Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2019 Annual Meeting of the APS Four Corners Section
Volume 64, Number 16
Friday–Saturday, October 11–12, 2019; Prescott, Arizona
Session E04: Neutrinos |
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Chair: Alysia Marino, CU Boulder Room: AC1 115 |
Friday, October 11, 2019 2:48PM - 3:12PM |
E04.00001: Prototype Detector for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment: ProtoDUNE-SP Invited Speaker: Michael Mooney The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international collaboration focused on studying neutrino oscillation over a long baseline (1300 km). DUNE will make use of a near detector and neutrino beam originating at Fermilab in Batavia, IL, and a far detector operating 1.5 km underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, South Dakota. The near and far detectors will use the LArTPC (Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber) technology to image neutrino interactions. The single-phase far-detector prototype, ProtoDUNE-SP, which is located at CERN and contains 0.77 kilotonnes of LAr, is currently the largest single-phase LArTPC in operation (since September 2018). ProtoDUNE-SP acts as a test and validation of the design for the single-phase far detector, making use of one full-scale unit of the current far detector design. Data taken using a charged particle test beam and operation in a large cosmic flux enable the study of detector calibrations and optimization of event reconstruction algorithms. In this talk, I will give an overview of the construction, commissioning, and operation of ProtoDUNE-SP with an emphasis on first data analysis and critical detector calibrations. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 11, 2019 3:12PM - 3:24PM |
E04.00002: ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN |
Friday, October 11, 2019 3:24PM - 3:36PM |
E04.00003: Energy Reconstruction for Low Energy Supernova Neutrinos Rachel Procter-Murphy, John LoSecco The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment is an international experiment through the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory that will study neutrinos. In this study, we examined at the detector effects on low energy supernova neutrinos in order to improve energy reconstruction at energies less than 40 MeV. In order to do this we looked at supernova neutrino events in a LarSoft detector simulator with and without background. We looked at the ratios between the true data and reconstructed data to identify the deficiencies of the detector, which we found to be low energies and high drift times. We also improved the ratio between the true and reconstructed data by applying the physical limits of the detector. The efficiency of the improved ratio of the clean data was 93.2\% and the efficiency of the improved ratio with the data with background was 82.6\%. We concluded that a second photon detector at the far wall of the detector would help improve the resolutions at high drift times and low energies. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 11, 2019 3:36PM - 3:48PM |
E04.00004: Improving light yield in a LAr veto for neutrinoless double beta decay searches Ryan Gibbons, Douglas Fields, Michael Gold, Dinesh Loomba, Neil McFadden The Large Enriched Germanium Experiment for Neutrinoless double beta Decay (LEGEND) is an upcoming experiment searching for neutrinoless double beta decay. This process has a predicted half-life of at least $10^{27}$ yrs in 76Ge, therefore reducing radioactive backgrounds that could mimic the expected signals is the largest challenge facing the experiment. A method that has been shown to work is to veto external backgrounds by surrounding the Ge detectors with a volume of liquid argon (LAr) scintillator. Our work is focused on improving the efficiency of the LAr veto by studying methods to maximize the scintillation light yield. With a LAr test stand we detect the scintillation using PMTs and measure the light yield by counting photons and characterizing the pulse shape. By measuring the lifetime of the triplet state in LAr we have demonstrated that the removal of impurities in argon greatly improves light yield. We plan to dope the LAr with ppm-levels of xenon, which has also been shown to improve light yield in small-scale detectors. Additionally, we are performing optical simulations with Geant4 to optimize the geometry of the Ge detectors and the light collection system, which will be used to inform the best design for the LEGEND experiment. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 11, 2019 3:48PM - 4:00PM |
E04.00005: Monte Carlo Simulation of Stopped Muon Monitor at DUNE Sergey Gitalov The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a project under construction designed to study neutrino oscillations. Neutrinos rarely interact, so other particles involved in the neutrino production must also be studied to indirectly infer about the neutrino beam that will be produced at Fermilab. Among those particles are muons, which are produced alongside muon neutrinos via hadron decays (mainly pions). In order to study these muons, a variety of detectors may be deployed in the muon alcove. One of them is the Stopped Muon Monitor (SMM). Unlike most other muon detectors, the SMM is designed to detect a small portion of the muon beam that will stop and decay inside. Both the muons and the decay e+/- will be detected through scintillation and Cherenkov radiation. The signal from multiple SMM will then be used for muon beam reconstruction. In order to test the SMM’s performance, a prototype at CU Boulder will collect data on cosmic ray muons. A Monte Carlo simulation (MC) is run to predict the SMM’s performance and compare the results to cosmic ray data in the future. The MC uses an accurate detector geometry, material composition, and a model for cosmic ray muon generation. Future adjustments to the simulation will be used to run simulations of the SMM in the beamline. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 11, 2019 4:00PM - 4:12PM |
E04.00006: Identifying Neutral Kaon Decays in the DUNE High-pressure TPC Near Detector System Susan Born The two major experimental components needed to measure neutrino oscillations are a far detector (FD), for oscillation measurements and a near detector (ND) for the un-oscillated neutrino spectra and to constrain systematic uncertainty. In the case of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), both the ND and the FD will utilize Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs). The ND will serve additionally to reduce the impact of imperfect neutrino-argon interaction models on data collected at the FD. This requires that the ND is a more capable detector than the FD. Thus, in addition to an LArTPC, the ND will contain a multi-purpose detector (MPD) to measure lower energy neutrino interactions on Ar than could be obtained with an LArTPC alone. The MPD will be a magnetized system containing a High-Pressure Gaseous Argon TPC (HPgTPC) surrounded by an ECAL. Reconstruction and simulation of experimental data in the HPgTPC will be performed with GArSoft, a simulation, reconstruction and analysis package under development for use with HPgTPCs. This talk will describe the HPGTPC and feature progress made towards demonstrating the capabilities of using neutral kaon~decays for energy calibration of the detector. [Preview Abstract] |
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