The Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) of the AMS experiment

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS) will be equipped with a proximity focusing Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector for measuring the electric charge and velocity of the charged cosmic particles. A RICH prototype consisting of 96 photomultiplier units, including a piece of the conical reflector, was built and its performance evaluated with ion beam data. Preliminary results of the in-beam tests performed with ion fragments resulting from collisions of a 158 GeV/c/nuc primary beam of Indium ions (CERN SPS) on a Pb target are reported. The collected data included tests to the final front-end electronics and to different aerogel radiators. Cherenkov rings for a large range of charged nuclei and with reflected photons were observed. The data analysis confirms the design goals. Charge separation up to Fe and velocity resolution of the order of 0.1% for singly charged particles are obtained.Comment: 29th International Conference on Cosmic Rays (Pune, India

A Comparative Study of Machine Learning Regression Methods on LiDAR Data: A Case Study

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is a remote sensor able to extract vertical information from sensed objects. LiDAR-derived information is nowadays used to develop environmental models for describing fire behaviour or quantifying biomass stocks in forest areas. A multiple linear regression (MLR) with previous stepwise feature selection is the most common method in the literature to develop LiDAR-derived models. MLR defines the relation between the set of field measurements and the statistics extracted from a LiDAR flight. Machine learning has recently been paid an increasing attention to improve classic MLR results. Unfortunately, few studies have been proposed to compare the quality of the multiple machine learning approaches. This paper presents a comparison between the classic MLR-based methodology and common regression techniques in machine learning (neural networks, regression trees, support vector machines, nearest neighbour, and ensembles such as random forests). The selected techniques are applied to real LiDAR data from two areas in the province of Lugo (Galizia, Spain). The results show that support vector regression statistically outperforms the rest of techniques when feature selection is applied. However, its performance cannot be said statistically different from that of Random Forests when previous feature selection is skipped

The AMS-RICH velocity and charge reconstruction

The AMS detector, to be installed on the International Space Station, includes a Ring Imaging Cerenkov detector with two different radiators, silica aerogel (n=1.05) and sodium fluoride (n=1.334). This detector is designed to provide very precise measurements of velocity and electric charge in a wide range of cosmic nuclei energies and atomic numbers. The detector geometry, in particular the presence of a reflector for acceptance purposes, leads to complex Cerenkov patterns detected in a pixelized photomultiplier matrix. The results of different reconstruction methods applied to test beam data as well as to simulated samples are presented. To ensure nominal performances throughout the flight, several detector parameters have to be carefully monitored. The algorithms developed to fulfill these requirements are presented. The velocity and charge measurements provided by the RICH detector endow the AMS spectrometer with precise particle identification capabilities in a wide energy range. The expected performances on light isotope separation are discussed.Comment: Contribution to the ICRC07, Merida, Mexico (2007); Presenter: F. Bara

The RICH detector of the AMS-02 experiment: status and physics prospects

The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), whose final version AMS-02 is to be installed on the International Space Station (ISS) for at least 3 years, is a detector designed to measure charged cosmic ray spectra with energies up to the TeV region and with high energy photon detection capability up to a few hundred GeV. It is equipped with several subsystems, one of which is a proximity focusing RICH detector with a dual radiator (aerogel+NaF) that provides reliable measurements for particle velocity and charge. The assembly and testing of the AMS RICH is currently being finished and the full AMS detector is expected to be ready by the end of 2008. The RICH detector of AMS-02 is presented. Physics prospects are briefly discussed.Comment: 5 pages. Contribution to the 10th ICATPP Conference on Astroparticle, Particle, Space Physics, Detectors and Medical Physics Applications (Como 2007). Presenter: Rui Pereir

Extreme Starbursts in the Local Universe

The "Extreme starbursts in the local universe" workshop was held at the Insituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia in Granada, Spain on 21-25 June 2010. Bearing in mind the advent of a new generation of facilities such as JWST, Herschel, ALMA, eVLA and eMerlin, the aim of the workshop was to bring together observers and theorists to review the latest results. The purpose of the workshop was to address the following issues: what are the main modes of triggering extreme starbursts in the local Universe? How efficiently are stars formed in extreme starbursts? What are the star formation histories of local starburst galaxies? How well do the theoretical simulations model the observations? What can we learn about starbursts in the distant Universe through studies of their local counterparts? How important is the role of extreme starbursts in the hierarchical assembly of galaxies? How are extreme starbursts related to the triggering of AGN in the nuclei of galaxies? Overall, 41 talks and 4 posters with their corresponding 10 minutes short talks were presented during the workshop. In addition, the workshop was designed with emphasis on discussions, and therefore, there were 6 discussion sessions of up to one hour during the workshop. Here is presented a summary of the purposes of the workshop as well as a compilation of the abstracts corresponding to each of the presentations. The summary and conclusions of the workshop along with a description of the future prospects by Sylvain Veilleux can be found in the last section of this document. A photo of the assistants is included.Comment: worksho

Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. Our current exposure reaches nearly 40,000 km$^2$ str and provides us with an unprecedented quality data set. The performance and stability of the detectors and their enhancements are described. Data analyses have led to a number of major breakthroughs. Among these we discuss the energy spectrum and the searches for large-scale anisotropies. We present analyses of our X$_{max}$ data and show how it can be interpreted in terms of mass composition. We also describe some new analyses that extract mass sensitive parameters from the 100% duty cycle SD data. A coherent interpretation of all these recent results opens new directions. The consequences regarding the cosmic ray composition and the properties of UHECR sources are briefly discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, talk given at the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro 201

Towards the high-accuracy determination of the 238U fission cross section at the threshold region at CERN - N-TOF

The 238U fission cross section is an international standard beyond 2 MeV where the fission plateau starts. However, due to its importance in fission reactors, this cross-section should be very accurately known also in the threshold region below 2 MeV. The 238U fission cross section has been measured relative to the 235U fission cross section at CERN - n-TOF with different detection systems. These datasets have been collected and suitably combined to increase the counting statistics in the threshold region from about 300 keV up to 3 MeV. The results are compared with other experimental data, evaluated libraries, and the IAEA standards

Observation of room-temperature polar skyrmions

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