85 research outputs found
A fast tunable driver of light source for the TRIDENT Pathfinder experiment
TRIDENT (The tRopIcal DEep-sea Neutrino Telescope) is a proposed
next-generation neutrino telescope to be constructed in the South China Sea. In
September 2021, the TRIDENT Pathfinder experiment (TRIDENT EXplorer, T-REX for
short) was conducted to evaluate the in-situ optical properties of seawater.
The T-REX experiment deployed three digital optical modules at a depth of 3420
meters, including a light emitter module (LEM) and two light receiver modules
(LRMs) equipped with photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and cameras to detect light
signals. The LEM emits light in pulsing and steady modes. It features a fast
tunable driver to activate light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that emit
nanosecond-width light pulses with tunable intensity. The PMTs in the LRM
receive single photo-electron (SPE) signals with an average photon number of
approximately 0.3 per 1-microsecond time window, which is used to measure the
arrival time distribution of the SPE signals. The fast tunable driver can be
remotely controlled in real-time by the data acquisition system onboard the
research vessel, allowing for convenient adjustments to the driver's parameters
and facilitating the acquisition of high-quality experimental data. This paper
describes the requirements, design scheme, and test results of the fast tunable
driver, highlighting its successful implementation in the T-REX experiment and
its potential for future deep-sea experiments
Numerical Simulations of the Impacts of the Saharan Air Layer on Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Development
In this study, the role of the Saharan air layer (SAL) is investigated in the development and intensification of tropical cyclones (TCs) via modifying environmental stability and moisture, using multisensor satellite data, long-term TC track and intensity records, dust data, and numerical simulations with a state-of-the-art Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). The long-term relationship between dust and Atlantic TC activity shows that dust aerosols are negatively associated with hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, especially with the major hurricanes in the western Atlantic region. Numerical simulations with the WRF for specific cases during the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) experiment show that, when vertical temperature and humidity profiles from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) were assimilated into the model, detailed features of the warm and dry SAL, including the entrainment of dry air wrapping around the developing vortex, are well simulated. Active tropical disturbances are found along the southern edge of the SAL. The simulations show an example where the dry and warm air of the SAL intruded into the core of a developing cyclone, suppressing convection and causing a spin down of the vortical circulation. The cyclone eventually weakened. To separate the contributions from the warm temperature and dry air associated with the SAL, two additional simulations were performed, one assimilating only AIRS temperature information (AIRST) and one assimilating only AIRS humidity information (AIRSH) while keeping all other conditions the same. The AIRST experiments show almost the same simulations as the full AIRS assimilation experiments, whereas the AIRSH is close to the non-AIRS simulation. This is likely due to the thermal structure of the SAL leading to low-level temperature inversion and increased stability and vertical wind shear. These analyses suggest that dry air entrainment and the enhanced vertical wind shear may play the direct roles in leading to the TC suppression. On the other hand, the warm SAL temperature may play the indirect effects by enhancing vertical wind shear; increasing evaporative cooling; and initiating mesoscale downdrafts, which bring dry air from the upper troposphere to the lower levels
NASAs Mid-Atlantic Communities and Areas at Intensive Risk Demonstration: Translating Compounding Hazards to Societal Risk
Remote sensing provides a unique perspective on our dynamic planet, tracking changes and revealing the course of complex interactions. Long term monitoring and targeted observation combine with modeling and mapping to provide increased awareness of hydro-meteorological and geological hazards. Disasters often follow hazards and the goal of NASAs Disasters Program is to look at the earth as a highly coupled system to reduce risk and enable resilience. Remote sensing and geospatial science are used as tools to help answer critical questions that inform decisions. Data is not the same as information, nor does understanding of processes necessarily translate into decision support for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. Accordingly, NASA is engaging the scientific and decision-support communities to apply remote sensing, modeling, and related applications in Communities and Areas at Intensive Risk (CAIR). In 2017, NASAs Applied Sciences Disasters Program hosted a regional workshop to explore these issues with particular focus on coastal Virginia and North Carolina. The workshop brought together partners in academia, emergency management, and scientists from NASA and partnering federal agencies to explore capabilities among the team that could improve understanding of the physical processes related to these hazards, their potential impact to changing communities, and to identify methodologies for supporting emergency response and risk mitigation. The resulting initiative, the mid-Atlantic CAIR project, demonstrates the ability to integrate satellite derived earth observations and physical models into actionable, trusted knowledge. Severe storms and associated storm surge, sea level rise, and land subsidence coupled with increasing populations and densely populated, aging critical infrastructure often leave coastal regions and their communities extremely vulnerable. The integration of observations and models allow for a comprehensive understanding of the compounding risk experienced in coastal regions and enables individuals in all positions make risk-informed decisions. This initiative uses a representative storm surge case as a baseline to produce flood inundation maps. These maps