Measuring cosmogenic Li9 background in a reactor neutrino experiment

Cosmogenic isotopes 9Li and 8He produced in the detector are the most problematic background in the reactor neutrino experiments designed to determine precisely the neutrino mixing angle theta13. The average time interval of cosmic-ray muons in the detector is often on the order of the lifetimes of the 9Li and 8He isotopes. We have developed a method for determining this kind of background from the distribution of time since last muon for muon rate up to about 20 Hz when the background-to-signal ratio is small, on the order of a few percents.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures. To appear in NIM

Hindrance of the excitation of the Hoyle state and the ghost of the 22+2^+_2 state in 12^{12}C

While the Hoyle state (the isoscalar $0^+_2$ excitation at 7.65 MeV in $^{12}$C) has been observed in almost all the electron and $\alpha$ inelastic scattering experiments, the second $2^+$ excited state of $^{12}$C at $E_{\rm x}\approx 10$ MeV, believed to be an excitation of the Hoyle state, has not been clearly observed in these measurements excepting the high-precision \aap experiments at $E_\alpha=240$ and 386 MeV. Given the (spin and isospin zero) $\alpha$-particle as a good probe for the nuclear isoscalar excitations, it remains a puzzle why the peak of the $2^+_2$ state could not be clearly identified in the measured \aap spectra. To investigate this effect, we have performed a microscopic folding model analysis of the \ac scattering data at 240 and 386 MeV in both the Distorted Wave Born Approximation (DWBA) and coupled-channel (CC) formalism, using the nuclear transition densities given by the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) approach and a complex CDM3Y6 density dependent interaction. Although AMD predicts a very weak transition strength for the direct $(0^+_1\to 2^+_2)$ excitation, our detailed analysis has shown evidence that a weak \emph{ghost} of the $2^+_2$ state could be identified in the 240 MeV \aap data for the $0^+_3$ state at 10.3 MeV, when the CC effects by the indirect excitation of the $2^+_2$ state are taken into account. Based on the same AMD structure input and preliminary \aap data at 386 MeV, we have estimated relative contributions from the $2^+_2$ and $0^+_3$ states to the excitation of $^{12}$C at $E_{\rm x}\approx 10$ MeV as well as possible contamination by $3^-_1$ state.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.

Missing monopole strength of the Hoyle state in the inelastic α\alpha+12^{12}C scattering

Analyses of the inelastic $\alpha$+$^{12}$C scattering at medium energies have indicated that the strength of the Hoyle state (the isoscalar 0$^+_2$ excitation at 7.65 MeV in $^{12}$C) seems to exhaust only 7 to 9% of the monopole energy weighted sum rule (EWSR), compared to about 15% of the EWSR extracted from inelastic electron scattering data. The full monopole transition strength predicted by realistic microscopic $\alpha$-cluster models of the Hoyle state can be shown to exhaust up to 22% of the EWSR. To explore the missing monopole strength in the inelastic $\alpha$+$^{12}$C scattering, we have performed a fully microscopic folding model analysis of the inelastic $\alpha$+$^{12}$C scattering at $E_{\rm lab}=104$ to 240 MeV using the 3-$\alpha$ resonating group wave function of the Hoyle state obtained by Kamimura, and a complex density-dependent M3Y interaction newly parametrized based on the Brueckner Hartree Fock results for nuclear matter. Our folding model analysis has shown consistently that the missing monopole strength of the Hoyle state is not associated with the uncertainties in the analysis of the $\alpha$+$^{12}$C scattering, but is most likely due to the short lifetime and weakly bound structure of this state which significantly enhances absorption in the exit $\alpha$+$^{12}$C$^*(0^+_2)$ channel.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physics Letters