936 research outputs found
Tests of Lorentz violation in muon antineutrino to electron antineutrino oscillations
A recently developed Standard-Model Extension (SME) formalism for neutrino
oscillations that includes Lorentz and CPT violation is used to analyze the
sidereal time variation of the neutrino event excess measured by the Liquid
Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) experiment. The LSND experiment,
performed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, observed an excess, consistent
with neutrino oscillations, of in a beam of . It
is determined that the LSND oscillation signal is consistent with no sidereal
variation. However, there are several combinations of SME coefficients that
describe the LSND data; both with and without sidereal variations. The scale of
Lorentz and CPT violation extracted from the LSND data is of order
GeV for the SME coefficients and . This solution for
Lorentz and CPT violating neutrino oscillations may be tested by other short
baseline neutrino oscillation experiments, such as the MiniBooNE experiment.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, uses revtex4 replaced with version to
be published in Physical Review D, 11 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables, uses
revtex
Pneumococcal Gene Complex Involved in Resistance to Extracellular Oxidative Stress
Streptococcus pneumoniae is a Gram-positive bacterium which is a member of the normal human nasopharyngeal flora but can also cause serious disease such as pneumonia, bacteremia, and meningitis. Throughout its life cycle, S. pneumoniae is exposed to significant oxidative stress derived from endogenously produced hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and from the host through the oxidative burst. How S. pneumoniae, an aerotolerant anaerobic bacterium that lacks catalase, protects itself against hydrogen peroxide stress is still unclear. Bioinformatic analysis of its genome identified a hypothetical open reading frame belonging to the thiol-specific antioxidant (TlpA/TSA) family, located in an operon consisting of three open reading frames. For all four strains tested, deletion of the gene resulted in an approximately 10-fold reduction in survival when strains were exposed to external peroxide stress. However, no role for this gene in survival of internal superoxide stress was observed. Mutagenesis and complementation analysis demonstrated that all three genes are necessary and sufficient for protection against oxidative stress. Interestingly, in a competitive index mouse pneumonia model, deletion of the operon had no impact shortly after infection but was detrimental during the later stages of disease. Thus, we have identified a gene complex involved in the protection of S. pneumoniae against external oxidative stress, which plays an important role during invasive disease.
Borrelia burgdorferi membranes are the primary targets of reactive oxygen species
Spirochetes living in an oxygen-rich environment or when challenged by host immune cells are exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS). These species can harm/destroy cysteinyl residues, iron-sulphur clusters, DNA and polyunsaturated lipids, leading to inhibition of growth or cell death. Because Borrelia burgdorferi contains no intracellular iron, DNA is most likely not a major target for ROS via Fenton reaction. In support of this, growth of B. burgdorferi in the presence of 5 mM H2O2 had no effect on the DNA mutation rate (spontaneous coumermycin A1 resistance), and cells treated with 10 mM t-butyl hydroperoxide or 10 mM H2O2 show no increase in DNA damage. Unlike most bacteria, B. burgdorferi incorporates ROS-susceptible polyunsaturated fatty acids from the environment into their membranes. Analysis of lipoxidase-treated B. burgdorferi cells by Electron Microscopy showed significant irregularities indicative of membrane damage. Fatty acid analysis of cells treated with lipoxidase indicated that host-derived linoleic acid had been dramatically reduced (50-fold) in these cells, with a corresponding increase in the levels of malondialdehyde by-product (fourfold). These data suggest that B. burgdorferi membrane lipids are targets for attack by ROS encountered in the various stages of the infective cycle
Search for Decay in LSND
We observe a net beam-excess of (stat) (syst) events,
above 160 MeV, resulting from the charged-current reaction of
and/or on C and H in the LSND detector. No beam related muon
background is expected in this energy regime. Within an analysis framework of
, we set a direct upper limit for this
branching ratio of at 90% confidence level.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Measurement of the neutrino component of an anti-neutrino beam observed by a non-magnetized detector
Two independent methods are employed to measure the neutrino flux of the
anti-neutrino-mode beam observed by the MiniBooNE detector. The first method
compares data to simulated event rates in a high purity \numu induced
charged-current single \pip (CC1\pip) sample while the second exploits the
difference between the angular distributions of muons created in \numu and
\numub charged-current quasi-elastic (CCQE) interactions. The results from
both analyses indicate the prediction of the neutrino flux component of the
pre-dominately anti-neutrino beam is over-estimated - the CC1\pip analysis
indicates the predicted \numu flux should be scaled by , while
the CCQE angular fit yields . The energy spectrum of the flux
prediction is checked by repeating the analyses in bins of reconstructed
neutrino energy, and the results show that the spectral shape is well modeled.
These analyses are a demonstration of techniques for measuring the neutrino
contamination of anti-neutrino beams observed by future non-magnetized
detectors.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, published in Physical Review D, latest version
reflects changes from referee comment
Shell-model calculations of neutrino scattering from 12C
Neutrino reaction cross-sections, , ,
-capture and photoabsorption rates on C are computed within a
large-basis shell-model framework, which included excitations up to
. When ground-state correlations are included with an open
-shell the predictions of the calculations are in reasonable agreement with
most of the experimental results for these reactions. Woods-Saxon radial wave
functions are used, with their asymptotic forms matched to the experimental
separation energies for bound states, and matched to a binding energy of 0.01
MeV for unbound states. For comparison purposes, some results are given for
harmonic oscillator radial functions. Closest agreement between theory and
experiment is achieved with unrestricted shell-model configurations and
Woods-Saxon radial functions. We obtain for the neutrino-absorption inclusive
cross sections: cm for the
decay-in-flight flux in agreement with the LSND datum of
cm; and cm for the decay-at-rest flux, less than the
experimental result of cm.Comment: 19 pages. ReVTeX. No figure
A Search for Electron Antineutrino Appearance at the 1 Scale
The MiniBooNE Collaboration reports initial results from a search for
oscillations. A signal-blind analysis was
performed using a data sample corresponding to protons on
target. The data are consistent with background prediction across the full
range of neutrino energy reconstructed assuming quasielastic scattering, MeV: 144 electron-like events have been observed in this
energy range, compared to an expectation of events. No
significant excess of events has been observed, both at low energy, 200-475
MeV, and at high energy, 475-1250 MeV. The data are inconclusive with respect
to antineutrino oscillations suggested by data from the Liquid Scintillator
Neutrino Detector at Los Alamos National Laboratory.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
First Measurement of Monoenergetic Muon Neutrino Charged Current Interactions
We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged
current interactions. MiniBooNE has isolated 236 MeV muon neutrino events
originating from charged kaon decay at rest ()
at the NuMI beamline absorber. These signal -carbon events are
distinguished from primarily pion decay in flight and
backgrounds produced at the target station and decay pipe
using their arrival time and reconstructed muon energy. The significance of the
signal observation is at the 3.9 level. The muon kinetic energy,
neutrino-nucleus energy transfer (), and total cross
section for these events is extracted. This result is the first known-energy,
weak-interaction-only probe of the nucleus to yield a measurement of
using neutrinos, a quantity thus far only accessible through electron
scattering.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
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