predict building level impacts at current day and for sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence scenarios of the future in order to inform critical decisions at both the tactical and strategic levels. To accomplish this analysis, the mid-Atlantic CAIR project brings together Federal research activities with academia to examine coastal hazards in multiple ways: 1) reanalysis of impacts from 2011 Hurricane Irene, using numerical weather modeling in combination with coastal surge and hydrodynamic, urban inundation modeling to evaluate combined impact scenarios considering SLR and subsidence, 2) remote sensing of flood extent from available optical imagery, 3) adding value to remotely sensed flood maps through depth predictions, and 4) examining coastal subsidence as measured through time-series analysis of synthetic aperture radar observations. Efforts and results are published via ArcGIS story maps to communicate neighborhoods and infrastructure most vulnerable to changing conditions. Story map features enable time-aware flood mapping using hydrodynamic models, photographic comparison of flooding following Hurricane Irene, as well as visualization of heightened risk in the future due to SLR and land subsidence
Simulation study on the optical processes at deep-sea neutrino telescope sites
The performance of a large-scale water Cherenkov neutrino telescope relies
heavily on the transparency of the surrounding water, quantified by its level
of light absorption and scattering. A pathfinder experiment was carried out to
measure the optical properties of deep seawater in South China Sea with
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as light sources, photon multiplier tubes (PMTs)
and cameras as photon sensors. Here, we present an optical simulation program
employing the Geant4 toolkit to understand the absorption and scattering
processes in the deep seawater, which helps to extract the underlying optical
properties from the experimental data. The simulation results are compared with
the experimental data and show good agreements. We also verify the analysis
methods that utilize various observables of the PMTs and the cameras with this
simulation program, which can be easily adapted by other neutrino telescope
pathfinder experiments and future large-scale detectors.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figure
Implementation and performances of the IPbus protocol for the JUNO Large-PMT readout electronics
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a large neutrino
detector currently under construction in China. Thanks to the tight
requirements on its optical and radio-purity properties, it will be able to
perform leading measurements detecting terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos
in a wide energy range from tens of keV to hundreds of MeV. A key requirement
for the success of the experiment is an unprecedented 3% energy resolution,
guaranteed by its large active mass (20 kton) and the use of more than 20,000
20-inch photo-multiplier tubes (PMTs) acquired by high-speed, high-resolution
sampling electronics located very close to the PMTs. As the Front-End and
Read-Out electronics is expected to continuously run underwater for 30 years, a
reliable readout acquisition system capable of handling the timestamped data
stream coming from the Large-PMTs and permitting to simultaneously monitor and
operate remotely the inaccessible electronics had to be developed. In this
contribution, the firmware and hardware implementation of the IPbus based
readout protocol will be presented, together with the performances measured on
final modules during the mass production of the electronics
Mass testing of the JUNO experiment 20-inch PMTs readout electronics
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a multi-purpose,
large size, liquid scintillator experiment under construction in China. JUNO
will perform leading measurements detecting neutrinos from different sources
(reactor, terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos) covering a wide energy range
(from 200 keV to several GeV). This paper focuses on the design and development
of a test protocol for the 20-inch PMT underwater readout electronics,
performed in parallel to the mass production line. In a time period of about
ten months, a total number of 6950 electronic boards were tested with an
acceptance yield of 99.1%
Validation and integration tests of the JUNO 20-inch PMTs readout electronics
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is a large neutrino
detector currently under construction in China. JUNO will be able to study the
neutrino mass ordering and to perform leading measurements detecting
terrestrial and astrophysical neutrinos in a wide energy range, spanning from
200 keV to several GeV. Given the ambitious physics goals of JUNO, the
electronic system has to meet specific tight requirements, and a thorough
characterization is required. The present paper describes the tests performed
on the readout modules to measure their performances.Comment: 20 pages, 13 figure
Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO
Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical
events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before
(pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the
multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the
monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and
SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is
a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The
real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the
electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to
ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming
a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to
the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos
up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30 for the case
of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is
evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay
interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert,
can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the
next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure
Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO
JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve
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