Precision muon reconstruction in Double Chooz

We describe a muon track reconstruction algorithm for the reactor anti-neutrino experiment Double Chooz. The Double Chooz detector consists of two optically isolated volumes of liquid scintillator viewed by PMTs, and an Outer Veto above these made of crossed scintillator strips. Muons are reconstructed by their Outer Veto hit positions along with timing information from the other two detector volumes. All muons are fit under the hypothesis that they are through-going and ultrarelativistic. If the energy depositions suggest that the muon may have stopped, the reconstruction fits also for this hypothesis and chooses between the two via the relative goodness-of-fit. In the ideal case of a through-going muon intersecting the center of the detector, the resolution is ∼40 mm in each transverse dimension. High quality muon reconstruction is an important tool for reducing the impact of the cosmogenic isotope background in Double Chooz.National Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. Department of Energ

Simulations of Pion Production in the Daedalus Target

DAEδALUS, the Decay At-rest Experiment for δCP at a Laboratory for Underground Science will look for evidence of CP-violation in the neutrino sector, an ingredient in theories that seek to explain the matter/antimatter asymmetry in our universe. It will make a precision measurement of the oscillations of muon antineutrinos to electron antineutrinos using multiple neutrino sources created by low-cost compact cyclotrons. The experiment utilizes decay-at-rest neutrino beams produced by 800 MeV protons impinging a beam target of graphite and copper. Two well established Monte Carlo codes, MARS and GEANT4, have been used to optimise the design and the performance of the target. A study of the results obtained with these two codes is presented in this paper

ArgoNeuT and the Neutrino-Argon Charged Current Quasi-Elastic Cross Section

ArgoNeuT, a Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber in the NuMI beamline at Fermilab, has recently collected thousands of neutrino and anti-neutrino events between 0.1 and 10 GeV. The experiment will, among other things, measure the cross section of the neutrino and anti-neutrino Charged Current Quasi-Elastic interaction and analyze the vertex activity associated with such events. These topics are discussed along with ArgoNeuT's automated reconstruction software, currently capable of fully reconstructing the muon and finding the event vertex in neutrino interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, presented at the International Nuclear Physics Conference, Vancouver, Canada, July 4-9, 2010, to be published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Detectable clonal mosaicism and its relationship to aging and cancer

In an analysis of 31,717 cancer cases and 26,136 cancer-free controls from 13 genome-wide association studies, we observed large chromosomal abnormalities in a subset of clones in DNA obtained from blood or buccal samples. We observed mosaic abnormalities, either aneuploidy or copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity, of >2 Mb in size in autosomes of 517 individuals (0.89%), with abnormal cell proportions of between 7% and 95%. In cancer-free individuals, frequency increased with age, from 0.23% under 50 years to 1.91% between 75 and 79 years (P = 4.8 × 10(-8)). Mosaic abnormalities were more frequent in individuals with solid tumors (0.97% versus 0.74% in cancer-free individuals; odds ratio (OR) = 1.25; P = 0.016), with stronger association with cases who had DNA collected before diagnosis or treatment (OR = 1.45; P = 0.0005). Detectable mosaicism was also more common in individuals for whom DNA was collected at least 1 year before diagnosis with leukemia compared to cancer-free individuals (OR = 35.4; P = 3.8 × 10(-11)). These findings underscore the time-dependent nature of somatic events in the etiology of cancer and potentially other late-onset diseases

Female chromosome X mosaicism is age-related and preferentially affects the inactivated X chromosome

To investigate large structural clonal mosaicism of chromosome X, we analysed the SNP microarray intensity data of 38,303 women from cancer genome-wide association studies (20,878 cases and 17,425 controls) and detected 124 mosaic X events42Mb in 97 (0.25%) women. Here we show rates for X-chromosome mosaicism are four times higher than mean autosomal rates; X mosaic events more often include the entire chromosome and participants with X events more likely harbour autosomal mosaic events. X mosaicism frequency increases with age (0.11% in 50-year olds; 0.45% in 75-year olds), as reported for Y and autosomes. Methylation array analyses of 33 women with X mosaicism indicate events preferentially involve the inactive X chromosome. Our results provide further evidence that the sex chromosomes undergo mosaic events more frequently than autosomes, which could have implications for understanding the underlying mechanisms of mosaic events and their possible contribution to risk for chronic diseases

Female chromosome X mosaicism is age-related and preferentially affects the inactivated X chromosome

To investigate large structural clonal mosaicism of chromosome X, we analysed the SNP microarray intensity data of 38,303 women from cancer genome-wide association studies (20,878 cases and 17,425 controls) and detected 124 mosaic X events >2 Mb in 97 (0.25%) women. Here we show rates for X-chromosome mosaicism are four times higher than mean autosomal rates; X mosaic events more often include the entire chromosome and participants with X events more likely harbour autosomal mosaic events. X mosaicism frequency increases with age (0.11% in 50-year olds; 0.45% in 75-year olds), as reported for Y and autosomes. Methylation array analyses of 33 women with X mosaicism indicate events preferentially involve the inactive X chromosome. Our results provide further evidence that the sex chromosomes undergo mosaic events more frequently than autosomes, which could have implications for understanding the underlying mechanisms of mosaic events and their possible contribution to risk for chronic diseases

Background-independent measurement of θ[subscript 13] in Double Chooz

The oscillation results published by the Double Chooz Collaboration in 2011 and 2012 rely on background models substantiated by reactor-on data. In this analysis, we present a background-model-independent measurement of the mixing angle θ[subscript 13] by including 7.53 days of reactor-off data. A global fit of the observed antineutrino rates for different reactor power conditions is performed, yielding a measurement of bothθ[subscript 13] and the total background rate. The results on the mixing angle are improved significantly by including the reactor-off data in the fit, as it provides a direct measurement of the total background rate. This reactor rate modulation analysis considers antineutrino candidates with neutron captures on both Gd and H, whose combination yields sin[superscript 2](2θ[subscript 13]) = 0.102 ± 0.028(stat.) ± 0.033(syst.). The results presented in this study are fully consistent with the ones already published by Double Chooz, achieving a competitive precision. They provide, for the first time, a determination of θ[subscript 13] that does not depend on a background model.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.

Search for neutrino–antineutrino oscillations with a reactor experiment

The disappearance of reactor antineutrinos in the Double Chooz experiment is used to investigate the possibility of neutrino–antineutrino oscillations arising due to the breakdown of Lorentz invariance. We find no evidence for this phenomenon and set the first limits on 15 coefficients describing neutrino–antineutrino mixing within the framework of the Standard-Model Extension.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (PHY-1205175)MIT Department of Physics Pappalardo Program (Fellowship

Precision [bar over v][subscript e]-electron scattering measurements with IsoDAR to search for new physics

IsoDAR provides a pure and intense [bar over v][subscript e] source with an average energy of 6.5 MeV produced through [superscript 8]Li β decay. This source can be paired with a large scintillator detector, such as KamLAND, to produce a sample of [bar over v][subscript e]-electron scatters that is more than 5 times larger than what has been collected before. Such a sample would allow for a 3.2% measurement of sin[superscript 2]θ[subscript W] and a sensitive search for nonstandard interactions.National Science Foundation (U.S.