Status of the Micro Vertex Detector of the Compressed Baryonic Matter Experiment

The CBM experiment will investigate heavy-ion collisions at beam energies from 8 to 45 AGeV at the future accelerator facility FAIR. The goal of the experiment is to study the QCD phase diagram in the vincinity of the QCD critical point. To do so, CBM aims at measuring rare probes among them open charm. In order to identify those rare and short lived particles despite the rich combinatorial background generated in heavy ion collisions, a micro vertex detector (MVD) providing an unprecedented combination of high rate capability and radiation hardness, very light material budget and excellent granularity is required. In this work, we will discuss the concept of this detector and summarize the status of the R&D

Familial idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus

Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) is a late-onset surgically alleviated, progressive disease. We characterize a potential familial subgroup of iNPH in a nation-wide Finnish cohort of 375 shunt-operated iNPH-patients. The patients were questionnaired and phone-interviewed, whether they have relatives with either diagnosed iNPH or disease-related symptomatology. Then pedigrees of all families with more than one iNPH-case were drawn. Eighteen patients (4.8%) from 12 separate pedigrees had at least one shunt-operated relative whereas 42 patients (11%) had relatives with two or more triad symptoms. According to multivariate logistic regression analysis, familial iNPH-patients had up to 3-fold risk of clinical dementia compared to sporadic iNPH patients. This risk was independent from diagnosed Alzheimer's disease and APOE epsilon 4 genotype. This study describes a familial entity of iNPH offering a novel approach to discover the potential genetic characteristics of iNPH. Discovered pedigrees offer an intriguing opportunity to conduct longitudinal studies targeting potential preclinical signs of iNPH. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Human brain activity associated with audiovisual perception and attention

Coherent perception of objects in our environment often requires perceptual integration of auditory and visual information. Recent behavioral data suggest that audiovisual integration depends on attention. The current study investigated the neural basis of audiovisual integration using 3-Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 12 healthy volunteers during attention to auditory or visual features, or audiovisual feature combinations of abstract stimuli (simultaneous harmonic sounds and colored circles). Audiovisual attention was found to modulate activity in the same frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital cortical regions as auditory and visual attention. In addition, attention to audiovisual feature combinations produced stronger activity in the superior temporal cortices than attention to only auditory or visual features. These modality-specific areas might be involved in attention-dependent perceptual binding of synchronous auditory and visual events into coherent audiovisual objects. Furthermore, the modality-specific temporal auditory and occipital visual cortical areas showed attention-related modulations during both auditory and visual attention tasks. This result supports the proposal that attention to stimuli in one modality can spread to encompass synchronously presented stimuli in another modality

FPGA Implementation of an Artificial Neural Network for Subatomic Physics Experiment Particles Recognition

International audienceCMOS Pixel Sensors have been used in subatomic physics experiments for charged particles detection. In the International Linear Collider (ILC) vertex detector, the occupancy will be mainly driven by impacts coming from the beam background. This will have a huge impact to the data flow of the system. We propose a design of CMOS pixel sensors with on-chip Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to tag and remove these hits. It is based on different features of hits clusters. In this paper, we will describe the structure of an ANN implemented in an FPGA device. We will show and analyze the distribution of incident angles reconstructed by the ANN

Charge sensing properties of monolithic CMOS pixel sensors fabricated in a 65 nm technology

International audienceIn this work the initial performance studies of the first small monolithic pixel sensors dedicated to charged particle detection, called CE-65, fabricated in the 65nm TowerJazz Panasonic Semiconductor Company are presented. The tested prototypes comprise matrices of 64 $\times$ 32 square analogue-output pixels with a pitch of 15 $\mu$m. Different pixel types explore several sensing node geometries and amplification schemes, which allows for various biasing voltage of the detection layer and hence depletion conditions and electric field shaping. Laboratory tests conducted with a $^{55}$Fe source demonstrated that the CE-65 sensors reach equivalent noise charge in the 15 to 25 $e^-$ range and excellent charge collection efficiencies. Charge sharing is substantial for standard diodes, but can be largely suppressed by modifying their design. Depletion of the thin sensitive layer saturates at a reverse diode bias of about 5 V

Measurements of Beam Backgrounds in SuperKEKB Phase 2

The high design luminosity of the SuperKEKB electron-positron collider will result in challenging levels of beam-induced backgro unds in the interaction region. Understanding and mitigating these backgrounds is critical to the success of the Belle~II experi ment. We report on the first background measurements performed after roll-in of the Belle II detector, a period known as SuperKE KB Phase 2, utilizing both the BEAST II system of dedicated background detectors and the Belle II detector itself. We also repor t on first revisions to the background simulation made in response to our findings. Backgrounds measured include contributions f rom synchrotron radiation, beam-gas, Touschek, and injection backgrounds. At the end of Phase 2, single-beam backgrounds origina ting from the 4 GeV positron Low Energy Ring (LER) agree reasonably well with simulation, while backgrounds from the 7 GeV elect ron High Energy Ring (HER) are approximately one order of magnitude higher than simulation. We extrapolate these backgrounds for ward and conclude it is safe to install the Belle II vertex detector

International Large Detector: Interim Design Report

The ILD detector is proposed for an electron-positron collider with collision centre-of-mass energies from 90~\GeV~to about 1~\TeV. It has been developed over the last 10 years by an international team of scientists with the goal to design and eventually propose a fully integrated detector, primarily for the International Linear Collider, ILC. In this report the fundamental ideas and concepts behind the ILD detector are discussed and the technologies needed for the realisation of the detector are reviewed. The document starts with a short review of the science goals of the ILC, and how the goals can be achieved today with the detector technologies at hand. After a discussion of the ILC and the environment in which the experiment will take place, the detector is described in more detail, including the status of the development of the technologies foreseen for each subdetector. The integration of the different sub-systems into an integrated detector is discussed, as is the interface between the detector and the collider. This is followed by a concise summary of the benchmarking which has been performed in order to find an optimal balance between performance and cost. To the end the costing methodology used by ILD is presented, and an updated cost estimate for the detector is presented. The report closes with a summary of the current status and of planned future actions