Measurements of Shock Effects Recorded by Hayabusa Samples

We requested and have been approved for 5 Hayabusa samples in order definitively establish the degree of shock experienced by the regolith of asteroid Itokawa, and to devise a bridge between shock determinations by standard light optical petrography, crystal structures as determined by synchrotron X-ray diffraction (SXRD), and degree of crystallinity as determined by electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) [1,2]. As of the writing of this abstract we are awaiting the approved samples. We propose measurements of astromaterial crystal structures and regolith processes. The proposed research work will improve our understanding of how small, primitive solar system bodies formed and evolved, and improve understanding of the processes that determine the history and future of habitability of environments on other solar system bodies. The results of the proposed research will directly enrich the ongoing asteroid and comet exploration missions by NASA, JAXA and ESA, and broaden our understanding of the origin and evolution of small bodies in the early solar system, and elucidate the nature of asteroid and comet regolith

Relative contributions of lattice distortion and orbital ordering to resonant x-ray scattering in manganites

We investigated the origin of the energy splitting observed in the resonant x-ray scattering (RXS) in manganites. Using thin film samples with controlled lattice parameters and orbital states at a fixed orbital filling, we estimated that the contribution of the interatomic Coulomb interaction relative to the Jahn-Teller mechanism is insignificant and at most 0.27. This indicates that RXS probes mainly Jahn-Teller distortion in manganites.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Crystallographic Study of Itokawa Particle, RA-QD02-0127 by Using Energy-Scanning X-Ray Diffraction Method with Synchrotron Radiation

The petrographic study of Itokawa particle, RA-QD02-0127 has been performed by SEM-EDS and optical microscope observations. The purpose of this study is to understand better the metamorphic and impact shock history of asteroid Itokawa, and other S-class asteroids

Distillation of Liquid Xenon to Remove Krypton

A high performance distillation system to remove krypton from xenon was constructed, and a purity level of Kr/Xe = $\sim 3 \times 10^{-12}$ was achieved. This development is crucial in facilitating high sensitivity low background experiments such as the search for dark matter in the universe.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figure

The Little Review on Leptogenesis

This is a brief review on the scenario of baryogenesis through leptogenesis. Leptogenesis is an appealing scenario that may relate the observed baryon asymmetry in the Universe to the low-energy neutrino data. In this review talk, particular emphasis is put on recent developments on the field, such as the flavourdynamics of leptogenesis and resonant leptogenesis near the electroweak phase transition. It is illustrated how these recent developments enable the modelling of phenomenologically predictive scenarios that can directly be tested at the LHC and indirectly in low-energy experiments of lepton-number and lepton-flavour violation.Comment: 15 pages, based on a plenary presentation given at the DISCRETE'08 Symposium, 11-16 December 2008, Valencia, Spai

Scintillation-only Based Pulse Shape Discrimination for Nuclear and Electron Recoils in Liquid Xenon

In a dedicated test setup at the Kamioka Observatory we studied pulse shape discrimination (PSD) in liquid xenon (LXe) for dark matter searches. PSD in LXe was based on the observation that scintillation light from electron events was emitted over a longer period of time than that of nuclear recoil events, and our method used a simple ratio of early to total scintillation light emission in a single scintillation event. Requiring an efficiency of 50% for nuclear recoil retention we reduced the electron background to 7.7\pm1.1(stat)\pm1.2 0.6(sys)\times10-2 at energies between 4.8 and 7.2 keVee and to 7.7\pm2.8(stat)\pm2.5 2.8(sys)\times10-3 at energies between 9.6 and 12 keVee for a scintillation light yield of 20.9 p.e./keV. Further study was done by masking some of that light to reduce this yield to 4.6 p.e./keV, the same method results in an electron event reduction of 2.4\pm0.2(stat)\pm0.3 0.2(sys)\times10-1 for the lower of the energy regions above. We also observe that in contrast to nuclear recoils the fluctuations in our early to total ratio for electron events are larger than expected from statistical fluctuations.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figure

Technical design and performance of the NEMO3 detector

The development of the NEMO3 detector, which is now running in the Frejus Underground Laboratory (L.S.M. Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane), was begun more than ten years ago. The NEMO3 detector uses a tracking-calorimeter technique in order to investigate double beta decay processes for several isotopes. The technical description of the detector is followed by the presentation of its performance.Comment: Preprint submitted to Nucl. Instrum. Methods A Corresponding author: Corinne Augier ([email protected]