Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2019 Fall Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics
Volume 64, Number 12
Monday–Thursday, October 14–17, 2019; Crystal City, Virginia
Session SN: Undergraduate Research I |
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Chair: Shelly Lesher, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse Room: Salon K |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 10:30AM - 10:42AM |
SN.00001: Advice for Running Successful Undergraduate Research Programs - Observations of 50 Years of Methodology at an Undergraduate Institution Larry Donald Isenhower This year, 2019, marks 50 years of a successful undergraduate research program at Abilene Christian University. This talk is an update of the author's invited talks for the 2015 APS Prize for Outstanding Research at an Undergraduate Institution given at the March and April 2015 APS Meetings. During the past 5 years ACU's undergraduate research program has increased in size and breadth. Likewise, during the past 5-10 years there has been an increased emphasis on research experiences as part of undergraduate education at many schools. What are the most important aspects that maximizes the benefits for both the students and the institution? There are some important distinctions observed that seem to predict success. Emphasis is given to what the faculty members must do and how to make the research experience much better for the student. There are pitfalls that must be avoided, which requires more work by faculty and staff members. The rewards are significant in the development of students, who by their third year are able to function almost independently and can be assigned critical path tasks, increasing the roles an undergraduate can take on, including critical work in large collaborations well beyond ordinary construction tasks. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 10:42AM - 10:54AM |
SN.00002: Constructing a Low Cost, Portable Cosmic Ray Muonand Neutron Detector James Shirk, Xiaochun He A modular, portable, low-cost, and state-of-the-art cosmic ray muon and neutron detector called a 'cosmic ray telescope' has been developed at Georgia State University. It has been designed to measure surface level cosmic ray muon and neutron flux, and is portable to allow for worldwide deployment. The telescope consists of three layers of plastic scintillator tiles used to measure muons, and a 'neutron-cell', or tank, filled with liquid scintillator to measure both muons and neutrons. Cosmic ray particles cause the scintillators to emit light which is captured by an embedded wavelength shifting fiber routed to a silicon photo-multiplier (SiPM). The data acquisition (DAQ) is performed via custom built SiPM interface boards connected to a Raspberry PI. This presentation will highlight the construction of thirty telescopes and their performance tests. A Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation of the telescope performance will also be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 10:54AM - 11:06AM |
SN.00003: Simulation and Random Coincidence Rejection of 2$\nu $2$\beta $ Decay Background in the CUPID Experiment Ruoxi Wang The CUPID experiment (CUORE Upgrade with Particle ID) is a proposed experiment to search for neutrinoless double beta decay using both light and heat detectors. Due to the time resolution limits of those detectors, the random coincidence of two-neutrino double beta decay events (“pile-up events”) in the same crystal has become the main background that could limit the experimental sensitivity. Therefore, it is crucial to distinguish and reject pile-up events of two-neutrino double beta decay in CUPID. In this project, software simulations of two-neutrino double beta decay backgrounds have been built and algorithms of pile-up rejection, such as the mean-time method and derivative mean-time method, are discussed. Background index of pile-up two-neutrino double beta decay events is also computed with rejection efficiencies of such algorithms, and requirements on the risetime and signal-to-noise ratio of the detector pulses are derived. These results can provide possible constraints on detector sampling rate, energy and time resolutions, which are essential for future development of CUPID and the next-generation bolometric experiments. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:06AM - 11:18AM |
SN.00004: ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:18AM - 11:30AM |
SN.00005: A Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector for CLAS12 at Jefferson Lab Connor Pecar, Fatiha Benmokhtar, Marco Mirazita A hybrid proximity Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector has been built and is functional in the CLAS12 spectrometer in Jefferson Lab's Hall B. The RICH was constructed for separation of kaons from pions and protons in the 3-8 GeV/c momentum range. The RICH contains a wall of aerogel tiles (refractive index n $=$ 1.05) which cause the production of Cherenkov radiation as particles under investigation enter the detector. Depending on the incident angle of the particle, the radiation ring will either travel directly to the readout photosensors or be redirected via ~a system of spherical and planar mirrors towards the readout electronics panel. The radiation is detected by a panel of 391 Multi-Anode Photomultiplier Tubes (MAPMTs) with pixel size of 6 mm and recorded by the readout electronics with accurate time resolution below 1 ns. In the last year, data has been taken using one RICH module and a second module is currently under construction. The performance of the RICH during the CLAS12 data-taking will be presented. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:30AM - 11:42AM |
