2,198 research outputs found
Potential for measuring the longitudinal and lateral profile of muons in TeV air showers with IACTs
Muons are copiously produced within hadronic extensive air showers (EAS)
occurring in the Earth's atmosphere, and are used by particle air shower
detectors as a means of identifying the primary cosmic ray which initiated the
EAS. Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs), designed for the
detection of gamma-ray initiated EAS for the purposes of Very High Energy (VHE)
gamma-ray astronomy, are subject to a considerable background signal due to
hadronic EAS. Although hadronic EAS are typically rejected for gamma-ray
analysis purposes, single muons produced within such showers generate clearly
identifiable signals in IACTs and muon images are routinely retained and used
for calibration purposes. For IACT arrays operating with a stereoscopic
trigger, when a muon triggers one telescope, other telescopes in IACT arrays
usually detect the associated hadronic EAS. We demonstrate for the first time
the potential of IACT arrays for competitive measurements of the muon content
of air showers, their lateral distribution and longitudinal profile of
production slant heights in the TeV energy range. Such information can provide
useful input to hadronic interaction models.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in
Astroparticle Physic
Measurement of negatively charged pion spectra in inelastic p+p interactions at = 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c
We present experimental results on inclusive spectra and mean multiplicities
of negatively charged pions produced in inelastic p+p interactions at incident
projectile momenta of 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c ( 6.3, 7.7,
8.8, 12.3 and 17.3 GeV, respectively). The measurements were performed using
the large acceptance NA61/SHINE hadron spectrometer at the CERN Super Proton
Synchrotron.
Two-dimensional spectra are determined in terms of rapidity and transverse
momentum. Their properties such as the width of rapidity distributions and the
inverse slope parameter of transverse mass spectra are extracted and their
collision energy dependences are presented. The results on inelastic p+p
interactions are compared with the corresponding data on central Pb+Pb
collisions measured by the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS.
The results presented in this paper are part of the NA61/SHINE ion program
devoted to the study of the properties of the onset of deconfinement and search
for the critical point of strongly interacting matter. They are required for
interpretation of results on nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions.Comment: Numerical results available at: https://edms.cern.ch/document/1314605
Updates in v3: Updated version, as accepted for publicatio
Measurements of , K, p and spectra in proton-proton interactions at 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c with the NA61/SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS
Measurements of inclusive spectra and mean multiplicities of ,
K, p and produced in inelastic p+p interactions at
incident projectile momenta of 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c ( 6.3,
7.7, 8.8, 12.3 and 17.3 GeV, respectively) were performed at the CERN Super
Proton Synchrotron using the large acceptance NA61/SHINE hadron spectrometer.
Spectra are presented as function of rapidity and transverse momentum and are
compared to predictions of current models. The measurements serve as the
baseline in the NA61/SHINE study of the properties of the onset of
deconfinement and search for the critical point of strongly interacting matter
NA61/SHINE facility at the CERN SPS: beams and detector system
NA61/SHINE (SPS Heavy Ion and Neutrino Experiment) is a multi-purpose
experimental facility to study hadron production in hadron-proton,
hadron-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at the CERN Super Proton
Synchrotron. It recorded the first physics data with hadron beams in 2009 and
with ion beams (secondary 7Be beams) in 2011.
NA61/SHINE has greatly profited from the long development of the CERN proton
and ion sources and the accelerator chain as well as the H2 beamline of the
CERN North Area. The latter has recently been modified to also serve as a
fragment separator as needed to produce the Be beams for NA61/SHINE. Numerous
components of the NA61/SHINE set-up were inherited from its predecessors, in
particular, the last one, the NA49 experiment. Important new detectors and
upgrades of the legacy equipment were introduced by the NA61/SHINE
Collaboration.
This paper describes the state of the NA61/SHINE facility - the beams and the
detector system - before the CERN Long Shutdown I, which started in March 2013
Multiplicity and transverse momentum fluctuations in inelastic proton-proton interactions at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron
Measurements of multiplicity and transverse momentum fluctuations of charged
particles were performed in inelastic p+p interactions at 20, 31, 40, 80 and
158 GeV/c beam momentum. Results for the scaled variance of the multiplicity
distribution and for three strongly intensive measures of multiplicity and
transverse momentum fluctuations \$\Delta[P_{T},N]\$, \$\Sigma[P_{T},N]\$ and
\$\Phi_{p_T}\$ are presented. For the first time the results on fluctuations
are fully corrected for experimental biases. The results on multiplicity and
transverse momentum fluctuations significantly deviate from expectations for
the independent particle production. They also depend on charges of selected
hadrons. The string-resonance Monte Carlo models EPOS and UrQMD do not describe
the data. The scaled variance of multiplicity fluctuations is significantly
higher in inelastic p+p interactions than in central Pb+Pb collisions measured
by NA49 at the same energy per nucleon. This is in qualitative disagreement
with the predictions of the Wounded Nucleon Model. Within the statistical
framework the enhanced multiplicity fluctuations in inelastic p+p interactions
can be interpreted as due to event-by-event fluctuations of the fireball energy
and/or volume.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figure
Search for astrophysical sources of neutrinos using cascade events in IceCube
The IceCube neutrino observatory has established the existence of a flux of
high-energy astrophysical neutrinos inconsistent with the expectation from
atmospheric backgrounds at a significance greater than . This flux has
been observed in analyses of both track events from muon neutrino interactions
and cascade events from interactions of all neutrino flavors. Searches for
astrophysical neutrino sources have focused on track events due to the
significantly better angular resolution of track reconstructions. To date, no
such sources have been confirmed. Here we present the first search for
astrophysical neutrino sources using cascades interacting in IceCube with
deposited energies as small as 1 TeV. No significant clustering was observed in
a selection of 263 cascades collected from May 2010 to May 2012. We show that
compared to the classic approach using tracks, this statistically-independent
search offers improved sensitivity to sources in the southern sky, especially
if the emission is spatially extended or follows a soft energy spectrum. This
enhancement is due to the low background from atmospheric neutrinos forming
cascade events and the additional veto of atmospheric neutrinos at declinations
.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabl
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