Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2017 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 62, Number 11
Wednesday–Saturday, October 25–28, 2017; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Session HH: Mini-Symposium on Instrumentation for Physics Beyond the Standard Model I |
Hide Abstracts |
Chair: Chris Swank, California Institute of Technology Room: Marquis B |
Friday, October 27, 2017 8:30AM - 9:06AM |
HH.00001: Instrumentation for Physics Beyond the Standard Model Overview Invited Speaker: Kent Leung The hunt for new physics beyond the standard model has motivated exciting nuclear physics experiments that seek to: uncover new sources of charge-parity violation required for baryogengesis, reveal if neutrinos are their own antiparticle, determine the neutrino mass scale and hierarchy, investigate the properties of antimatter, and discover new interactions that subtly alter measurable properties such as lifetimes, radii, magnetic moments, and decay correlation parameters. These challenging experiments have pushed the demands on instrumentation to unprecedented levels of sensitivity. Common threads that stitch together these diverse experiments include: trapping neutral particles for exceptionally long times with electromagnetic fields or with nuclear potentials; generation of highly homogeneous, large and small electromagnetic fields; understanding the complex motion of charged and uncharged particles; measuring and controlling precession and orbital frequencies using new precision techniques; development of materials with high radio, isotopic, or magnetic purity; and deployment in cryogenic and underground environments. This overview talk will provide an introduction of these experimental principles and requirements for the subsequent talks in this mini-symposium. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 27, 2017 9:06AM - 9:18AM |
HH.00002: Gas Electron Multipler (GEM) detectors for parity-violating electron scattering experiments at Jefferson Lab John Matter, Kondo Gnanvo, Nilanga Liyanage The JLab Parity Violation In Deep Inelastic Scattering (PVDIS) experiment will use the upgraded 12 GeV beam and proposed Solenoidal Large Intensity Device (SoLID) to measure the parity-violating electroweak asymmetry in DIS of polarized electrons with high precision in order to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. Unlike many prior Parity-Violating Electron Scattering (PVES) experiments, PVDIS is a single-particle tracking experiment. Furthermore the experiment's high luminosity combined with the SoLID spectrometer's open configuration creates high-background conditions. As such, the PVDIS experiment has the most demanding tracking detector needs of any PVES experiment to date, requiring precision detectors capable of operating at high-rate conditions in PVDIS's full production luminosity. Developments in large-area GEM detector R\&D and SoLID simulations have demonstrated that GEMs provide a cost-effective solution for PVDIS's tracking needs. The integrating-detector-based JLab Measurement Of Lepton Lepton Electroweak Reaction (MOLLER) experiment requires high-precision tracking for acceptance calibration. Large-area GEMs will be used as tracking detectors for MOLLER as well. The conceptual designs of GEM detectors for the PVDIS and MOLLER experiments will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 27, 2017 9:18AM - 9:30AM |
HH.00003: Statistical Distribution of Electrical Breakdown in Liquid Helium Nguyen Phan, Steven Clayton, Takeyasu Ito, John Ramsey, Wanchun Wei Realization of large electric fields in noble liquid has many important applications in nuclear, particle, astroparticle physics. These include time projection chambers as well as the neutron electric dipole moment search experiment performed in superfluid helium, currently developed to be mounted at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Although the electrical breakdown, which limits the applicable electric potential and field, in liquid helium is poorly understood, the breakdown is thought to be initiated at electrode surfaces. In order to obtain insight into this phenomenon, we collected data on the distribution of the breakdown voltage and the time before breakdown for small electrodes (effective area ~ 1 cm in diameter) immersed in liquid helium, at various temperature and pressures. In order to study the effect of the surface properties, both electropolished and mechanically polished stainless steel electrodes were studied. In this talk, we will describe the measurement, present the results, and our interpretation of the results. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 27, 2017 9:30AM - 9:42AM |
HH.00004: Instrumentation for the search of possible exotic forces using polarized low-energy neutrons Libertad Barr\'{o}n-Palos The limits on possible exotic forces of mesoscopic range that depend on the relative momentum and spin of at least one of the interacting particles are scarce due to the challenges that macroscopic amounts of polarized matter impose on precision experiments. In particular, a possible interaction between polarized particles and matter, mediated by the exchange of a light vector boson with weak couplings to matter and relatively long range, can be investigated using low-energy neutrons, whose energy and momentum transfers are ideal to access the mesoscopic distance scale and can be formed into intense beams with high polarization. Since the possible exotic interaction of interest would manifest itself as a forward tilt in the spin of transversely polarized neutrons passing near a perpendicular planar mass, the Neutron Spin Rotation collaboration implemented an experiment to search for this force using a sensitive slow neutron polarimeter in combination with a fifth-force target. In this talk I will describe two key components of the apparatus, the input and output coils that transport the neutron spin in and out of the virtually zero magnetic field region where the target is immersed, and the rotating 4-quadrant array of planar masses that constitutes the target. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 27, 2017 9:42AM - 9:54AM |
HH.00005: Polarized multiple scattering effect in Qweak Ciprian Gal The Qweak experiment has measured the weak charge of the proton to unprecedented precision. In order to achieve this, all possible sources of systematic uncertainty had to be carefully controlled. This talk will present the work underpinning one of the leading systematic uncertainties in the measurement. Multiple scattering of transversely polarized electrons in the lead pre-radiator produced an additional asymmetry in the quartz integrating detectors. Analyzing powers inside the lead corresponding to Mott scattering and a two photon exchange model were implemented in a Geant4 simulation. A correction based on the physical differences between the left half and the right half of each Qweak detector was obtained. Potential implications to other parity violating experiments will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 27, 2017 9:54AM - 10:06AM |
HH.00006: Light Collection in the nEDM@SNS Experiment Vince Cianciolo, Yuri Efremenko, Lorenzo Fabris, Kent Leung, Paul Mueller, Seppo Penttila The experimental signal in the nEDM@SNS experiment is UV ($\lambda \approx $80nm) scintillation light produced by n-$^{\mathrm{3}}$He capture reaction products in superfluid Helium. Deuterated polymer coatings doped with TPB applied to the measurement cell surface enables long ultracold neutron storage times while shifting the scintillation light to blue wavelengths so that it can be captured by wavelength-shifting (WLS) optical fibers and transported several meters to an array of silicon photomultipliers (SIPMs). A full-featured small-scale prototype has been used to optimize system design (TPB coating, WLS fiber readout, SIPM processing electronics). The system design and performance results will be described. [Preview Abstract] |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700