108 research outputs found
9 GeV energy gain in a beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator
International audienceAn electron beam has gained a maximum energy of 9 GeV per particle in a 1.3 m-long electron beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. The amount of charge accelerated in the spectral peak was 28.3 pC, and the root-mean-square energy spread was 5.0%. The mean accelerated charge and energy gain per particle of the 215 shot data set was 115 pC and 5.3 GeV, respectively, corresponding to an acceleration gradient of 4.0 GeV/m at the spectral peak. The mean energy spread of the data set was 5.1%. These results are consistent with the extrapolation of the previously reported energy gain results using a shorter, 36 cm-long plasma source to within 10%, evincing a non-evolving wake structure that can propagate distances of over a meter in length. Wake-loading effects were evident in the data through strong dependencies observed between various spectral properties and the amount of accelerated charge
High-field plasma acceleration in a high-ionization-potential gas
International audiencePlasma accelerators driven by particle beams are a very promising future accelerator technology as they can sustain high accelerating fields over long distances with high energy efficiency. They rely on the excitation of a plasma wave in the wake of a drive beam. To generate the plasma, a neutral gas can be field-ionized by the head of the drive beam, in which case the distance of acceleration and energy gain can be strongly limited by head erosion. Here we overcome this limit and demonstrate that electrons in the tail of a drive beam can be accelerated by up to 27 GeV in a high-ionization-potential gas (argon), boosting their initial 20.35 GeV energy by 130%. Particle-in-cell simulations show that the argon plasma is sustaining very high electric fields, of ~150 GV/m, over ~20 cm. The results open new possibilities for the design of particle beam drivers and plasma sources
Demonstration of a positron beam-driven hollow channel plasma wakefield accelerator
International audiencePlasma wakefield accelerators have been used to accelerate electron and positron particle beams with gradients that are orders of magnitude larger than those achieved in conventional accelerators. In addition to being accelerated by the plasma wakefield, the beam particles also experience strong transverse forces that may disrupt the beam quality. Hollow plasma channels have been proposed as a technique for generating accelerating fields without transverse forces. Here we demonstrate a method for creating an extended hollow plasma channel and measure the wakefields created by an ultrarelativistic positron beam as it propagates through the channel. The plasma channel is created by directing a high-intensity laser pulse with a spatially modulated profile into lithium vapour, which results in an annular region of ionization. A peak decelerating field of 230 MeV/m is inferred from changes in the beam energy spectrum, in good agreement with theory and particle-in-cell simulations
Study of Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions with Atmospheric Neutrino Data in Super-Kamiokande I and II
In this paper we study non-standard neutrino interactions as an example of
physics beyond the standard model using atmospheric neutrino data collected
during the Super-Kamiokande I(1996-2001) and II(2003-2005) periods. We focus on
flavor-changing-neutral-currents (FCNC), which allow neutrino flavor
transitions via neutral current interactions, and effects which violate lepton
non-universality (NU) and give rise to different neutral-current
interaction-amplitudes for different neutrino flavors. We obtain a limit on the
FCNC coupling parameter, varepsilon_{mu tau}, |varepsilon_{mu tau}|<1.1 x
10^{-2} at 90%C.L. and various constraints on other FCNC parameters as a
function of the NU coupling, varepsilon_{e e}. We find no evidence of
non-standard neutrino interactions in the Super-Kamiokande atmospheric data.Comment: 12 Pages, 14 figures. To be submitted to Phys. Rev.
Search for Matter-Dependent Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations in Super-Kamiokande
We consider muon neutrino to tau neutrino oscillations in the context of the
Mass Varying Neutrino (MaVaN) model, where the neutrino mass can vary depending
on the electron density along the flight path of the neutrino. Our analysis
assumes a mechanism with dependence only upon the electron density, hence
ordinary matter density, of the medium through which the neutrino travels.
Fully-contained, partially-contained and upward-going muon atmospheric neutrino
data from the Super--Kamiokande detector, taken from the entire SK--I period of
1489 live days, are compared to MaVaN model predictions. We find that, for the
case of 2-flavor oscillations, and for the specific models tested, oscillation
independent of electron density is favored over density dependence. Assuming
maximal mixing, the best-fit case and the density-independent case do not
differ significantly.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur
Search for Astrophysical Neutrino Point Sources at Super-Kamiokande
It has been hypothesized that large fluxes of neutrinos may be created in
astrophysical "cosmic accelerators." The primary background for a search for
astrophysical neutrinos comes from atmospheric neutrinos, which do not exhibit
the pointlike directional clustering that characterizes a distant astrophysical
signal. We perform a search for neutrino point sources using the upward-going
muon data from three phases of operation (SK-I, SK-II, and SK-III) spanning
2623 days of live time taken from April 1, 1996 to August 11, 2007. The search
looks for signals from suspected galactic and extragalactic sources, transient
sources, and unexpected sources. We find interesting signatures from two
objects--RX J1713.7-3946 (97.5% CL) and GRB 991004D (95.3% CL)--but the
signatures lack compelling statistical significance given trial factors. We set
limits on the flux and fluence of neutrino point sources above energies of 1.6
GeV
Search for Nucleon Decay into Charged Anti-lepton plus Meson in Super-Kamiokande I and II
Searches for a nucleon decay into a charged anti-lepton (e^+ or {\mu}^+) plus
a light meson ({\pi}^0, {\pi}^-, {\eta}, {\rho}^0, {\rho}^-, {\omega}) were
performed using the Super-Kamiokande I and II data. Twelve nucleon decay modes
were searched for. The total exposure is 140.9 kiloton \cdot years, which
includes a 91.7 kiloton \cdot year exposure (1489.2 live days) of
Super-Kamiokande-I and a 49.2 kiloton \cdot year exposure (798.6 live days) of
Super-Kamiokande-II. The number of candidate events in the data was consistent
with the atmospheric neutrino background expectation. No significant evidence
for a nucleon decay was observed in the data. Thus, lower limits on the nucleon
partial lifetime at 90% confidence level were obtained. The limits range from
3.6 \times 10^31 to 8.2 \times 10^33 years, depending on the decay modes.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figure
Evidence for the Appearance of Atmospheric Tau Neutrinos in Super-Kamiokande
Super-Kamiokande atmospheric neutrino data were fit with an unbinned maximum
likelihood method to search for the appearance of tau leptons resulting from
the interactions of oscillation-generated tau neutrinos in the detector.
Relative to the expectation of unity, the tau normalization is found to be
1.42 \pm 0.35 \ (stat) {\}^{+0.14}_{-0.12}\ (syst) excluding the
no-tau-appearance hypothesis, for which the normalization would be zero, at the
3.8 level. We estimate that 180.1 \pm 44.3\ (stat)
{\}^{+17.8}_{-15.2}\ (syst) tau leptons were produced in the 22.5 kton
fiducial volume of the detector by tau neutrinos during the 2806 day running
period. In future analyses, this large sample of selected tau events will allow
the study of charged current tau neutrino interaction physics with oscillation
produced tau neutrinos.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. This is the version as published in Physical
Review Letters including the supplemental figure. A typographical error in
the description of figure 3 is also correcte
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