetic component of cosmic ray showers is almost entirely absorbed so that the buried scintillators provide an independent and direct measurement of the air showers muon content. This work describes the design and implementation of the AMIGA embedded system, which provides centralized control, data acquisition and environment monitoring to its detectors. The presented system was firstly tested in the engineering array phase ended in 2017, and lately selected as the final design to be installed in all new detectors of the production phase. The system was proven to be robust and reliable and has worked in a stable manner since its first deployment.Comment: Accepted for publication at JINST. Published version, 34 pages, 15 figures, 4 table

Cosmological implications of photon-flux upper limits at ultra-high energies in scenarios of Planckian-interacting massive particles for dark matter

We present a thorough search for signatures that would be suggestive of super-heavy $X$ particles decaying in the Galactic halo, in the data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. From the lack of signal, we derive upper limits for different energy thresholds above ${\gtrsim}10^8$\,GeV on the expected secondary by-product fluxes from $X$-particle decay. Assuming that the energy density of these super-heavy particles matches that of dark matter observed today, we translate the upper bounds on the particle fluxes into tight constraints on the couplings governing the decay process as a function of the particle mass. We show that instanton-induced decay processes allow us to derive a bound on the reduced coupling constant of gauge interactions in the dark sector: \alpha_X \alt 0.09, for 10^{9} \alt M_X/\text{GeV} < 10^{19}. This upper limit on $\alpha_X$ is complementary to the non-observation of tensor modes in the cosmic microwave background in the context of Planckian-interacting massive particles for dark matter produced during the reheating epoch. Viable regions for this scenario to explain dark matter are delineated in several planes of the multidimensional parameter space that involves, in addition to $M_X$ and $\alpha_X$, the Hubble rate at the end of inflation, the reheating efficiency, and the non-minimal coupling of the Higgs with curvature.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, Accompanying paper of arXiv:2203.0885

Arrival Directions of Cosmic Rays above 32 EeV from Phase One of the Pierre Auger Observatory

A promising energy range to look for angular correlations between cosmic rays of extragalactic origin and their sources is at the highest energies, above a few tens of EeV (1 EeV ≡ 10¹⁸ eV). Despite the flux of these particles being extremely low, the area of ∼3000 km² covered at the Pierre Auger Observatory, and the 17 yr data-taking period of the Phase 1 of its operations, have enabled us to measure the arrival directions of more than 2600 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays above 32 EeV. We publish this data set, the largest available at such energies from an integrated exposure of 122,000 km² sr yr, and search it for anisotropies over the 3.4π steradians covered with the Observatory. Evidence for a deviation in excess of isotropy at intermediate angular scales, with ∼15° Gaussian spread or ∼25° top-hat radius, is obtained at the 4σ significance level for cosmic-ray energies above ∼40 EeV

Direct measurement of the muonic content of extensive air showers between 2×1017\mathbf { 2\times 10^{17}} and 2×1018 \mathbf {2\times 10^{18}}~eV at the Pierre Auger Observatory

The hybrid design of the Pierre Auger Observatory allows for the measurement of the properties of extensive air showers initiated by ultra-high energy cosmic rays with unprecedented precision. By using an array of prototype underground muon detectors, we have performed the first direct measurement, by the Auger Collaboration, of the muon content of air showers between 2×10$^{17}$ and 2×10$^{18}$ eV. We have studied the energy evolution of the attenuation-corrected muon density, and compared it to predictions from air shower simulations. The observed densities are found to be larger than those predicted by models. We quantify this discrepancy by combining the measurements from the muon detector with those from the Auger fluorescence detector at 10$^{17.5}$eV and 10$^{18}$eV. We find that, for the models to explain the data, an increase in the muon density of 38% ±4%(12%) ± (21%)¦(18%) for EPOS-LHC, and of 50%(53%) ±4%(13%) ± (23%)¦(20%) for QGSJetII-04, is respectively needed

Design, upgrade and characterization of the silicon photomultiplier front-end for the AMIGA detector at the Pierre Auger Observatory

AMIGA (Auger Muons and Infill for the Ground Array) is an upgrade of the Pierre Auger Observatory to complement the study of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR) by measuring the muon content of extensive air showers (EAS). It consists of an array of 61 water Cherenkov detectors on a denser spacing in combination with underground scintillation detectors used for muon density measurement. Each detector is composed of three scintillation modules, with 10 m$^2$ detection area per module, buried at 2.3 m depth, resulting in a total detection area of 30 m$^2$. Silicon photomultiplier sensors (SiPM) measure the amount of scintillation light generated by charged particles traversing the modules. In this paper, the design of the front-end electronics to process the signals of those SiPMs and test results from the laboratory and from the Pierre Auger Observatory are described. Compared to our previous prototype, the new electronics shows a higher performance, higher efficiency and lower power consumption, and it has a new acquisition system with increased dynamic range that allows measurements closer to the shower core. The new acquisition system is based on the measurement of the total charge signal that the muonic component of the cosmic ray shower generates in the detector.Comment: 40 pages, 33 figure