Efficient Antihydrogen Detection in Antimatter Physics by Deep Learning

Antihydrogen is at the forefront of antimatter research at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator. Experiments aiming to test the fundamental CPT symmetry and antigravity effects require the efficient detection of antihydrogen annihilation events, which is performed using highly granular tracking detectors installed around an antimatter trap. Improving the efficiency of the antihydrogen annihilation detection plays a central role in the final sensitivity of the experiments. We propose deep learning as a novel technique to analyze antihydrogen annihilation data, and compare its performance with a traditional track and vertex reconstruction method. We report that the deep learning approach yields significant improvement, tripling event coverage while simultaneously improving performance by over 5% in terms of Area Under Curve (AUC)

The Polar Regions of Cassiopeia A: The Aftermath of a Gamma Ray Burst?

Probably not, but it is interesting nevertheless to investigate just how close Cas A might have come to generating such an event. Focusing on the northeast jet filaments, we analyze the polar regions of the recently acquired very deep 1 Ms Chandra X-ray observation. We infer that the so-called "jet" regions are indeed due to jets emanating from the explosion center, and not due to polar cavities in the circumstellar medium at the time of explosion. We place limits on the equivalent isotropic explosion energy in the polar regions (around 2.3 x 10^52 ergs), and the opening angle of the x-ray emitting ejecta (around 7 degrees), which give a total energy in the NE jet of order 10^50 ergs; an order of magnitude or more lower than inferred for "typical" GRBs. While the Cas A progenitor and explosion exhibit many of the features associated with GRB hosts, e.g. extensive presupernova mass loss and rotation, and jets associated with the explosion, we speculate that the recoil of the compact central object, with velocity 330 km/s, may have rendered the jet unstable. In such cases the jet rapidly becomes baryon loaded, if not truncated altogether. Although unlikely to have produced a gamma ray burst, the jets in Cas A suggest that such outflows may be common features of core-collapse SNe.Comment: 35 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Ap

Statistique mensuelle de la viande. 1968 N° 4 APRIL-AVRIL = Monthly statistiques of meat. 1968 No. 4 April

In high energy experiments such as active beam dump searches for rare decays and missing energy events, the beam purity is a crucial parameter. In this paper we present a technique to reject heavy charged particle contamination in the 100 GeV electron beam of the H4 beam line at CERN SPS. The method is based on the detection with BGO scintillators of the synchrotron radiation emitted by the electrons passing through a bending dipole magnet. A 100 GeV pi- beam is used to test the method in the NA64 experiment resulting in a suppression factor of 10−5 while the efficiency for electron detection is 95%. The spectra and the rejection factors are in very good agreement with the Monte Carlo simulation. The reported suppression factors are significantly better than previously achieved.ISSN:0168-9002ISSN:1872-957

Dark sectors 2016 Workshop: community report

This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016, summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter and forces at masses beneath the weak-scale, the status of this broad international field, the important milestones motivating future exploration, and promising experimental opportunities to reach these milestones over the next 5-10 years

Severe early onset preeclampsia: short and long term clinical, psychosocial and biochemical aspects

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy specific disorder commonly defined as de novo hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks gestational age. It occurs in approximately 3-5% of pregnancies and it is still a major cause of both foetal and maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide1. As extensive research has not yet elucidated the aetiology of preeclampsia, there are no rational preventive or therapeutic interventions available. The only rational treatment is delivery, which benefits the mother but is not in the interest of the foetus, if remote from term. Early onset preeclampsia (<32 weeks’ gestational age) occurs in less than 1% of pregnancies. It is, however often associated with maternal morbidity as the risk of progression to severe maternal disease is inversely related with gestational age at onset2. Resulting prematurity is therefore the main cause of neonatal mortality and morbidity in patients with severe preeclampsia3. Although the discussion is ongoing, perinatal survival is suggested to be increased in patients with preterm preeclampsia by expectant, non-interventional management. This temporising treatment option to lengthen pregnancy includes the use of antihypertensive medication to control hypertension, magnesium sulphate to prevent eclampsia and corticosteroids to enhance foetal lung maturity4. With optimal maternal haemodynamic status and reassuring foetal condition this results on average in an extension of 2 weeks. Prolongation of these pregnancies is a great challenge for clinicians to balance between potential maternal risks on one the eve hand and possible foetal benefits on the other. Clinical controversies regarding prolongation of preterm preeclamptic pregnancies still exist – also taking into account that preeclampsia is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the Netherlands5 - a debate which is even more pronounced in very preterm pregnancies with questionable foetal viability6-9. Do maternal risks of prolongation of these very early pregnancies outweigh the chances of neonatal survival? Counselling of women with very early onset preeclampsia not only comprises of knowledge of the outcome of those particular pregnancies, but also knowledge of outcomes of future pregnancies of these women is of major clinical importance. This thesis opens with a review of the literature on identifiable risk factors of preeclampsia

