Pentaquark Search at HERMES

Evidence for a narrow baryon state at 1528 +- 2.6(stat) +- 2.1(syst) MeV is presented in quasi-real photoproduction on a deuterium target through the decay channel p,K0 to p,pi+,pi-. The statistical significance of the peak in the p,K0 invariant mass spectrum is 4 standard deviations and its extracted intrinsic width Gamma = 17 +- 9(stat) +- 3(syst) MeV. This state may be interpreted as the predicted S=+1 exotic Theta+ (uudd\bar{s}) pentaquark baryon.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, International Workshop PENTAQUARK04, SPring-8, Japan, July 200

Investigating reciprocity failure in 1.7-micron cut-off HgCdTe detectors

Flux dependent non-linearity (reciprocity failure) in HgCdTe NIR detectors with 1.7 micron cut-off was investigated. A dedicated test station was designed and built to measure reciprocity failure over the full dynamic range of near infrared detectors. For flux levels between 1 and 100,000 photons/sec a limiting sensitivity to reciprocity failure of 0.3%/decade was achieved. First measurements on several engineering grade 1.7 micron cut-off HgCdTe detectors show a wide range of reciprocity failure, from less than 0.5%/decade to about 10%/decade. For at least two of the tested detectors, significant spatial variation in the effect was observed. No indication for wavelength dependency was found. The origin of reciprocity failure is currently not well understood. In this paper we present details of our experimental set-up and show the results of measurements for several detectors.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, to appear in " Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation: High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy IV", Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 774

Okusno razdvojene kvarkovske polarizacije u HERMESU

Recent HERMES results are presented on the flavor decomposition of the sea quark helicity distributions in the nucleon from semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering. For the first time, a five component decomposition of quark helicity distributions using flavor tagging has been performed. The helicity distributions of the up and down quarks confirm the results obtained from inclusive deep inelastic scattering, however, there is no evidence for either a negative strange quark polarization or for a flavor asymmetry in the light sea polarization.Predstavljamo nedavne ishode mjerenja HERMES za okusno razdvajanje raspodjela heliciteta kvarkovskog mora u nukleonu zasnovane na polu-inkluzivnom dubokoneelastičnom raspršenju. Načinili smo prvo razdvajanje kvarkovskih raspodjela heliciteta na pet sastavnica primjenom označavanja okusa. Raspodjele heliciteta u i d kvarkova potvrđuju ishode mjerenja inkluzivnih duboko-neelastičnih raspršenja, međutim, ne nalazimo znakove niti za negativnu polarizaciju stranih kvarkova niti za asimetriju okusa u polarizaciji lakog mora

Precision Photometry to Study the Nature of Dark Energy

Over the past decade scientists have collected convincing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, leading to the conclusion that the content of our universe is dominated by a mysterious 'dark energy'. The fact that present theory cannot account for the dark energy has made the determination of the nature of dark energy central to the field of high energy physics. It is expected that nothing short of a revolution in our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics is required to fully understand the accelerating universe. Discovering the nature of dark energy is a very difficult task, and requires experiments that employ a combination of different observational techniques, such as type-Ia supernovae, gravitational weak lensing surveys, galaxy and galaxy cluster surveys, and baryon acoustic oscillations. A critical component of any approach to understanding the nature of dark energy is precision photometry. This report addresses just that. Most dark energy missions will require photometric calibration over a wide range of intensities using standardized stars and internal reference sources. All of the techniques proposed for these missions rely on a complete understanding of the linearity of the detectors. The technical report focuses on the investigation and characterization of 'reciprocity failure', a newly discovered count-rate dependent nonlinearity in the NICMOS cameras on the Hubble Space Telescope. In order to quantify reciprocity failure for modern astronomical detectors, we built a dedicated reciprocity test setup that produced a known amount of light on a detector, and to measured its response as a function of light intensity and wavelength

Polarization and relaxation of radon

Investigations of the polarization and relaxation of $^{209}$Rn by spin exchange with laser optically pumped rubidium are reported. On the order of one million atoms per shot were collected in coated and uncoated glass cells. Gamma-ray anisotropies were measured as a signal of the alignment (second order moment of the polarization) resulting from the combination of polarization and quadrupole relaxation at the cell walls. The temperature dependence over the range 130$^\circ$C to 220$^\circ$C shows the anisotropies increasing with increasing temperature as the ratio of the spin exchange polarization rate to the wall relaxation rate increases faster than the rubidium polarization decreases. Polarization relaxation rates for coated and uncoated cells are presented. In addition, improved limits on the multipole mixing ratios of some of the main gamma-ray transitions have been extracted. These results are promising for electric dipole moment measurements of octupole-deformed $^{223}$Rn and other isotopes, provided sufficient quantities of the rare isotopes can be produced.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Low-mass dark matter search results from full exposure of PandaX-I experiment

We report the results of a weakly-interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter search using the full 80.1\;live-day exposure of the first stage of the PandaX experiment (PandaX-I) located in the China Jin-Ping Underground Laboratory. The PandaX-I detector has been optimized for detecting low-mass WIMPs, achieving a photon detection efficiency of 9.6\%. With a fiducial liquid xenon target mass of 54.0\,kg, no significant excess event were found above the expected background. A profile likelihood analysis confirms our earlier finding that the PandaX-I data disfavor all positive low-mass WIMP signals reported in the literature under standard assumptions. A stringent bound on the low mass WIMP is set at WIMP mass below 10\,GeV/c$^2$, demonstrating that liquid xenon detectors can be competitive for low-mass WIMP searches.Comment: v3 as accepted by PRD. Minor update in the text in response to referee comments. Separating Fig. 11(a) and (b) into Fig. 11 and Fig. 12. Legend tweak in Fig. 9(b) and 9(c) as suggested by referee, as well as a missing legend for CRESST-II legend in Fig. 12 (now Fig. 13). Same version as submitted to PR