496 research outputs found
Improved limits on nuebar emission from mu+ decay
We investigated mu+ decays at rest produced at the ISIS beam stop target.
Lepton flavor (LF) conservation has been tested by searching for \nueb via the
detection reaction p(\nueb,e+)n. No \nueb signal from LF violating mu+ decays
was identified. We extract upper limits of the branching ratio for the LF
violating decay mu+ -> e+ \nueb \nu compared to the Standard Model (SM) mu+ ->
e+ nue numub decay: BR < 0.9(1.7)x10^{-3} (90%CL) depending on the spectral
distribution of \nueb characterized by the Michel parameter rho=0.75 (0.0).
These results improve earlier limits by one order of magnitude and restrict
extensions of the SM in which \nueb emission from mu+ decay is allowed with
considerable strength. The decay \mupdeb as source for the \nueb signal
observed in the LSND experiment can be excluded.Comment: 10 pages, including 1 figure, 1 tabl
Forward Beam Monitor for the KATRIN experiment
The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment aims to measure the neutrino mass with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV (90 % CL). This will be achieved by a precision measurement of the endpoint region of the β-electron spectrum of tritium decay. The β-electrons are produced in the Windowless Gaseous Tritium Source (WGTS) and guided magnetically through the beamline. In order to accurately extract the neutrino mass the source activity is required to be stable and known to a high precision. The WGTS therefore undergoes constant extensive monitoring from several measurement systems. The Forward Beam Monitor (FBM) is one such monitoring system. The FBM system comprises a complex mechanical setup capable of inserting a detector board into the KATRIN beamline with a positioning precision of better than 0.3 mm. The electron flux density at that position is on the order of 10 s mm. The detector board contains two silicon detector chips of p-i-n diode type which can measure the β-electron flux from the source with a precision of 0.1 % within 60 s with an energy resolution of FWHM = 2 keV. The unique challenge in developing the FBM arises from its designated operating environment inside the Cryogenic Pumping Section which is a potentially tritium contaminated ultra-high vacuum chamber at cryogenic temperatures in the presence of a 1 T strong magnetic field. Each of these parameters do strongly limit the choice of possible materials which e.g. caused difficulties in detector noise reduction, heat dissipation and lubrication. In order to completely remove the FBM from the beam tube a 2 m long traveling distance into the beamline is needed demanding a robust as well as highly precise moving mechanism
The KATRIN Pre-Spectrometer at reduced Filter Energy
The KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment, KATRIN, will determine the mass of
the electron neutrino with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV (90% C.L.) via a measurement
of the beta-spectrum of gaseous tritium near its endpoint of E_0 =18.57 keV. An
ultra-low background of about b = 10 mHz is among the requirements to reach
this sensitivity. In the KATRIN main beam-line two spectrometers of MAC-E
filter type are used in a tandem configuration. This setup, however, produces a
Penning trap which could lead to increased background. We have performed test
measurements showing that the filter energy of the pre-spectrometer can be
reduced by several keV in order to diminish this trap. These measurements were
analyzed with the help of a complex computer simulation, modeling multiple
electron reflections both from the detector and the photoelectric electron
source used in our test setup.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure
Commissioning of the vacuum system of the KATRIN Main Spectrometer
The KATRIN experiment will probe the neutrino mass by measuring the
beta-electron energy spectrum near the endpoint of tritium beta-decay. An
integral energy analysis will be performed by an electro-static spectrometer
(Main Spectrometer), an ultra-high vacuum vessel with a length of 23.2 m, a
volume of 1240 m^3, and a complex inner electrode system with about 120000
individual parts. The strong magnetic field that guides the beta-electrons is
provided by super-conducting solenoids at both ends of the spectrometer. Its
influence on turbo-molecular pumps and vacuum gauges had to be considered. A
system consisting of 6 turbo-molecular pumps and 3 km of non-evaporable getter
strips has been deployed and was tested during the commissioning of the
spectrometer. In this paper the configuration, the commissioning with bake-out
at 300{\deg}C, and the performance of this system are presented in detail. The
vacuum system has to maintain a pressure in the 10^{-11} mbar range. It is
demonstrated that the performance of the system is already close to these
stringent functional requirements for the KATRIN experiment, which will start
at the end of 2016.Comment: submitted for publication in JINST, 39 pages, 15 figure
Low Complexity Regularization of Linear Inverse Problems
Inverse problems and regularization theory is a central theme in contemporary
signal processing, where the goal is to reconstruct an unknown signal from
partial indirect, and possibly noisy, measurements of it. A now standard method
for recovering the unknown signal is to solve a convex optimization problem
that enforces some prior knowledge about its structure. This has proved
efficient in many problems routinely encountered in imaging sciences,
statistics and machine learning. This chapter delivers a review of recent
advances in the field where the regularization prior promotes solutions
conforming to some notion of simplicity/low-complexity. These priors encompass
as popular examples sparsity and group sparsity (to capture the compressibility
of natural signals and images), total variation and analysis sparsity (to
promote piecewise regularity), and low-rank (as natural extension of sparsity
to matrix-valued data). Our aim is to provide a unified treatment of all these
regularizations under a single umbrella, namely the theory of partial
smoothness. This framework is very general and accommodates all low-complexity
regularizers just mentioned, as well as many others. Partial smoothness turns
out to be the canonical way to encode low-dimensional models that can be linear
spaces or more general smooth manifolds. This review is intended to serve as a
one stop shop toward the understanding of the theoretical properties of the
so-regularized solutions. It covers a large spectrum including: (i) recovery
guarantees and stability to noise, both in terms of -stability and
model (manifold) identification; (ii) sensitivity analysis to perturbations of
the parameters involved (in particular the observations), with applications to
unbiased risk estimation ; (iii) convergence properties of the forward-backward
proximal splitting scheme, that is particularly well suited to solve the
corresponding large-scale regularized optimization problem
Analytical expressions for stopping-power ratios relevant for accurate dosimetry in particle therapy
In particle therapy, knowledge of the stopping-power ratios (STPRs) of the
ion beam for air and water is necessary for accurate ionization chamber
dosimetry. Earlier work has investigated the STPRs for pristine carbon ion
beams, but here we expand the calculations to a range of ions (1 <= z <= 18) as
well as spread out Bragg peaks (SOBPs) and provide a theoretical in-depth study
with a special focus on the parameter regime relevant for particle therapy. The
Monte Carlo transport code SHIELD-HIT is used to calculate complete
particle-fluence spectra which are required for determining STPRs according to
the recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
We confirm that the STPR depends primarily on the current energy of the ions
rather than on their charge z or absolute position in the medium. However,
STPRs for different sets of stopping-power data for water and air recommended
by the International Commission on Radiation Units & Measurements (ICRU) are
compared, including also the recently revised data for water, yielding
deviations up to 2% in the plateau region. In comparison, the influence of the
secondary particle spectra on the STPR is about two orders of magnitude smaller
in the whole region up till the practical range. The gained insights enable us
to propose an analytic approximation for the STPR for both pristine and SOBPs
as a function of penetration depth, which parametrically depend only on the
initial energy and the residual range of the ion, respectively.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, fixed bug with figures in v
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