Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2011 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 56, Number 12
Wednesday–Saturday, October 26–29, 2011; East Lansing, Michigan
Session MC: Neutrinos II |
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Chair: Bruce Vogelaar, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Room: 101 |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 8:30AM - 8:42AM |
MC.00001: Radon Monitoring and Emanation Studies at the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake Keenan Thomas, Dongming Mei, Jaret Heise, Dan Durben In anticipation of low-background nuclear and particle astrophysics experiments to be situated underground at the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake our group has been researching factors relevant to radon underground at the Homestake Mine in Lead, SD. Continuous airborne monitoring of radon concentrations have been performed along the primary ventilation routes underground. Such measurements are useful for understanding the behavior of radon underground with respect to various ventilation conditions and will be of use in the design of experiments and underground laboratory infrastructure. In addition, iron oxide has been found to enhance the emanation of radon due to the co-precipitation of radium in the oxide layer. After decommissioning in 2003, the lower levels of the mine were allowed to fill with water, which prompted the formation of iron oxide upon submerged rock surfaces. A series of measurements including radon emanation tests have been performed upon rock and iron oxide samples to demonstrate this effect upon the airborne radon underground at Homestake. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 8:42AM - 8:54AM |
MC.00002: Cross-section measurements for neutron activation of long-lived radioisotopes in TeO$_{2}$ B.S. Wang, E.B. Norman, N.D. Scielzo, S.A. Wender, M. Devlin, A.R. Smith CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) is an experiment that will search for neutrinoless double-beta (0$\nu \beta \beta )$ decay. In CUORE, an array of 988 high-resolution, low-background TeO$_{2}$ bolometers will be operated at a temperature of 10 mK and will serve as both the source and the detector of 0$\nu \beta \beta $ decay. All sources of background that can obscure the 0$\nu \beta \beta $ decay signature must be characterized and well-understood. One of these sources is activation by cosmic ray neutrons. This process can produce long-lived radioisotopes in the TeO$_{2}$ bolometers. A reliable estimation of this background is essential but difficult to obtain because of the lack of cross-section data. Therefore, cross-section measurements have been carried out at LANSCE (Los Alamos Neutron Science Center). In these measurements, TeO$_{2}$ crystals have been exposed to a spectrum of neutrons mimicking the cosmic ray neutron spectrum. The cross-sections, which have been extracted using gamma-ray counting, will be used to obtain an estimate of the cosmogenic activation background that will be present in CUORE. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 8:54AM - 9:06AM |
MC.00003: Status of the SciBath detector for measurement of underground neutral particle fluxes R. Cooper, L. Garrison, H.-O. Meyer, T. Mikev, L. Rebenitsch, R. Tayloe The SciBath detector is a 90 liter liquid scintillator detector read out by a three dimensional grid of 768 wavelength-shifting fibers. Initially conceived as a charged particle detector for neutrino studies that could image charge particle tracks in all directions, it is also sensitive to fast neutrons (1-100 MeV) with high efficiency and good energy resolution. Across the neutron spectrum of interest, the detection efficiency and energy resolution are expected to be nearly 30\%. Furthermore, tracking algorithms are being developed to not only measure the neutron energy spectrum with high resolution but to image the neutron angular flux distribution. The apparatus is being commissioned and will be deployed in Fall 2011 to measure neutrinos and neutrons 100 meters underground in the Fermilab MINOS near-detector area. An overview of the detector performance during commissioning will be presented as well as the latest results from the deployment. These results can be extrapolated towards future deployments to measure the fast-neutron backgrounds at other underground facilities. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:06AM - 9:18AM |
MC.00004: Surface Performance of a Big Liquid Scintillation Detector for Measuring Neutrons Dongming Mei, Chao Zhang, Fred Gray Characterizing neutron background is extremely important to the success of rare event physics research such as neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter search. We developed a neutron detector that is built with an aluminum tube filled with 12 liter liquid scintillators. The detector is about one meter in length and five inches in diameter. The inner surface of the detector is painted with specular reflector and there are two 5" PMTs (Hamamatsu H4144) attached at both ends. The detector is well calibrated with cosmic muons and radioactive sources. Good neutron/gamma discrimination is found from few MeV to 20MeVs. We report the measured result for room neutrons at the surface. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:18AM - 9:30AM |
MC.00005: Simulation of Cosmogenic Background for Davis Cavern at Homestake Mine Chao Zhang, Dongming Mei Davis Cavern at Homestake Mine is selected as the site for LUX and Majorana experiments. The local cosmogenic background will directly affect their target sensitivity. Detailed mountain profile and averaged rock composition are considered for muon attenuation from surface to the Davis Cavern. The muon energy spectrum is then used in a full Monte Carlo simulation to understand the cosmic ray muon induced background in the Cavern. We will present the simulated results in detail. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:30AM - 9:42AM |
MC.00006: LENS Prototyping Status Report S. Derek Rountree The LENS collaboration's goal is the construction of a low energy neutrino spectrometer (LENS) that will measure the entire solar neutrino spectrum above 114keV. In an effort to reach this goal we have developed a two phase prototype program. The first of these is microLENS, a small prototype to study the light transmission in the as built LENS scintillation lattice---a novel detector method of high segmentation in a large liquid scintillator detector. The microLENS prototype is currently being finished and deployed at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility (KURF) near Virginia Tech. This prototype will be the main topic of this talk. I will discuss the methods and schemes of the program during the first phases of running with minimal channels instrumented ($\sim $41 compared to full coverage 216). After construction of the microLENS detector we will finalize designs for the miniLENS prototype and have the miniLENS prototype running shortly thereafter. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:42AM - 9:54AM |
MC.00007: KATRIN: Measuring the Mass Scale of Neutrinos Noah Oblath Over the past decade, experiments studying neutrinos from atmospheric, solar, and reactor sources have shown conclusively that neutrinos change flavor and, as a consequence, have a small but finite mass. However, the scale of neutrino masses remains an open question that is of great importance for many areas of physics. The most direct method to measure the neutrino mass scale is still via beta decay. The talk will focus primarily on the status of the KArlsruhe TRItium Neutrino experiment (KATRIN), currently under construction. KATRIN combines an ultra-luminous molecular windowless gaseous tritium source with a high-resolution integrating spectrometer to gain sensitivity to the absolute mass scale of neutrinos. The projected sensitivity of the experiment on the neutrino mass is 0.2 eV at 90\% C.L. In this talk I will discuss the status of the KATRIN experiment. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 29, 2011 9:54AM - 10:06AM |
MC.00008: Project 8: Toward a radio frequency based measurement of Neutrino Mass Jared Kofron Efforts to measure the electron neutrino mass require measuring a distortion in the beta decay spectrum produced by the kinematics of the 3 body decay. The Project 8 experiment employs a novel approach to electron energy measurement using radio frequency techniques which promises a unique combination of scalability, superb resolution, and low background. A beta decay electron trapped in a strong magnetic field will emit cyclotron radiation (27 Ghz at B=1T), where the frequency of that cyclotron radiation depends on the total energy of the electron due to relativistic effects. Therefore, observing the emitted radiation provides a non-destructive method for measuring the total electron energy and therefore determining the neutrino mass. A prototype experiment is under construction, and current status and results will be presented. The results of the prototype construction are expected to be of value in estimating the ultimate sensitivity of such a measurement technique. [Preview Abstract] |
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