Neutrino Oscillation Search at MiniBooNE

This article reports the status of a $\nu_{\mu} \to \nu_{e}$ oscillation search in MiniBooNE (Booster Neutrino Experiment) experiment. If an appearance signal is observed, it will imply Physics Beyond the Standard Model such as the existence of light sterile neutrino.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Plenary talk at the Neutrino Oscillation Workshop (NOW2006), September 2006, to be published in Nucl.Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.

Review of Reactor Antineutrino Experiments

As discussed elsewhere, the measurement of a non-zero value for $\theta_{13}$ would open up a wide range of possibilities to explore CP-violation and the mass hierarchy. Experimental methods to measure currently the unknown mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ include accelerator searches for the $\nu_{e}$ appearance and precise measurements of reactor antineutrino disappearance. The reactor antineutrino experiments are designed to search for a non-vanishing mixing angle $\theta_{13}$ with unprecedented sensitivity. This document describes current reactor antineutrino experiments and synergy between accelerator searches for the $\nu_{e}$ appearance and precise measurements of reactor antineutrino disappearance.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Review talk given at NuFact 2011, XIIIth InternationalWorkshop on Neutrino Factories, Super beams and Beta beams, CERN/UNIGE, Geneva, Switzerland, August 1-6, 201

MiniBooNE Oscillation Results 2011

The MiniBooNE neutrino oscillation search experiment at Fermilab has recently updated results from a search for $\bar\nu_\mu \rightarrow \bar\nu_e$ oscillations, using a data sample corresponding to $8.58 \times 10^{20}$ protons on target in anti-neutrino mode. This high statistics result represent an increase in statistics of 52% compared to result published in 2010. An excess of 57.7 $\pm$ 28.5 events is observed in the energy range 200 MeV $< E_\nu <$ 3000 MeV. The data favor LSND-like $\bar\nu_\mu \rightarrow \bar\nu_e$ oscillations over a background only hypothesis at 91.1% confidence level in the energy range 475 $< E_\nu<$3000 MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, talk given at NuFact 2011, XIIIth InternationalWorkshop on Neutrino Factories, Super beams and Beta beams, CERN/UNIGE, Geneva, Switzerland, August 1-6, 201

Novel Technique for Ultra-sensitive Determination of Trace Elements in Organic Scintillators

A technique based on neutron activation has been developed for an extremely high sensitivity analysis of trace elements in organic materials. Organic materials are sealed in plastic or high purity quartz and irradiated at the HFIR and MITR. The most volatile materials such as liquid scintillator (LS) are first preconcentrated by clean vacuum evaporation. Activities of interest are separated from side activities by acid digestion and ion exchange. The technique has been applied to study the liquid scintillator used in the KamLAND neutrino experiment. Detection limits of <2.4X10**-15 g 40K/g LS, <5.5X10**-15 g Th/g LS, and <8X10**-15 g U/g LS have been achieved.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Nuclear Instruments and Methods

Reactor Simulation for Antineutrino Experiments using DRAGON and MURE

Rising interest in nuclear reactors as a source of antineutrinos for experiments motivates validated, fast, and accessible simulations to predict reactor fission rates. Here we present results from the DRAGON and MURE simulation codes and compare them to other industry standards for reactor core modeling. We use published data from the Takahama-3 reactor to evaluate the quality of these simulations against the independently measured fuel isotopic composition. The propagation of the uncertainty in the reactor operating parameters to the resulting antineutrino flux predictions is also discussed.Comment: This version has increased discussion of uncertaintie

Development of Wireless Techniques in Data and Power Transmission - Application for Particle Physics Detectors

Wireless techniques have developed extremely fast over the last decade and using them for data and power transmission in particle physics detectors is not science- fiction any more. During the last years several research groups have independently thought of making it a reality. Wireless techniques became a mature field for research and new developments might have impact on future particle physics experiments. The Instrumentation Frontier was set up as a part of the SnowMass 2013 Community Summer Study [1] to examine the instrumentation R&D for the particle physics research over the coming decades: {\guillemotleft} To succeed we need to make technical and scientific innovation a priority in the field {\guillemotright}. Wireless data transmission was identified as one of the innovations that could revolutionize the transmission of data out of the detector. Power delivery was another challenge mentioned in the same report. We propose a collaboration to identify the specific needs of different projects that might benefit from wireless techniques. The objective is to provide a common platform for research and development in order to optimize effectiveness and cost, with the aim of designing and testing wireless demonstrators for large instrumentation systems