127 research outputs found
Study of Neutron-Induced Ionization in Helium and Argon Chamber Gases
Ion chambers used to monitor the secondary hadron and tertiary muon beam in
the NuMI neutrino beamline will be exposed to background particles, including
low energy neutrons produced in the beam dump. To understand these backgrounds,
we have studied Helium- and Argon-filled ionization chambers exposed to intense
neutron fluxes from PuBe neutron sources ( MeV). The sources emit
about 10 neutrons per second. The number of ion pairs in the chamber gas
volume per incident neutron is derived. While limited in precision because of a
large gamma ray background from the PuBe sources, our results are consistent
with the expectation that the neutrons interact purely elastically in the
chamber gas.Comment: accepted for publication in NIM
Beam Test of a Segmented Foil SEM Grid
A prototype Secondary-electron Emission Monitor (SEM) was installed in the 8
GeV proton transport line for the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab. The SEM is
a segmented grid made with 5 um Ti foils, intended for use in the 120 GeV NuMI
beam at Fermilab. Similar to previous workers, we found that the full
collection of the secondary electron signal requires a bias voltage to draw the
ejected electrons cleanly off the foils, and this effect is more pronounced at
larger beam intensity. The beam centroid and width resolutions of the SEM were
measured at beam widths of 3, 7, and 8 mm, and compared to calculations.
Extrapolating the data from this beam test, we expect a centroid and width
resolutions of 20um and 25 um, respectively, in the NuMI beam which has 1 mm
spot size.Comment: submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth.
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Geometrical interpretation of nonlinearities from a cylindrical pick-up
Electron neutrino tagging through tertiary lepton detection
We discuss an experimental technique aimed at tagging electron neutrinos in
multi-GeV artificial sources on an event-by-event basis. It exploits in a novel
manner calorimetric and tracking technologies developed in the framework of the
LHC experiments and of rare kaon decay searches. The setup is suited for
slow-extraction, moderate power beams and it is based on an instrumented decay
tunnel equipped with tagging units that intercept secondary and tertiary
leptons from the bulk of undecayed \pi^+ and protons. We show that the taggers
are able to reduce the \nue contamination originating from K_e3 decays by about
one order of magnitude. Only a limited suppression (~60%) is achieved for \nue
produced by the decay-in-flight of muons; for low beam powers, similar
performance as for K_e3 can be reached supplementing the tagging system with an
instrumented beam dump.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures; minor changes, version to appear in EPJ
Phenetic analysis of Panstrongylus megistus Burmeister, 1835 (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Triatominae) in the State of Paraná-Brazil
Homologous Flares and Magnetic Field Topology in Active Region NOAA 10501 on 20 November 2003
We present and interpret observations of two morphologically homologous
flares that occurred in active region (AR) NOAA 10501 on 20 November 2003. Both
flares displayed four homologous H-alpha ribbons and were both accompanied by
coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The central flare ribbons were located at the
site of an emerging bipole in the center of the active region. The negative
polarity of this bipole fragmented in two main pieces, one rotating around the
positive polarity by ~ 110 deg within 32 hours. We model the coronal magnetic
field and compute its topology, using as boundary condition the magnetogram
closest in time to each flare. In particular, we calculate the location of
quasiseparatrix layers (QSLs) in order to understand the connectivity between
the flare ribbons. Though several polarities were present in AR 10501, the
global magnetic field topology corresponds to a quadrupolar magnetic field
distribution without magnetic null points. For both flares, the photospheric
traces of QSLs are similar and match well the locations of the four H-alpha
ribbons. This globally unchanged topology and the continuous shearing by the
rotating bipole are two key factors responsible for the flare homology.
However, our analyses also indicate that different magnetic connectivity
domains of the quadrupolar configuration become unstable during each flare, so
that magnetic reconnection proceeds differently in both events.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Solar Physics (accepted
A Quantitative Model of Energy Release and Heating by Time-dependent, Localized Reconnection in a Flare with a Thermal Loop-top X-ray Source
We present a quantitative model of the magnetic energy stored and then
released through magnetic reconnection for a flare on 26 Feb 2004. This flare,
well observed by RHESSI and TRACE, shows evidence of non-thermal electrons only
for a brief, early phase. Throughout the main period of energy release there is
a super-hot (T>30 MK) plasma emitting thermal bremsstrahlung atop the flare
loops. Our model describes the heating and compression of such a source by
localized, transient magnetic reconnection. It is a three-dimensional
generalization of the Petschek model whereby Alfven-speed retraction following
reconnection drives supersonic inflows parallel to the field lines, which form
shocks heating, compressing, and confining a loop-top plasma plug. The
confining inflows provide longer life than a freely-expanding or
conductively-cooling plasma of similar size and temperature. Superposition of
successive transient episodes of localized reconnection across a current sheet
produces an apparently persistent, localized source of high-temperature
emission. The temperature of the source decreases smoothly on a time scale
consistent with observations, far longer than the cooling time of a single
plug. Built from a disordered collection of small plugs, the source need not
have the coherent jet-like structure predicted by steady-state reconnection
models. This new model predicts temperatures and emission measure consistent
with the observations of 26 Feb 2004. Furthermore, the total energy released by
the flare is found to be roughly consistent with that predicted by the model.
Only a small fraction of the energy released appears in the super-hot source at
any one time, but roughly a quarter of the flare energy is thermalized by the
reconnection shocks over the course of the flare. All energy is presumed to
ultimately appear in the lower-temperature T<20 MK, post-flare loops
Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather
The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees,
and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This
paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal
heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where
the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar
wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few
decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still
do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do
we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute
to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the
central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come
from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal
loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our
understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence,
stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to
unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We
also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data
analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and
theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue
connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space
Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure
Study of the B^0 Semileptonic Decay Spectrum at the Upsilon(4S) Resonance
We have made a first measurement of the lepton momentum spectrum in a sample
of events enriched in neutral B's through a partial reconstruction of B0 -->
D*- l+ nu. This spectrum, measured with 2.38 fb**-1 of data collected at the
Upsilon(4S) resonance by the CLEO II detector, is compared directly to the
inclusive lepton spectrum from all Upsilon(4S) events in the same data set.
These two spectra are consistent with having the same shape above 1.5 GeV/c.
From the two spectra and two other CLEO measurements, we obtain the B0 and B+
semileptonic branching fractions, b0 and b+, their ratio, and the production
ratio f+-/f00 of B+ and B0 pairs at the Upsilon(4S). We report b+/b0=0.950
(+0.117-0.080) +- 0.091, b0 = (10.78 +- 0.60 +- 0.69)%, and b+ = (10.25 +- 0.57
+- 0.65)%. b+/b0 is equivalent to the ratio of charged to neutral B lifetimes,
tau+/tau0.Comment: 14 page, postscript file also available at
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Observation of the Charmed Baryon Decays to , , and
We have observed two new decay modes of the charmed baryon into
and using data collected with the
CLEO II detector. We also present the first measurement of the branching
fraction for the previously observed decay mode . The branching fractions for these three modes relative to
are measured to be , , and , respectively.Comment: 12 page uuencoded postscript file, postscript file also available
through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
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