Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2015 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 60, Number 13
Wednesday–Saturday, October 28–31, 2015; Santa Fe, New Mexico
Session PD: Neutrinos |
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Chair: Brent VanDevender, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Room: Sweeney Ballroom C |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 10:30AM - 10:42AM |
PD.00001: COHERENT Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering at the SNS Matthew Green Taking advantage of technologies which have come to maturity and the availability of world-class pulsed neutrino source, the COHERENT collaboration seeks to measure for the first time coherent, elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS). Using neutrinos created by stopped pions at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, several detector systems are being deployed to limit systematic uncertainties and unambiguously observe the N$^2$-dependence on the cross section. The current status of the efforts of the collaboration will be discussed and longer-term physics goals of the collaboration will be addressed, including the use CEvNS as a probe to search for non-standard neutrino interactions and as a way to measure the weak mixing angle. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 10:42AM - 10:54AM |
PD.00002: Background Neutron Studies for Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering Measurements at the SNS Diane Markoff The COHERENT collaboration has proposed to measure coherent, elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CE$\nu $NS) cross sections on several nuclear targets using neutrinos produced at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The largest background of concern arises from beam-induced, fast neutrons that can mimic a nuclear recoil signal event in the detector. Multiple technologies of neutron detection have been employed at prospective experiment sites at the SNS. Analysis of these data have produced a consistent picture of the backgrounds expected for a CE$\nu $NS measurement. These background studies show that at suitable locations, the fast neutrons of concern arrive mainly in the prompt 1.3 $\mu $s window and the neutrons in the delayed window are primarily of lower energies that are relatively easier to shield. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 10:54AM - 11:06AM |
PD.00003: PROSPECT: A Short-baseline Reactor Precision Spectrum and Oscillation Experiment Thomas Langford PROSPECT is a phased experiment consisting of segmented Li-loaded liquid scintillator antineutrino detectors designed to probe short-baseline neutrino oscillations and precisely measure the reactor antineutrino spectrum. The experiment will be located at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at Oak Ridge National Lab. The first phase is a movable 2.5~tonne detector located 7-9~m from the compact, highly enriched uranium (HEU) core. Over the past two years, PROSPECT has deployed multiple prototype detectors at HFIR to understand the local background environment and demonstrate active and passive background rejection. Measuring the neutrino spectrum from $^{235}$U will give insight to the recent spectral discrepancies and provide an important benchmark for future reactor experiments. As a high statistics experiment, PROSPECT will probe the sterile neutrino best-fit region within one year of operation at HFIR. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 11:06AM - 11:18AM |
PD.00004: Collective Neutrino Oscillations in two dimensions Shashank Shalgar, Sajad Abbar, Huaiyu Duan The modification of neutrino flavor oscillation probabilities in the presence of ambient neutrino gas is non-linear in nature. This leads to interesting phenomenology that is not well understood. In this paper we study the effect of removing spatial symmetry in a simplified two dimensional toy model. We focus on the linear stability analysis of the problem and note the presence of instability in both hierarchies. We also note significant modification of neutrino oscillation probabilities due to presence of ambient matter. The presence of spurious oscillations makes the study of the problem using numerical simulations very challenging. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 11:18AM - 11:30AM |
PD.00005: Testing molecular effects for tritium-based neutrino mass measurements Diana Parno, Laura Bodine, R.G. Hamish Robertson The upcoming KATRIN experiment will use the kinematics of tritium beta decay to probe the neutrino mass. The tritium source is molecular, however, and one of KATRIN's largest expected systematic uncertainties arises from the population of molecular final states following beta decay. To study this uncertainty, the Tritium Recoil-Ion Mass Spectrometer will measure the dissociation probability of the daughter molecule following beta decay, addressing a discrepancy between modern, high-precision theoretical calculations and two mass spectrometry measurements from the 1950s. We will describe the novel measurement technique and the commissioning of the experiment. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 11:30AM - 11:42AM |