Measurement of the principal quantum number distribution in a beam of antihydrogen atoms

The ASACUSA (Atomic Spectroscopy And Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons) collaboration plans to measure the ground-state hyperfine splitting of antihydrogen in a beam at the CERN Antiproton Decelerator with initial relative precision of 10−6 or better, to test the fundamental CPT (combination of charge conjugation, parity transformation and time reversal) symmetry between matter and antimatter. This challenging goal requires a polarised antihydrogen beam with a sufficient number of antihydrogen atoms in the ground state. The first measurement of the quantum state distribution of antihydrogen atoms in a low magnetic field environment of a few mT is described. Furthermore, the data-driven machine learning analysis to identify antihydrogen events is discussed.ISSN:1434-6060ISSN:1434-607

Neural-network-driven proton decay sensitivity in the p → v - K+ channel using large liquid argon time projection chambers

We report on an updated sensitivity for proton decay via p -> (nu) over barK(+) at large, dual phase liquid argon time projection chambers (LAr TPCs). Our work builds on a previous study in which several nucleon decay modes have been simulated and analyzed [1]. At the time several assumptions were needed to be made on the detector and the backgrounds. Since then, the community has made progress in defining these, and the computing power available enables us to fully simulate and reconstruct large samples in order to perform a better estimate of the sensitivity to proton decay. In this work, we examine the benchmark channel p -> (nu) over barK(+)which was previously found to be one of the cleanest channels. Using an improved neutrino event generator and a fully simulated LAr TPC detector response combined with a dedicated neural network for kaon identification, we demonstrate that a lifetime sensitivity of tau /Br (p -> (nu) over barK(+)) > 7 x 10(34) years at 90% confidence level can be reached at an exposure of 1 megaton year in quasi-background-free conditions, confirming the superiority of the LAr TPC over other technologies to address the challenging proton decay modes.ISSN:1126-6708ISSN:1029-847

Antihydrogen Formation and Level Population Evolution During Passage Through a Positron Plasma

Antihydrogen is at the focus of antimatter research. One of the main aims is to perform a direct test of the fundamental CPT symmetry by comparing the spectroscopic properties of the ground-state antihydrogen atom with those of the hydrogen atom. Incurrent experiments synthetized antihydrogen is formed mainly via the three-body recombination process after mixing positron and antiproton clouds together in a cryogenic trap. The major three-body formation process populates mainly highly excited Rydberg states, therefore before the antihydrogen atoms reach the ground-state additional processes may take place, such as collisional (de)excitation, ionization and spontaneous or stimulated radiative transitions. We have used a classical-trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) code along with regular atomic codes to generate a scattering database of rate coefficients in various experimentally achievable magnetic field strengths and in low temperature positron plasma conditions. We used these rates to calculate the evolution of level population of antihydrogen during formation, scattering and flight within our experimental conditions [1]. The model and the results are presented

Improved limits on a hypothetical X(16.7) boson and a dark photon decaying into e+ e- pairs

The improved results on a direct search for a new X(16.7  MeV) boson that could explain the anomalous excess of e+e− pairs observed in the decays of the excited 8Be∗ nuclei (“Berillium or X17 anomaly”) are reported. Interestingly, new recent results in the nuclear transitions of another nucleus, 4He, seems to support this anomaly spurring the need for an independent measurement. If the X boson exists, it could be produced in the bremsstrahlung reaction e−Z→e−ZX by a high energy beam of electrons incident on the active target in the NA64 experiment at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron and observed through its subsequent decay into e+e− pairs. No evidence for such decays was found from the combined analysis of the data samples with total statistics corresponding to 8.4×1010 electrons on target collected in 2017 and 2018. This allows one to set new limits on the X−e− coupling in the range 1.2×10−4≲εe≲6.8×10−4, excluding part of the parameter space favored by the X17 anomaly, and setting new bounds on the mixing strength of photons with dark photons (A′) with a mass ≲24  MeV. For the 2018 run, the setup was optimized to probe the region of parameter space characterized by a large coupling ε. This allowed a significant improvement in sensitivity despite a relatively modest increase in statistics.ISSN:1550-7998ISSN:0556-2821ISSN:1550-236