Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS April Meeting
Volume 54, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, May 2–5, 2009; Denver, Colorado
Session W13: Neutrino Physics III |
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Sponsoring Units: DNP Room: Plaza Court 3 |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 10:45AM - 10:57AM |
W13.00001: Systematic Effects of a Gaseous Argon Detector for Anti-Neutrino Scatters Kareem Kazkaz, Adam Bernstein, Michael Foxe, Chris Hagmann, Igor Jovanovic, Peter Sorensen, Wolfgang Stoeffl, Celeste Winant Dual-phase, noble-element detectors are a useful choice for searching for coherent neutrino scatters, given their low energy threshold and electron transport properties. We have constructed a single-phase argon detector to study the systematics of the gaseous region of a planned dual-phase detector, as well as to measure the nuclear quenching factor of gaseous argon at a nuclear recoil energy of 8 keV. We will report on our progress to improve the signal from our single-phase detector, including verification of our optical response model, gas purification, fiducialization of the active volume, and anticipated gas content at cryogenic temperatures. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 10:57AM - 11:09AM |
W13.00002: Search for a bosonic component in the neutrino wavefunction W. Tornow, J.H. Esterline, M.F. Kidd, A.S. Barabash, V.I. Umatov It has been argued by Dolgov and Smirnov [1] that neutrinos may obey a more general symmetry which consists of Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein components. The violation of the Pauli exclusion principle for neutrinos would allow for a Bose condensate of neutrinos, which in turn could explain parts or all of the dark matter in the universe. A violation of the spin-statistics relation for neutrinos must show up in reactions with two neutrinos or two antineutrinos. Thus, two-neutrino double-beta decay is a prime candidate. The ``wrong'' neutrino statistics not only modifies the energy and angular distributions of the emitted electron, but it also strongly affects the 2$\nu\beta\beta$ decay rates to excited states in daughter nuclei [2]. Here we focus on 2$\nu\beta\beta$ data of $^{100}$Mo to excited states in $^{100}$Ru to set bounds on an assumed bosonic component to neutrino statistics. According to [2] the half-life ratio for transitions to the 1st excited 0$^+_1$ and the 0$^+_{gs}$ ground state is 61 for pure fermionic and 73 for pure bosonic antineutrinos. Using our data for the 0$^+_1$ transition and the NEMO-3 results for the 0$^+_{gs}$ transition we obtain for this ratio the value 77$^{+25}_{-16}$. Transitions to excited 2$^+$ states are about a factor of 100 more sensitive to the assumed neutrino statistics. Searches for such transitions in $^{100}$Ru are currently underway. [1] A.D. Dolgov and A.Yu. Smirnov, Phys. Lett. B 621 (2005) 1. [2] A.S. Barabash et al., Nucl. Phys. B 783 (2007) 90. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
W13.00003: Nontrivial Vacuum Effect in Flavor Mixing Problem Nick Luhring, Chueng-Ryong Ji One of the most popular inquiries in particle physics today is the flavor mixing problem as we see in the neutrino oscillation phenomena. Although the flavor mixing problem has been explored with the Pontecorvo formalism in quantum mechanics, more advances have been made in our understanding through the quantum field theory. By taking the effects of the coherent vacuum, the quantum field theory offers more accuracy to the flavor mixing problem than quantum mechanics. In this presentation, we discuss the unitary inequivalence between the flavor vacuum and the mass vacuum in quantum field theory and describe its consequence to the flavor mixing problem in neutrino oscillations. We show the nontrivial vacuum effect as it relates to the neutrino oscillation problem and compare it with the difference in the time evolution of the two mixing pseudoscalar meson fields (e.g.$\eta-\eta^\prime$ system) between the quantum field theory and the quantum mechanics. We also explore an analogy between coupled harmonic oscillators and flavor mixing problem and discuss more heuristically the difference between the trivial vacuum and the coherent vacuum. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
W13.00004: ArgoNeuT: A Physics-Minded Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber Test Stand Joshua Spitz ArgoNeuT is a 170 liter Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) neutrino detector set in the on-axis NuMI beamline at Fermilab. The experiment's research/design goals and physics possibilities, including a charged current quasi-elastic cross section and M$_{A}$ parameter measurement, are reviewed. Also, the results of the above-ground cosmic ray commissioning run with accompanying event displays and reconstructed muon tracks and the current status of the experiment are shown. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
W13.00005: Optical Properties of Gd-Loaded Liquid Scintillator and Purified Water Johnny Goett The performance of water Cerenkov and scintillation detectors have a critical dependence upon the attenuation of light in the visible and near UV region of the electromagnetic spectrum (370-600 nm). New data has been obtained with a high precision apparatus constructed from simple materials. We will present measurements of the optical properties of liquid water and metal loaded liquid scintillators, with a focus on research and design for forthcoming neutrino experiments. The usefulness of this data will be demonstrated in the design of the Daya Bay experiments muon-veto and antineutrino detectors. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
W13.00006: Propects For Short Baseline Neutrino Experiments Geoffrey Mills A review of the status of current short baseline neutrino physics experiments will be presented. A discussion will be made of some of the possibilities available for the future of MiniBooNE and the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
W13.00007: NuSOnG: high-precision neutrino scattering at the TeVatron Javier Duarte A new high-statistics, high-energy neutrino scattering experiment, NuSOnG (Neutrinos Scatting on Glass) has been proposed to study neutrino scattering at high energy with extremlely high precision. I present the conceptual design of the experiment, which allows for probing for new physics at the Terascale. One interaction to which NuSOnG may be sensitive is anomaly-produced photons which results in $\nu + N \rightarrow \nu + N + \gamma$ \footnote{J. A. Harvey, \emph{et. al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{99}, 261601 (2007)}. A Monte Carlo study of this interaction in the NuSOnG detector exhibits the detector's potential. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
W13.00008: Mass difference of $^{115}$In and $^{115}$Sn S. Caldwell, G. Savard, J. Clark, J. Fallis, D. Lascar, G. Li, K. Sharma, M. Sternberg, J. Van Schelt At the Canadian Penning Trap mass spectrometer we have measured the atomic mass difference $\Delta M$ between the ground states of $^{115}$In and $^{115}$Sn with uncertainty below 0.5 keV. Our measurement was occasioned by a reported observation of a $\beta^{-}$ decay from the ground state of $^{115}$In ($9/2+$) to the first excited state of $^{115}$Sn ($3/2+$). Based on the known value of $\Delta M$, this hypothetical decay was known to have a ``$Q$ value'' of 2$\pm$4 keV. If positive, this value would be among the smallest for any known $\beta$ decay and could have implications for direct neutrino mass measurements that rely on high-resolution mapping of a $\beta$ spectrum near its endpoint. Our measurement is a test of whether this decay is physically possible, and if so, provides its $Q$ value. [Preview Abstract] |
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