173 research outputs found
The RHIC Zero Degree Calorimeter
High Energy collisions of nuclei usually lead to the emission of evaporation
neutrons from both ``beam'' and ``target'' nuclei. At the RHIC heavy ion
collider with 100GeV/u beam energy, evaporation neutrons diverge by less than
milliradians from the beam axis Neutral beam fragments can be detected
downstream of RHIC ion collisions (and a large aperture Accelerator dipole
magnet) if 4 mr but charged fragments in the same angular range
are usually too close to the beam trajectory.
In this 'zero degree' region produced particles and other secondaries deposit
negligible energy when compared with that of beam fragmentation neutrons.
The purpose of the RHIC zero degree calorimeters (ZDC's) is to detect
neutrons emitted within this cone along both beam directions and measure their
total energy (from which we calculate multiplicity). The ZDC coincidence of the
2 beam directions is a minimal bias selection of heavy ion collisions. This
makes it useful as an event trigger and a luminosity monitor\cite{baltz} and
for this reason we built identical detectors for all 4 RHIC experiments.
The neutron multiplicity is also known to be correlated with event geometry
\cite{appel} and will be used to measure collision centrality in mutual beam
int eractions.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figure
On-sky results of the adaptive optics MACAO for the new IR-spectrograph CRIRES at VLT
The adaptive optics MACAO has been implemented in 6 focii of the VLT
observatory, in three different flavors. We present in this paper the results
obtained during the commissioning of the last of these units, MACAO-CRIRES.
CRIRES is a high-resolution spectrograph, which efficiency will be improved by
a factor two at least for point-sources observations with a NGS brighter than
R=15. During the commissioning, Strehl exceeding 60% have been observed with
fair seeing conditions, and a general description of the performance of this
curvature adaptive optics system is done.Comment: SPIE conference 2006, Advances in adaptive optics, 12 pages, 11
figure
The HADES Tracking System
The tracking system of the dielectron spectrometer HADES at GSI Darmstadt is
formed out of 24 low-mass, trapezoidal multi-layer drift chambers providing in
total about 30 square meter of active area. Low multiple scattering in the in
total four planes of drift chambers before and after the magnetic field is
ensured by using helium-based gas mixtures and aluminum cathode and field
wires. First in-beam performance results are contrasted with expectations from
simulations. Emphasis is placed on the energy loss information, exploring its
relevance regarding track recognition.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, presented at the 10th Vienna Conference on
Instrumentation, Vienna, February 2004, to be published in NIM A (special
issue
Inclusive pion and eta production in p+Nb collisions at 3.5 GeV beam energy
Data on inclusive pion and eta production measured with the dielectron
spectrometer HADES in the reaction p+93Nb at a kinetic beam energy of 3.5 GeV
are presented. Our results, obtained with the photon conversion method,
supplement the rather sparse information on neutral meson production in
proton-nucleus reactions existing for this bombarding energy regime. The
reconstructed e+e-e+e- transverse-momentum and rapidity distributions are
confronted with transport model calculations, which account fairly well for
both pi0 and eta production.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Physical Review
Searching a Dark Photon with HADES
We present a search for the e+e- decay of a hypothetical dark photon, also
names U vector boson, in inclusive dielectron spectra measured by HADES in the
p (3.5 GeV) + p, Nb reactions, as well as the Ar (1.756 GeV/u) + KCl reaction.
An upper limit on the kinetic mixing parameter squared epsilon^{2} at 90% CL
has been obtained for the mass range M(U) = 0.02 - 0.55 GeV/c2 and is compared
with the present world data set. For masses 0.03 - 0.1 GeV/c^2, the limit has
been lowered with respect to previous results, allowing now to exclude a large
part of the parameter region favoured by the muon g-2 anomaly. Furthermore, an
improved upper limit on the branching ratio of 2.3 * 10^{-6} has been set on
the helicity-suppressed direct decay of the eta meson, eta-> e+e-, at 90% CL
Recommended from our members
Pion production and the nuclear equation of state
There has been considerable recent interest in the nuclear equation of state and how it may be determined in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. In these collisions extremely high temperatures are reached and compression to densities several times that of normal nuclear matter are predicted. This affords us the unique opportunity to study, in a somewhat controlled manner, the behavior of nuclear matter under these extreme conditions. If the observables that are measured in experiments can be related in a quantitative way to state variables of the system then the equation of state can be extracted. This relation plays a very important role in understanding the formation and collapse of supernovae and the stability and structure of neutron stars. Furthermore, it can be used to test and constrain field theoretical approaches to nuclear matter and to help to better understand the dynamics of high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions. In this presentation the relationship between the nuclear equation of state and relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions will be discussed with an emphasis on how to extract the former. That a high density state of the collision should exist will be shown. One observable, namely the pion multiplicity, will be shown to survive the succeeding stages of the collision process to provide information on the equation of state at high densities. The resulting equation of state will be presented and discussed in the light of recent theoretical development. 34 refs., 12 figs
Inclusive Dielectron Production in Ar+KCl Collisions at 1.76 AGeV studied with HADES
Results of the HADES measurement of inclusive dielectron production in Ar+KCl
collisions at a kinetic beam energy of 1.76 AGeV are presented. For the first
time, high mass resolution spectroscopy was performed. The invariant mass
spectrum of dielectrons is compared with predictions of UrQMD and HSD transport
codes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures - To appear in the conference proceedings for
Quark Matter 2009, March 30 - April 4, Knoxville, Tennesse
SINFONI - Integral Field Spectroscopy at 50 milli-arcsecond resolution with the ESO VLT
SINFONI is an adaptive optics assisted near-infrared integral field
spectrometer for the ESO VLT. The Adaptive Optics Module (built by the ESO
Adaptive Optics Group) is a 60-elements curvature-sensor based system, designed
for operations with natural or sodium laser guide stars. The near-infrared
integral field spectrometer SPIFFI (built by the Infrared Group of MPE)
provides simultaneous spectroscopy of 32 x 32 spatial pixels, and a spectral
resolving power of up to 3300. The adaptive optics module is in the phase of
integration; the spectrometer is presently tested in the laboratory. We provide
an overview of the project, with particular emphasis on the problems
encountered in designing and building an adaptive optics assisted spectrometer.Comment: This paper was published in Proc. SPIE, 4841, pp. 1548-1561 (2003),
and is made available as an electronic reprint with permission of SPIE.
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