PD.00006: Penning Trap Searches in the KATRIN Main Spectrometer Kevin Wierman The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN) aims to make a precision measurement of the tritium beta decay spectrum with a projected sensitivity to neutrino mass of 200 meV. Meeting this goal requires low backgrounds in the beta decay endpoint region. In KATRIN, spatially confined charged particles represent a potential source of backgrounds and systematic errors. Trapping conditions can occur in KATRIN's 10m diameter main spectrometer due to the high magnetic and electrostatic fields required to momentum analyze the electrons. Backgrounds are generated by trapped particles due to scattering off residual gas in the spectrometer causing negative ions to be accelerated towards KATRIN's detector system. Additionally, systematic errors in the neutrino mass measurement can be caused by the electrostatic field generated by trapped electrons. To search for these conditions, the spectrometer was probed by a monoenergetic electron source to determine trapping probabilities as a function of the applied electric and magnetic fields. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 11:42AM - 11:54AM |
PD.00007: MARLEY: Model of Argon Reaction Low Energy Yields Steven Gardiner, Kyle Bilton, Christopher Grant, Emilija Pantic, Robert Svoboda Core-collapse supernovae are sources of tremendous numbers of neutrinos with energies of up to about 50 MeV. In recent years, there has been growing interest in building detectors that are sensitive to supernova neutrinos. Such detectors can provide information about the initial stages of stellar collapse, early warning signals for light emission from supernovae, and opportunities to study neutrino oscillation physics over astronomical distances. In an effort to enable supernova neutrino detection in next-generation experiments like DUNE, the CAPTAIN collaboration plans to make the first direct measurement of cross sections for neutrino interactions on argon in the supernova energy regime. To help predict neutrino event signatures in the CAPTAIN liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC), we have developed a first-of-its-kind Monte Carlo event generator called MARLEY (Model of Argon Reaction Low Energy Yields). This generator attempts to model the complicated nuclear structure dependence of low-energy neutrino-nucleus reactions in sufficient detail for use in LArTPC simulations. In this talk we present some preliminary results calculated using MARLEY and discuss how the current version of the generator may be improved and expanded. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 11:54AM - 12:06PM |
PD.00008: Decay heat and anti-neutrino energy spectra in fission fragments from total absorption spectroscopy Krzysztof Rykaczewski Decay studies of over forty 238U fission products have been studied using ORNL's Modular Total Absorption Spectrometer. The results are showing increased decay heat values, by 10{\%} to 50{\%},and the energy spectra of anti-neutrinos shifted towards lower energies. The latter effect is resulting in a reduced number of anti-neutrinos interacting with matter, often by tens of percent per fission product. The results for several studied nuclei will be presented and their impact on decay heat pattern in power reactors and reactor anti-neutrino physics will be discussed. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, October 31, 2015 12:06PM - 12:18PM |
PD.00009: Wavelength Shifting Efficiency of Tetraphenyl Butadiene (TPB) at Extreme Ultraviolet Wavelengths Christopher Benson, Gabriel Orebi Gann, Victor Gehman Tetraphenyl Butadiene (TPB) is a commonly used wavelength shifter (WLS) in neutrino and dark matter liquid noble gas scintillator detectors. Thin films of wavelength shifters are used to shift ultraviolet scintillation light into the visible spectrum for event reconstruction. The wavelength shifting efficiency of TPB is a function of the incident ultraviolet photon wavelength and is an important parameter for detector design, simulation and reconstruction. The wavelength shifting efficiency and emission spectrum has been previously measured down to 120 nm [Gehman et. al., 2011]. To build liquid noble gas scintillator detectors with lighter elements (Ne, He) that use TPB as a WLS medium, the wavelength shifting efficiency must be known closer to 80 nm. This talk will present the current status and preliminary results from a set of measurements that will improve the precision of the efficiency of 120nm, and extend the data to wavelengths as low as 45nm. [Preview Abstract] |
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