2,088 research outputs found

    A prototype personal aerosol sampler based on electrostatic precipitation and electrowetting-on-dielectric actuation of droplets

    Get PDF
    This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Open Government Licence. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ Crown Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The version of record (T. G. Foat, et al, 'A prototype personal aerosol sampler based on electrostatic precipitation and electrowetting-on-dielectric actuation of droplets', Journal of Aerosol Science, Vol. 95, pp. 43-53, May 2016) is available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2016.01.007.An electrostatic precipitator (ESP) based personal sampler with a laboratory based electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) concentrator could provide a high concentration rate personal aerosol sampler system. A prototype system has been developed based on the concept of a lightweight personal ESP collecting aerosol particles onto a hydrophobic surface followed by the use of an EWOD actuated droplet system to transfer the deposited sample into a microlitre size water droplet.A personal sampler system could provide military or civilian personnel with a wide area biological monitoring capability supplying information on who has been infected, what they have been infected with, how much material they were exposed to and possibly where and when they were infected. Current commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) personal sampler solutions can be bulky and use volumes of water to extract the sample that are typically a thousand times greater than the proposed method.Testing of the prototype ESP at a sample flow rate of 5Lmin-1 demonstrated collection efficiencies greater than 80% for sodium fluorescein particles larger than 4μm diameter and of approximately 50% at 1.5μm. The ESP-EWOD system collection efficiency measured for Bacillus atrophaeus (BG) spores with an air sample flow rate of 20L min-1 was 2.7% with a concentration rate of 1.9×105 min-1. This was lower than expected due to the corona ions from the ESP affecting the hydrophobicity of the collection surface and hence the EWOD efficiency. However, even with this low efficiency the concentration rate is more than an order of magnitude higher than the theoretical maximum of the best current COTS personal sampler. For an optimised system, ESP-EWOD system efficiency should be higher than 32% with a comparable increase in concentration rate.Peer reviewe

    Spatial resolution and efficiency of prototype sensors for the LHCb VELO Upgrade

    Get PDF
    A comprehensive study of the spatial resolution and detection efficiency of sensor prototypes developed for the LHCb VELO upgrade is presented. Data samples were collected at the CERN SPS H8 beam line using a hadron mixture of protons and pions with momenta of approximately 180 GeV/c. The sensor performance was characterised using both irradiated and non-irradiated sensors. Irradiated samples were subjected to a maximum fluence of 8×1015 1 MeV neq cm2\mathrm{8\times10^{15}~1~MeV~n_{eq}~cm^{-2}}, of both protons and neutrons. The spatial resolution is measured comparing the detected hits to the position as predicted by tracks reconstructed by the Timepix3 telescope. The resolution is presented for different applied bias voltages and track angles, sensor thickness and implant size.Comment: 18 pages, 15 Figure

    Improved performance of the LHCb Outer Tracker in LHC Run 2

    Full text link
    The LHCb Outer Tracker is a gaseous detector covering an area of 5×6m25\times 6 m^2 with 12 double layers of straw tubes. The performance of the detector is presented based on data of the LHC Run 2 running period from 2015 and 2016. Occupancies and operational experience for data collected in ppp p, pPb and PbPb collisions are described. An updated study of the ageing effects is presented showing no signs of gain deterioration or other radiation damage effects. In addition several improvements with respect to LHC Run 1 data taking are introduced. A novel real-time calibration of the time-alignment of the detector and the alignment of the single monolayers composing detector modules are presented, improving the drift-time and position resolution of the detector by 20\%. Finally, a potential use of the improved resolution for the timing of charged tracks is described, showing the possibility to identify low-momentum hadrons with their time-of-flight.Comment: 29 pages, 20 figures, minor changes to match the published versio

    Charge collection properties of prototype sensors for the LHCb VELO upgrade

    Full text link
    An extensive sensor testing campaign is presented, dedicated to measuring the charge collection properties of prototype candidates for the Vertex Locator (VELO) detector for the upgraded LHCb experiment. The charge collection is measured with sensors exposed to fluences of up to 8×1015 1 MeV neq cm28 \times 10^{15}~1~\mathrm{\,Me\kern -0.1em V}~ \mathrm{ \,n_{eq}}~{\mathrm{ \,cm}}^{-2}, as well as with nonirradiated prototypes. The results are discussed, including the influence of different levels of irradiation and bias voltage on the charge collection properties. Charge multiplication is observed on some sensors that were nonuniformly irradiated with 24 GeV protons, to the highest fluence levels. An analysis of the charge collection near the guard ring region is also presented, revealing significant differences between the sensor prototypes. All tested sensor variants succeed in collecting the minimum required charge of 6000 electrons after the exposure to the maximum fluence

    Study of WW boson production in association with beauty and charm

    Get PDF
    The associated production of a WW boson with a jet originating from either a light parton or heavy-flavor quark is studied in the forward region using proton-proton collisions. The analysis uses data corresponding to integrated luminosities of 1.0 and 2.0fb12.0\,{\rm fb}^{-1} collected with the LHCb detector at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, respectively. The WW bosons are reconstructed using the WμνW\to\mu\nu decay and muons with a transverse momentum, pTp_{\rm T}, larger than 20 GeV in the pseudorapidity range 2.0202.0 20 GeV and 2.2<η<4.22.2 < \eta < 4.2. The sum of the muon and jet momenta must satisfy pT>20p_{\rm T} > 20 GeV. The fraction of W+W+jet events that originate from beauty and charm quarks is measured, along with the charge asymmetries of the W ⁣+ ⁣bW\!+\!b and W ⁣+ ⁣cW\!+\!c production cross-sections. The ratio of the W+W+jet to Z+Z+jet production cross-sections is also measured using the ZμμZ\to\mu\mu decay. All results are in agreement with Standard Model predictions

    Study of BDKπ+πB^{-}\to DK^-\pi^+\pi^- and BDππ+πB^-\to D\pi^-\pi^+\pi^- decays and determination of the CKM angle γ\gamma

    Get PDF
    We report a study of the suppressed BDKπ+πB^-\to DK^-\pi^+\pi^- and favored BDππ+πB^-\to D\pi^-\pi^+\pi^- decays, where the neutral DD meson is detected through its decays to the Kπ±K^{\mp}\pi^{\pm} and CP-even K+KK^+K^- and π+π\pi^+\pi^- final states. The measurement is carried out using a proton-proton collision data sample collected by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0~fb1^{-1}. We observe the first significant signals in the CP-even final states of the DD meson for both the suppressed BDKπ+πB^-\to DK^-\pi^+\pi^- and favored BDππ+πB^-\to D\pi^-\pi^+\pi^- modes, as well as in the doubly Cabibbo-suppressed DK+πD\to K^+\pi^- final state of the BDππ+πB^-\to D\pi^-\pi^+\pi^- decay. Evidence for the ADS suppressed decay BDKπ+πB^{-}\to DK^-\pi^+\pi^-, with DK+πD\to K^+\pi^-, is also presented. From the observed yields in the BDKπ+πB^-\to DK^-\pi^+\pi^-, BDππ+πB^-\to D\pi^-\pi^+\pi^- and their charge conjugate decay modes, we measure the value of the weak phase to be γ=(7419+20)o\gamma=(74^{+20}_{-19})^{\rm o}. This is one of the most precise single-measurement determinations of γ\gamma to date.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures; All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://lhcbproject.web.cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/LHCbProjectPublic/LHCb-PAPER-2015-020.htm
    corecore