SN.00006: Acceptance tests of Fast Interaction Trigger modules for the upgrade of the ALICE experiment Isaiah Morgan, Ryan Stempek, Austin Harton, Edmundo Garcia-Solis, Yuri Melikyan, Maciej Skrzypek CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) is a global laboratory devoted to proton and heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is one of four major experiments at the LHC. ALICE is dedicated to the study of the transition of matter to Quark-Gluon Plasma in heavy ion collisions. In Run 1 and 2, ALICE used several sub-detectors to provide, for instance, minimum bias trigger, multiplicity trigger, beam-gas event rejection, precise collision time, online vertex, multiplicity, and event plane determination. For Run 3 and 4 the former Forward Detectors will be replaced by the Fast Interaction Trigger (FIT) system. In this talk, we describe the key components of FIT, show the characteristics of the FIT detectors, and present sample performance results of the Micro Channel Plate (MCP) based photosensor modules designed for the FT0 Cherenkov array of FIT. The MCP module tests are taking place at CERN and involve six different characterization procedures to confirm the design parameters of the MCPs. This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. NSF-PHY-1613118, NSF-PHY-1625081, and NSF-PHY-1719759. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:42AM - 11:54AM |
SN.00007: Analytical Studies of EIC Collider Kinematics Seamus Gallaghar, Bernd Surrow A US-based collider facility capable of colliding high-energy polarized electron (e) and ion beams (Proton (p) / Nucleus (A)) at high luminosity will address some of the most profound questions concerning the emergence of nuclear properties. The precise reconstruction of relativistic-invariant variables such as the negative four-momentum transfer squared, $Q^{2}$, and the Bjorken-$x$ scaling variable is a crucial aspect for any physics measurements in deep-inelastic ep/eA scattering (DIS). ep/eA scattering can be viewed as the scattering of a lepton (e) with a struck quark (q) resulting in a scattered lepton (e) (Energy $E_{e}^{'}$ and polar angle $\theta_{e}^{'}$) and a struck quark (q) (Energy $E_{q}^{'}$ and polar angle $\theta_{q}^{'}$) in the final state. Relativistic invariant variables can be reconstructed by any two of the four measured quantities, $E_{e}^{'}$, $\theta_{e}^{'}$, $E_{q}^{'}$ and $\theta_{q}^{'}$, resulting in six distinct reconstruction methods. The full determination of DIS relativistic-invariant quantities will be presented in terms of those measured quantities including a full analytical error analysis including a discussion of the properties of each of the six reconstructions methods and further plans such as the comparison to a MC simulation. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 11:54AM - 12:06PM |
SN.00008: Engineering the resistive bases of the electromagnetic calorimeter in hall a at Jefferson Lab Jorge Pena, Gabriel Niculescu, Ioana Niculescu The Super Bigbite Spectrometer (SBS) to be used in Hall A at Jefferson National Accelerator Lab to carry out a number of seminal experiments, such as the measurements of the electric and magnetic form factors of the proton and neutron. The JMU Particle and Nuclear Physics group is working on preparation of the 1700$+$ channel electromagnetic calorimeter, including construction of the new voltage dividers that will be used to power and extract the signal from the Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs). In the talk the design of new resistive base and the layout of its electronic circuit will be presented. The challenges and solutions of the design work and electrical measurements of the existing resistive bases will be shown. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 12:06PM - 12:18PM |
SN.00009: Development and Testing of Thermal Conductivity Test Stand Donovan Davino This Research and Development program, conducted at L'Institut de Physique Nucl\'{e}aire d'Orsay (France), is aimed at developing and mastering innovative Vacuum Heat Treatment (VHT) processes in order to produce high functional performance bulk niobium (Nb) superconducting radio frequency cavities for accelerators. VHT of Nb has a strong impact on thermal conductivity k(T) at cryogenic temperature and especially on the phonon peak at T$=$2 K. A new test-stand dedicated to the measurement of k(T) in the temperature range 1.6 K-30 K is developed. The test-cell allows the measurement of 4 samples simultaneously, drastically improving samples turn-over. The samples are tested as received and then tested once subjected to VHT (hydrogen outgassing, nitrogen infusion). My role was largely in the mechanical assembly of the test-cell and instrumentation, including preparation and preliminary tests: Currently, I have performed k(T) measurement at T$=$77K-85K, and similar measurement will be performed in liquid helium. The data is reported, discussed, and compared to literature. [Preview Abstract] |
Thursday, October 17, 2019 12:18PM - 12:30PM |
SN.00010: Measuring the efficiency of counter-flow heat exchangers for the nEXO cryogenic system Shoham Weiss, Liang Yang Neutrino-less double beta decay is a still undetected phenomenon. Its detection could shift our understanding of particle physics. In double beta decay, two neutrons decay into two protons, two electrons and two neutrinos. Theoretically, the two neutrinos could annihilate, and the decay would be neutrino-less, thus confirming that neutrinos are ``Majorana'' particles. This decay is detected using enriched xenon, which decays into barium through double beta decay and possibly through the neutrino-less version. A 5-ton detector called the next Enriched Xenon Observatory (nEXO) is being planned, hoping to observe this phenomenon. The big chamber contains impurities that seep into the xenon, so we recirculate the xenon through a purifier. The purifiers work with gaseous xenon and the detector works with liquid xenon. Thus, we need to evaporate xenon to purify it, then condense it to detect any decay. The current process of evaporating and then condensing is inefficient. Our research investigates using heat exchangers to save power in the recirculation process. The heat exchanger is used to transfer heat from the hot xenon entering the chamber into the cold xenon exiting the chamber. This would be instead of heating one and cooling the other separately and thus save power. Our setup recirculates xenon and compares the cooling power used with a heat exchanger versus without a heat exchanger. Our results show that using a heat exchanger is 90{\%} efficient and would be a good addition to nEXO. [Preview Abstract] |
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