Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2021 Virtual Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics
Friday–Sunday, January 22–24, 2021; Virtual
Session U18: High Energy and Particle Physics IIIInteractive Live
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Chair: Lisa Kaufman, University of Maryland, College Park |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:00PM - 12:10PM |
U18.00001: Two-Particle Correlations of Protons and Light Nuclei in STAR BES Data Amelia Doetsch, Launa DiCarlo, Bekele Erko, Brian Hanley, W. J. Llope, Nandita Raha Heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) produce a state of nuclear matter called the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), which is hot and consists of deconfined quarks and gluons. As the system quickly cools, hadrons are formed, and the Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) measures these hadrons. Of particular interest is the measurement of the kinematic correlations between the measured particles, which indicate the importance of different reaction mechanisms. A possible critical point in the phase diagram of nuclear matter might be expected to result in an increased, and beam energy-localized, kinematic clustering of baryons. A powerful analysis tool to search for such clustering is the two-particle correlation function [1]. These correlation functions have been measured for different pairs of directly-identified particles including protons and the four lightest nuclei (p, d, t, and He-3), which are themselves clusters of baryons. These, and their projections, as functions of the beam energy and the collision centralityare compared to theoretical models. The status of this analysis will be presented. [1] STAR, PRC 101, 014916 (2020) [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:10PM - 12:20PM |
U18.00002: Simulation Studies for the KLEVER Small-Angle Calorimeter Emily Tsai The aim of the KLEVER experiment is to make a first measurement of the branching ratio of $K_L \rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$ events. This project focused on evaluating the efficiency of the experiment's small-angle calorimeter (SAC) in vetoing $K_L \rightarrow \pi^0 \pi^0$ background events. Fast-simulation was used to obtain needed efficiencies for the SAC. Then more detailed Geant4 simulation was used to see if these efficiencies could be reached and to find thresholds that would produce these efficiencies. Future work focuses on improving experiment design and simulation. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:20PM - 12:30PM |
U18.00003: The NEXT Experiment Karla Silva The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC~is an experiment designed to develop high pressure xenon gas time projection chambers to search for~neutrino less double beta decay of Xenon 136. The goal in creating these~TPCs is~to create both~a greater energy resolution and greater~discrimination of signal against the background noise. An optical~TPC is being developed where a~camera is~introduced~to capture images of the event. The images are stitched together to recreate an energy track, which in turn determines if a double beta decay occurred.~This presentation will cover the basic concepts observed in xenon time projection chambers with an emphasis on the optical time projection chamber. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:30PM - 12:40PM |
U18.00004: Low-Energy Event Selection in IceCube using Machine Learning Navya Uberoi Estimates of star formation rates in the Milky Way predict about three supernovae per century in the galaxy, of which two would be core-collapse supernovae (CCSNs). However, we have not observed a supernova in our galaxy in the last 400 years - a potential discrepancy that calls for novel methods of supernova observation. Neutrino signals from CCSNs could not only provide up to 24 hours advance warning of the explosion, but also help us study characteristics of neutrinos. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located at the South Pole, is currently the world's largest neutrino detector and is a part of the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS). In the event of a supernova, data from IceCube would be instrumental in alerting the world of an imminent supernova in our galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds. However, IceCube is largely sensitive to very high energy neutrinos (100 GeV-1 PeV), while supernova neutrinos usually lie in the 10 MeV range. This calls for the need to separate the desired signal from a variety of background events. Using existing simulations of neutrino events in the IceCube detector, including atmospheric neutrinos and background noise, machine learning algorithms can be developed and utilized to identify low-energy events using a variety of classification criteria. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:40PM - 12:50PM |
U18.00005: Dark Matter Searches in Association with the Higgs Boson Nadia Leal Reyes, Maria Isabel Pedraza Morales What Dark matter (DM) is remains a mystery. When one refers to it, a non-visible matter that interacts only weakly with standard matter is implied. In this work, we present the characteristics of the main background for the search of dark matter in association with the Higgs boson in proton-proton collisions. By comparing the final states and acceptance of different processes for the signal selection the largest contribution of the backgrounds is identified. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 12:50PM - 1:00PM |
U18.00006: Study to Characterize Axion-like Particle Properties in Higgs Boson Decays Ariana Gonzalez, Darin Acosta This research attempts to review and optimize the steps required to conduct a search for new axion-like particles (ALP) in a Higgs Boson $\to $ Z Boson $+$ ALP $\to $ 2 leptons $+$ 2 photon decay, and to assess the sensitivity of such a search. This includes becoming involved in the data selection process where selection requirements are applied to the data, validating data in comparison to Monte Carlo simulations in control regions to ensure the backgrounds are understood, and studying possible systematic uncertainties that can affect the search. Additionally, how the search results are interpreted as limits on cross sections and theory parameters will be investigated. This research will cover finding invariant mass plots of the decay products, plotting the angles between the diphotons and dileptons, transforming the momentum in the lab frame of the ALP and Z boson into to the center of mass frame, finding the polar angle of the photons in the rest frame of the ALP, and finding a background (jets) to use for comparison to the signal. This analysis uses proton-proton collision data from the CMS detectors of CERN's Large Hadron Collider to search for the decays. This presentation will be explaining my proposed research and what it entails as it is still in progress. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 1:00PM - 1:10PM |
U18.00007: Modeling Low-Energy Nuclear Quenching in SuperCDMS Using Neutron Capture Data Judy Panmany, Hannah Kinney Dark matter (DM) is an invisible, non-luminous substance that constitutes approximately 85{\%} of the matter in the universe. Since DM is an elusive substance attributable to its low mass and energy, the detection of DM events is exceedingly rare and difficult to measure. Deciphering the nature of DM would be of importance to understanding a large portion of our universe. The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) is amongst several collaborations that perform experiments to directly detect DM particles. In this research, preliminary SuperCDMS data from the University of Minnesota test facility were analyzed by comparing neutron capture data to simulated events with four different yield models applied. Yield is a model of energy loss for nuclear recoil events. The typically assumed yield model does not account for low energy events, therefore, assumptions must be made. A spectral shape analysis suggests that the Sorensen model is the most suitable fit for the low-energy data. With further analysis, data analyzers will be able to make more guided choices regarding assumptions about DM events at low energy. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 1:10PM - 1:20PM |
U18.00008: Latest Constrains on Dark Matter Daniela Esmeralda GutiƩrrez Santos Dark matter is the dominant gravitationally attractive component in the Universe. It composes perhaps about 27% of the matter in the Universe. All the evidence for the existence of dark matter comes mainly from astronomy. Nevertheless, no significant signal has been detected to reveal its nature. Experimental and theoretical results have been consulted to collect the current constraints on its properties. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, January 24, 2021 1:20PM - 1:30PM |
U18.00009: Quantum-limited estimation of coherence under thermal noise in photon-starved states Zi Chua, Jonathan Habif, Federico Spedalieri To most efficiently estimate a parameter of a quantum system, one needs to choose the optimal measurement that creates the conditions for the most efficient estimator to act. Specifically, one needs to implement the measurement that achieves the quantum Fisher information (qFi) for that particular estimation task. In this work, we search for an optimal measurement for estimating the coherence, parameterised as $\eta $, of a mixed state composed of coherent light and thermal (incoherent) light. Our search is limited to photon-starved signals, with signal strength of n\textunderscore bar\textless \textless 1. We found that the classical choice of measurement, direct detection was suboptimal, whereas homodyne detection approached the qFi for estimating coherence for the low coherence $\mbox{(}\eta \mbox{\sim 0)}$ range. [Preview Abstract] |
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