Nuclear pumped laser II

The first direct nuclear pumped laser using the He-2-(n,p) H-3 reaction is reported. Lasing took place on the 1.79 microns Ar I transition in a mixture of He-3-Ar at approximately 600 Torr total pressure. It was found that the electrically pulsed afterglow He-Ar laser had the same concentration profile as the nuclear pumped laser. As a result, nuclear lasing was also achieved in He-3-Xe (2.027 micron) and He-3-Kr (2.52 micron). Scaling of laser output with both thermal flux and total pressure as well as minority concentration has been completed. A peak output (He-3-Ar) of 3.7 watts has been achieved at a total pressure of 4 atm. Direct nuclear pumping of He-3-Ne has also been achieved. Nuclear pumping of a He-3-NF3 mixture was attempted, lasing in FI at approximately 7000 A, without success, although the potential lasing transitions appeared in spontaneous emission. Both NF3 and 238UF6 appear to quench spontaneous emission when they constitute more than 1% of the gas mixture

Recent ν\nus from IceCube

IceCube is a 1 km$^3$ neutrino detector now being built at the South Pole. Its 4800 optical modules will detect Cherenkov radiation from charged particles produced in neutrino interactions. IceCube will search for neutrinos of astrophysical origin, with energies from 100 GeV up to $10^{19}$ eV. It will be able to separate $\nu_e$, $\nu_\mu$ and $\nu_\tau$. In addition to detecting astrophysical neutrinos, IceCube will also search for neutrinos from WIMP annihilation in the Sun and the Earth, look for low-energy (10 MeV) neutrinos from supernovae, and search for a host of exotic signatures. With the associated IceTop surface air shower array, it will study cosmic-ray air showers. IceCube construction is now 50% complete. After presenting preliminary results from the partial detector, I will discuss IceCube's future plans.Comment: Invited talk presented at Neutrino 2008; 7 page

Status of neutrino astronomy

Astrophysical neutrinos can be produced in proton interactions of charged cosmic rays with ambient photon or baryonic fields. Cosmic rays are observed in balloon, satellite and air shower experiments every day, from below 1e9 eV up to macroscopic energies of 1e21 eV. The observation of different photon fields has been done ever since, today with detections ranging from radio wavelengths up to very high-energy photons in the TeV range. The leading question for neutrino astronomers is now which sources provide a combination of efficient proton acceleration with sufficiently high photon fields or baryonic targets at the same time in order to produce a neutrino flux that is high enough to exceed the background of atmospheric neutrinos. There are only two confirmed astrophysical neutrino sources up to today: the sun and SuperNova 1987A emit and emitted neutrinos at MeV energies. The aim of large underground Cherenkov telescopes like IceCube and KM3NeT is the detection of neutrinos at energies above 100 GeV. In this paper, recent developments of neutrino flux modeling for the most promising extragalactic sources, gamma ray bursts and active galactic nuclei, are presented.Comment: Talk given at Neutrino 2008, Christchurch (New Zealand) 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Search for unbound 15Be states in the 3n+12Be channel

15Be is expected to have low-lying 3/2+ and 5/2+ states. A first search did not observe the 3/2+ [A. Spyrou et al., Phys. Rev. C 84, 044309 (2011)], however, a resonance in 15Be was populated in a second attempt and determined to be unbound with respect to 14Be by 1.8(1) MeV with a tentative spin-parity assignment of 5/2+ [J. Snyder et al., Phys. Rev. C 88, 031303(R) (2013)]. Search for the predicted 15Be 3/2+ state in the three-neutron decay channel. A two-proton removal reaction from a 55 MeV/u 17C beam was used to populate neutron-unbound states in 15Be. The two-, three-, and four-body decay energies of the 12Be + neutron(s) detected in coincidence were reconstructed using invariant mass spectroscopy. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to extract the resonance and decay properties from the observed spectra. The low-energy regions of the decay energy spectra can be described with the first excited unbound state of 14Be (E_x=1.54 MeV, E_r=0.28 MeV). Including a state in 15Be that decays through the first excited 14Be state slightly improves the fit at higher energies though the cross section is small. A 15Be component is not needed to describe the data. If the 3/2+ state in 15Be is populated, the decay by three-neutron emission through 14Be is weak, less than or equal to 11% up to 4 MeV. In the best fit, 15Be is unbound with respect to 12Be by 1.4 MeV (unbound with respect to $14Be by 2.66 MeV) with a strength of 7%.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Physical Review

Status of neutrino astronomy

Astrophysical neutrinos can be produced in proton interactions of charged cosmic rays with ambient photon or baryonic fields. Cosmic rays are observed in balloon, satellite and air shower experiments every day, from below 1e9 eV up to macroscopic energies of 1e21 eV. The observation of different photon fields has been done ever since, today with detections ranging from radio wavelengths up to very high-energy photons in the TeV range. The leading question for neutrino astronomers is now which sources provide a combination of efficient proton acceleration with sufficiently high photon fields or baryonic targets at the same time in order to produce a neutrino flux that is high enough to exceed the background of atmospheric neutrinos. There are only two confirmed astrophysical neutrino sources up to today: the sun and SuperNova 1987A emit and emitted neutrinos at MeV energies. The aim of large underground Cherenkov telescopes like IceCube and KM3NeT is the detection of neutrinos at energies above 100 GeV. In this paper, recent developments of neutrino flux modeling for the most promising extragalactic sources, gamma ray bursts and active galactic nuclei, are presented.Comment: Talk given at Neutrino 2008, Christchurch (New Zealand) 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl