Studies of the effect of charged hadrons on lead tungstate crystals

Scintillating crystals are used for calorimetry in several high-energy physics experiments. For some of them, performance has to be ensured in difficult operating conditions, like a high radiation environment, very large particle fluxes and high collision rates. Results are presented here from a thorough series of measurements concerning mainly the effect of charged hadrons on lead tungstate. It is also shown how these results can be used to predict the effect on crystals due to a given flux of particles.Comment: Submitted to Proceedings Calor 2008 - XIII International Conference on Calorimetry in High Energy Physics, Pavia (Italy) 26-30 May 2008. To be published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (8 pages, 16 figures

Cerium-Doped Fused-Silica Fibers as Wavelength Shifters

We have evaluated the performance of a Ce-doped fused-silica fiber as wavelength shifter coupled to a CeF$_{3}$ crystal using electron beams at CERN. The pulse shape and collection efficiency were measured using irradiated (100 kGy) and un-irradiated fibers. In addition, we evaluated the light yield of various Ce-doped fibers and explored the possibility of using them in the future, including for precision timing applications in a high-luminosity collider environment.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

Constraints on Parity-Even Time Reversal Violation in the Nucleon-Nucleon System and Its Connection to Charge Symmetry Breaking

Parity-even time reversal violation (TRV) in the nucleon-nucleon interaction is reconsidered. The TRV $\rho$-exchange interaction on which recent analyses of measurements are based is necessarily also charge-symmetry breaking (CSB). Limits on its strength $\bar{g}_\rho$ relative to regular $\rho$-exchange are extracted from recent CSB experiments in neutron-proton scattering. The result $\bar{g}_\rho\le 6.7\times 10^{-3}$ (95% CL) is considerably lower than limits inferred from direct TRV tests in nuclear processes. Properties of $a_1$-exchange and limit imposed by the neutron EDM are briefly discussed.Comment: RevTex, 8 pages. Factor ten error in cited neutron EDM corrected, discussion and two references adde

Nuclear Spin-Isospin Correlations, Parity Violation, and the fπf_\pi Problem

The strong interaction effects of isospin- and spin-dependent nucleon-nucleon correlations observed in many-body calculations are interpreted in terms of a one-pion exchange mechanism. Including such effects in computations of nuclear parity violating effects leads to enhancements of about 10%. A larger effect arises from the one-boson exchange nature of the parity non-conserving nucleon- nucleon interaction, which depends on both weak and strong meson-nucleon coupling constants. Using values of the latter that are constrained by nucleon-nucleon phase shifts leads to enhancements of parity violation by factors close to two. Thus much of previously noticed discrepancies between weak coupling constants extracted from different experiments can be removed.Comment: 8 pages 2 figures there should have been two figures in v

FACT -- The G-APD revolution in Cherenkov astronomy

Since two years, the FACT telescope is operating on the Canary Island of La Palma. Apart from its purpose to serve as a monitoring facility for the brightest TeV blazars, it was built as a major step to establish solid state photon counters as detectors in Cherenkov astronomy. The camera of the First G-APD Cherenkov Telesope comprises 1440 Geiger-mode avalanche photo diodes (G-APD), equipped with solid light guides to increase the effective light collection area of each sensor. Since no sense-line is available, a special challenge is to keep the applied voltage stable although the current drawn by the G-APD depends on the flux of night-sky background photons significantly varying with ambient light conditions. Methods have been developed to keep the temperature and voltage dependent response of the G-APDs stable during operation. As a cross-check, dark count spectra with high statistics have been taken under different environmental conditions. In this presentation, the project, the developed methods and the experience from two years of operation of the first G-APD based camera in Cherenkov astronomy under changing environmental conditions will be presented.Comment: Proceedings of the Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference (IEEE-NSS/MIC), 201

FACT - The First G-APD Cherenkov Telescope: Status and Results

The First G-APD Cherenkov telescope (FACT) is the first telescope using silicon photon detectors (G-APD aka. SiPM). It is built on the mount of the HEGRA CT3 telescope, still located at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, and it is successfully in operation since Oct. 2011. The use of Silicon devices promises a higher photon detection efficiency, more robustness and higher precision than photo-multiplier tubes. The FACT collaboration is investigating with which precision these devices can be operated on the long-term. Currently, the telescope is successfully operated from remote and robotic operation is under development. During the past months of operation, the foreseen monitoring program of the brightest known TeV blazars has been carried out, and first physics results have been obtained including a strong flare of Mrk501. An instantaneous flare alert system is already in a testing phase. This presentation will give an overview of the project and summarize its goals, status and first results

Radiation hardness qualification of PbWO4 scintillation crystals for the CMS Electromagnetic Calorimeter

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2010 IOPEnsuring the radiation hardness of PbWO4 crystals was one of the main priorities during the construction of the electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS experiment at CERN. The production on an industrial scale of radiation hard crystals and their certification over a period of several years represented a difficult challenge both for CMS and for the crystal suppliers. The present article reviews the related scientific and technological problems encountered

First results from the AX-PET demonstrator

The AX-PET demonstrator is based on a new concept in PET detectors, with LYSO crystals aligned along the z coordinate (patient's axis) and WLS (Wave-length shifter) strips placed orthogonal to them. This kind of structure permits to avoid parallax errors due to different depths of interaction of the photons in the crystals, to register the three coordinates of the impinging photon and to reconstruct Compton events. In this way both the spatial resolution and the sensitivity can be highly improved. Moreover, as both the LYSO crystals and the strips are readout via Geiger-mode Avalanche Photo Diodes (G-APDs) the detector is insensitive to magnetic fields and is then suitable to be used in a combined PET/MRI apparatus. A complete Monte Carlo simulation and dedicated reconstruction software, suited to the particular geometry arrangement, have been developed. The two final modules, each composed by 48 crystals and 156 WLS strips have been built and fully characterized in a dedicated test set-up. The results on the performances of the system obtained with a 22Na point source (0.25 mm diameter) are reported

Intercalibration of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS experiment at start-up

Calibration of the relative response of the individual channels of the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter of the CMS detector was accomplished, before installation, with cosmic ray muons and test beams. One fourth of the calorimeter was exposed to a beam of high energy electrons and the relative calibration of the channels, the intercalibration, was found to be reproducible to a precision of about 0.3%. Additionally, data were collected with cosmic rays for the entire ECAL barrel during the commissioning phase. By comparing the intercalibration constants obtained with the electron beam data with those from the cosmic ray data, it is demonstrated that the latter provide an intercalibration precision of 1.5% over most of the barrel ECAL. The best intercalibration precision is expected to come from the analysis of events collected in situ during the LHC operation. Using data collected with both electrons and pion beams, several aspects of the intercalibration procedures based on electrons or neutral pions were investigated

Measurement of W Polarisation at LEP

The three different helicity states of W bosons produced in the reaction e+ e- -> W+ W- -> l nu q q~ at LEP are studied using leptonic and hadronic W decays. Data at centre-of-mass energies \sqrt s = 183-209 GeV are used to measure the polarisation of W bosons, and its dependence on the W boson production angle. The fraction of longitudinally polarised W bosons is measured to be 0.218 \pm 0.027 \pm 0.016 where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic, in agreement with the Standard Model expectation