Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2021 Virtual Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics
Friday–Sunday, January 22–24, 2021; Virtual
Session U17: High Energy and Particle Physics IIInteractive Live
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Chair: Jennifer Pursley |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:00PM - 12:10PM |
U17.00001: Detecting Anomalies with Gaussian Process Yue Wang, Adi Hanuka Common anomalies in particle accelerators are point anomaly, shift anomaly, and drift anomaly. The current troubleshooting procedures for the accelerator at SLAC are resources and time consuming. A method that is able to detect anomalies in real-time and report a list of potential causes of the anomalies will be presented in this talk. Gaussian Process (GP) fits the signal functions from limited noisy observations. GP was used to calculate the functional values and the derivatives in real time. Furthermore, we classified and visualized points leading to an anomaly using the predicted values with a matrix. We demonstrated the method on a Toy Model and accelerator simulation data set. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:10PM - 12:20PM |
U17.00002: Probing Nuclear Structure and Dynamics at the Electron-Ion Collider Rebecca Corley In January 2020, the United States Department of Energy announced that the Brookhaven National Laboratory will be the site for a new cutting-edge accelerator facility called the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). Particle physics at the EIC will involve electron-nucleus collisions as a means of probing nuclear structure and dynamics of the quarks and gluons that make up protons and neutrons. To contribute to a world-wide effort of investigating subatomic structure at the EIC, we simulate hundreds of millions of electron-nucleus collisions using a Monte Carlo simulation program called PYTHIA. The EIC will use the deep inelastic scattering (DIS) process, where a high energy electron beam is used to shatter a nuclear target. The resulting collision releases energetic, collimated sprays of particle debris known as ``jets". These emerging jets allow us to probe the internal structure and dynamics of the quarks and gluons within protons and neutrons. In this project, we are particularly interested in a quantity that characterizes the pattern of jets known as ``1-jettiness". This project is a study for constraining nuclear parton distribution functions using 1-jettiness at the EIC. We present simulation results for the proposed kinematics at the EIC and compare to theoretical predictions. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:20PM - 12:30PM |
U17.00003: Absolute Energy Calibration in the ICARUS Detector Izzy Ginnett Absolute energy calibration is a critical component in ensuring accurate data reconstruction in liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) experiments. The purpose of this calibration procedure is to convert the signals outputted by the anode planes of the detector to units of electrons. In essence, the calibration procedure yields a calibration constant to make this conversion, and the constant itself is calculated by comparing the signals outputted by the detector to the theoretical signals of minimum ionizing particles (MIPs). The accuracy of this calibration constant is critical because the constant will impact higher levels of reconstructed data such as $dE/dx$, or energy loss per unit length. $dE/dx$ is important in identifying particles that travel through LArTPC detectors, why calibration procedures such as absolute energy calibration are important. In this talk, I will address two different methods that were utilized to perform the absolute energy calibration, one which uses a technique originally developed in MicroBooNE and one originally developed in LArIAT. Specifically, I will focus on how these techniques were used to calibrate the ICARUS detector's anode planes, the far detector at the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:30PM - 12:40PM |
U17.00004: Angular Power Spectrum in Heavy Ion Collisions from Simulations Hannah Anderson, Shengquan Tuo The pixelization code HEALPix was created by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to analyze the cosmic microwave background. As has been shown using public data from the ALICE experiment, its two-dimensional representation of a sphere containing pixels of equal area has a broader application to heavy ion collisions. The application of HEALPix includes the concept of the angular power spectrum which details the contribution of spherical harmonics to the distribution of particles over the detector. This angular power spectrum can be directly related to the density and distribution of particles, which in turn relates to the particle flow. Through the use of simulated heavy ion data, we explore different aspects of the angular power spectrum and how it relates to flow analysis. There are some important details not covered within this study, such as the influence of non-flow. Therefore, the influence of non-flow is discussed in relation to the flow analysis. The angular power spectrum and features within the odd modes are detailed along with their specific application in heavy ion collisions. Through this study, it has become clear that HEALPix is another viable tool to be used in heavy ion flow analysis. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:40PM - 12:50PM |
U17.00005: Examining HAWC Source 3HWC J1950+242 Nicole Firestone, Miguel Mostafa The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC) is a very high energy (VHE; $>$ 100 GeV) gamma-ray detector with a large field of view and high duty cycle ($>$ 95\%). In 2017, the HAWC Collaboration presented the 2HWC catalog from 508 days of data collection, which included 16 candidate sources farther than 1 degree from any previously identified TeV source. We examined these candidate sources over time and updated their locations and extensions. Now, with a data collection period nearly triple in duration (1523 days), we compare our findings to that of the newly released 3HWC catalog. We analyze the morphology and energy spectra of 3HWC J1950+242 in more detail and investigate its potential association with nearby sources. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:50PM - 1:00PM |
U17.00006: Examining 3HWC J1940+237 Over Time with HAWC Sarah Greberman, Miguel Mostafa The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC) is a very high energy (VHE; $>$ 100 GeV) gamma-ray detector with a large field of view and high duty cycle ($>$ 95\%). In 2017, the HAWC Collaboration presented the 2HWC catalog from 508 days of data collection, which included 16 candidate sources farther than 1 degree from any previously identified TeV source. We examined these candidate sources over time and updated their locations and extensions. Now, with a data collection period nearly triple in duration (1523 days), we compare our findings to that of the newly released 3HWC catalog. We analyze the morphology and energy spectra of 3HWC J1940+237 in more detail and investigate its potential association with nearby sources. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 1:00PM - 1:10PM |
U17.00007: Quantum Gravitational Onset of Starobinsky Inflation in the k$=$1 FLRW Model Lucia Gordon, Bao-Fei Li, Parampreet Singh Inflation is a period of expansion in the early universe explaining many cosmological observations, though its cause is not well understood. The chaotic and Starobinsky inflationary models are valid in a flat universe, but recent observations suggest that the universe is spatially closed. In this case, for most initial conditions the universe undergoes a recollapse, resulting in a Big Crunch singularity using the classical theory of General Relativity. This makes it very unlikely for inflation to begin in the Starobinsky model, even though this model is favored over the chaotic model by CMB data. In Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC), there are no singularities, and a recollapse of the universe results in a bounce, allowing the universe to enter an expanding phase following its recollapse. We applied LQC to the Starobinsky model in a closed universe to investigate how the removal of singularities affects the likelihood of inflation. For many initial conditions we found that the universe enters inflation after undergoing various bounces, depending on how favorable the initial conditions are to inflation. Thus by using quantum gravity we have provided insights into the naturalness of initial conditions capable of leading to Starobinsky inflation in a closed universe. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 1:10PM - 1:20PM |
U17.00008: High Energy Particle Precipitation and VLF Wave Emissions from the Aurora Chloe Tovar The project goal is to measure and find correlations between the high energy particle precipitation and very low frequency (VLF) waves produced by the aurora borealis. The instrumentation to measure such events will be flown as a payload on a weather balloon in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the University of Houston’s Undergraduate Student Instrument Project. To measure the particle precipitation, an RPix radiation detector will be utilized. The RPix system will be mainly focused on X-Rays 40 keV to 250 keV, but will also record other particle precipitation. The system will allow the team to discern the particles trajectory with respect to the RPix system as well as their energy. The VLF waves will be measured concurrently to the RPix measurements with a studentfabricated radio receiver. The receiver is expected to record frequencies within the range of 20 Hz to 22 KHz. These events may be correlated to other space weather events through the use of outside data gathered by other scientists and organizations, such as data from the Neil Davis Observatory at the Poker Flat Research Range. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 1:20PM - 1:30PM |
U17.00009: Robustness Studies against Noise in the IML-2020 EXA.TrkX Particle Tracking Pipeline. Aditi Chauhan Collisions in the LHC tell us important information about particles, like their properties and origins of decay. These collisions are detected through the electrical charge deposited on sensors on the detector. From which we calculate properties like the particle's position and energy distribution, further using them to reconstruct the particle's trajectory. However, with the exponential increase in available data we encounter the combinatorial problem in track reconstruction, as the number of interactions increase exponentially, with the increase in number of particles. In the recent years machine learning approaches have been used to tackle this problem. Architectures based on graph neural networks (GNN) that take into account our detectors geometry have the capacity to learn performance metrics and classify tracks accurately. Previous project pipelines focused on cleaned, simplified or ideal data. In order to handle realistic data, testing with irregularities like the presence of noise and misalignment is required. We present studies of how the performance of GNN architectures in embedding and filtering is affected by the addition of aforementioned irregularities, as well as insights into improving robustness and further outlook. [Preview Abstract] |
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