278 research outputs found
An LED pulser for measuring photomultiplier linearity
A light-emitting diode (LED) pulser for testing the low-rate response of a
photomultiplier tube (PMT) to scintillator-like pulses has been designed,
developed, and implemented. This pulser is intended to simulate 80 ns full
width at half maximum photon pulses over the dynamic range of the PMT, in order
to precisely determine PMT linearity. This particular design has the advantage
that, unlike many LED test rigs, it does not require the use of multiple
calibrated LEDs, making it insensitive to LED gain drifts. Instead, a
finite-difference measurement is made using two LEDs which need not be
calibrated with respect to one another. These measurements give a better than
1% mapping of the response function, allowing for the testing and development
of particularly linear PMT bases.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
From Tetraquark to Hexaquark: A Systematic Study of Heavy Exotics in the Large Limit
A systematic study of multiquark exotics with one or heavy quarks in
the large limit is presented. By binding a chiral soliton to a heavy
meson, either a normal -quark baryon or an exotic -quark baryon
is obtained. By replacing the heavy quark with heavy antiquarks, exotic
-quark and -quark mesons are obtained. When , they are
just the normal triquark baryon , the exotic pentaquark baryon , tetraquark di-meson and the hexaquark
di-baryon respectively. Their
stabilities and decays are also discussed. In particular, it is shown that the
``heavy to heavy'' semileptonic decays are described by the Isgur--Wise form
factors of the normal baryons.Comment: 14 pages in REVTeX, no Figure
Upgraded photon calorimeter with integrating readout for Hall A Compton Polarimeter at Jefferson Lab
The photon arm of the Compton polarimeter in Hall A of Jefferson Lab has been
upgraded to allow for electron beam polarization measurements with better than
1% accuracy. The data acquisition system (DAQ) now includes an integrating
mode, which eliminates several systematic uncertainties inherent in the
original counting-DAQ setup. The photon calorimeter has been replaced with a
Ce-doped GSO crystal, which has a bright output and fast response, and works
well for measurements using the new integrating method at electron beam
energies from 1 to 6 GeV.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure
Shrinking a large dataset to identify variables associated with increased risk of Plasmodium falciparum infection in Western Kenya
Large datasets are often not amenable to analysis using traditional single-step approaches. Here, our general objective was to apply imputation techniques, principal component analysis (PCA), elastic net and generalized linear models to a large dataset in a systematic approach to extract the most meaningful predictors for a health outcome. We extracted predictors for Plasmodium falciparum infection, from a large covariate dataset while facing limited numbers of observations, using data from the People, Animals, and their Zoonoses (PAZ) project to demonstrate these techniques: data collected from 415 homesteads in western Kenya, contained over 1500 variables that describe the health, environment, and social factors of the humans, livestock, and the homesteads in which they reside. The wide, sparse dataset was simplified to 42 predictors of P. falciparum malaria infection and wealth rankings were produced for all homesteads. The 42 predictors make biological sense and are supported by previous studies. This systematic data-mining approach we used would make many large datasets more manageable and informative for decision-making processes and health policy prioritization
Global Search for New Physics with 2.0/fb at CDF
Data collected in Run II of the Fermilab Tevatron are searched for
indications of new electroweak-scale physics. Rather than focusing on
particular new physics scenarios, CDF data are analyzed for discrepancies with
the standard model prediction. A model-independent approach (Vista) considers
gross features of the data, and is sensitive to new large cross-section
physics. Further sensitivity to new physics is provided by two additional
algorithms: a Bump Hunter searches invariant mass distributions for "bumps"
that could indicate resonant production of new particles; and the Sleuth
procedure scans for data excesses at large summed transverse momentum. This
combined global search for new physics in 2.0/fb of ppbar collisions at
sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV reveals no indication of physics beyond the standard model.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. Final version which appeared in Physical Review D
Rapid Communication
Observation of Orbitally Excited B_s Mesons
We report the first observation of two narrow resonances consistent with
states of orbitally excited (L=1) B_s mesons using 1 fb^{-1} of ppbar
collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the
Fermilab Tevatron. We use two-body decays into K^- and B^+ mesons reconstructed
as B^+ \to J/\psi K^+, J/\psi \to \mu^+ \mu^- or B^+ \to \bar{D}^0 \pi^+,
\bar{D}^0 \to K^+ \pi^-. We deduce the masses of the two states to be m(B_{s1})
= 5829.4 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2 and m(B_{s2}^*) = 5839.7 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2.Comment: Version accepted and published by Phys. Rev. Let
Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set
We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s
using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays
in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at
production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton
collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment
at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity.
We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the
B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2,
-1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in
agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model
value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by
other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012
Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy in Lambda Hypernuclei
The present status of hypernuclear gamma-ray spectroscopy with Hyperball is
summarized. We observed two gamma transitions of 16-Lambda-O(1- -> 1-,0-) and
obtained the strength of the Lambda-N tensor force. In 10B(K-,pi- gamma) data,
we did not observe the spin-flip M1 transition of 10-Lambda-B(2- -> 1-), but
gamma rays from hyperfragments such as 7-Lambda-Li(7/2+ -> 5/2+) and
9-Lambda-Be(3/2+ ->1/2+) were observed. In 11B(pi+,K+ gamma) data, we observed
six gamma transitions of 11_Lambda-B. We also attempted an inclusive gamma-ray
measurement with stopped K- beam.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 8th International Conference on Hypernuclear and
Strange Particle Physics (HYP2003), Newport News, Virginia, 14-18 Oct 2003,
to appear in Nuclear Physics
Parental origin of sequence variants associated with complex diseases
To access publisher full text version of this article. Please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links fieldEffects of susceptibility variants may depend on from which parent they are inherited. Although many associations between sequence variants and human traits have been discovered through genome-wide associations, the impact of parental origin has largely been ignored. Here we show that for 38,167 Icelanders genotyped using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chips, the parental origin of most alleles can be determined. For this we used a combination of genealogy and long-range phasing. We then focused on SNPs that associate with diseases and are within 500 kilobases of known imprinted genes. Seven independent SNP associations were examined. Five-one with breast cancer, one with basal-cell carcinoma and three with type 2 diabetes-have parental-origin-specific associations. These variants are located in two genomic regions, 11p15 and 7q32, each harbouring a cluster of imprinted genes. Furthermore, we observed a novel association between the SNP rs2334499 at 11p15 and type 2 diabetes. Here the allele that confers risk when paternally inherited is protective when maternally transmitted. We identified a differentially methylated CTCF-binding site at 11p15 and demonstrated correlation of rs2334499 with decreased methylation of that site.info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/21807
Gamma-induced background in the KATRIN main spectrometer
International audienceThe KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino (KATRIN) experiment aims to make a model-independent determination of the effective electron antineutrino mass with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c 2 . It investigates the kinematics of β -particles from tritium β -decay close to the endpoint of the energy spectrum. Because the KATRIN main spectrometer (MS) is located above ground, muon-induced backgrounds are of particular concern. Coincidence measurements with the MS and a scintillator-based muon detector system confirmed the model of secondary electron production by cosmic-ray muons inside the MS. Correlation measurements with the same setup showed that about 12% of secondary electrons emitted from the inner surface are induced by cosmic-ray muons, with approximately one secondary electron produced for every 17 muon crossings. However, the magnetic and electrostatic shielding of the MS is able to efficiently suppress these electrons, and we find that muons are responsible for less than 17% (90% confidence level) of the overall MS background
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