Bulletin of the American Physical Society
6th Joint Meeting of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics and the Physical Society of Japan
Sunday–Friday, November 26–December 1 2023; Hawaii, the Big Island
Session D13: Instrumentation: Rare Event and Low-Level Signal Measurements |
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Chair: Phillip Barbeau, Duke University Room: Hilton Waikoloa Village Kona 2-3 |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:00AM - 9:15AM |
D13.00001: First results of trace-uranium detection using newly developed γ-γ coincidence neutron activation analysis Dmitry Chernyak, Andreas Piepke, Raymond Hei Man M Tsang, Sean W Finch, Ryan MacLellan, Timothy V Daniels Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a powerful trace-element analysis technique able to detect long-lived radioactive and stable isotopes at sub-ppt concentrations. NAA is widely used in rare event searches, such as neutrinoless double-beta decay, where identification of radiopure materials is required. Some materials, such as sapphire (Al2O3), are particularly difficult to radioassay due to side activities produced by the matrix and its impurities after neutron activation. Moreover, sapphire is insoluble in most mineral acids, making inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) problematic. However, radioactive screening of sapphire is necessary in preparation of the nEXO double-beta decay experiment, where sapphire is considered as a structural component for the field cage. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:15AM - 9:30AM |
D13.00002: Testing of CRYO ASIC for the nEXO Experiment Peter Knauss, Zepeng Li nEXO is a next-generation liquid xenon experiment to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xenon 136, with a lifetime sensitivity goal of greater than 1028 years. The experiment will use a segmented anode to record ionization electrons and a cryogenic application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) named CRYO ASIC for amplification and digitization of charge signals. This work presents the results of CRYO ASIC tests in a liquid xenon (LXe) environment. The CRYO ASIC was connected to an auxiliary board and placed in a test stand comprised of a chamber filled with LXe to mimic the nEXO experiment. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:30AM - 9:45AM |
D13.00003: Radon counting with Bi-Po coincidence in liquid scintillator Raymond Hei Man M Tsang, A B M Rafi Sazzad Searches for rare events, such as double beta decays and dark matter particles, require extremely low background radioactivity. An important source of background radioactivity is radon outgassed from detector construction materials. To control this background source, materials whose outgassed radon may potentially induce background need to be assayed. One technique to identify radon is by observing its Bi-Po coincidence signature. Outgassed radon is loaded into a liquid scintillator (LS) medium which is then viewed by a photomultiplier tube looking for Bi-Po coincidences. This technique provides unambiguous identification of radon decays. In this talk, I will introduce the radon measurement facility at the University of Alabama that makes use of the above Bi-Po coincidence technique to detect radon. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 9:45AM - 10:00AM |
D13.00004: Dichroicons: Spectral Photon Sorting for Neutrino Detectors Samuel Naugle Many neutrino detectors use photons as their primary event detection method, typically detecting numbers of photons and their arrival times. Photons also carry information about an event through their wavelength, polarization, and direction, but often little to none of this information is utilized. The "dichroicon," a Winston-style light cone comprised of dichroic filters, allows detectors to use the wavelength information encoded in photons. This talk will discuss the planned deployment of dichroicons in Eos, a 30 ton hybrid Cherenkov-scintillation detector. Eos will serve as a demonstrator for very large scale neutrino detectors, including Theia, whose research program includes a double beta decay search that will go beyond the inverted hierarchy. Eos will feature 12 large-scale dichroicons at the bottom of the detector. Monte Carlo predictions of dichroicon performance in large detectors such as Eos and Theia will be presented. This will include studies of the discrimination between Cherenkov and scintillation light, new handles on particle ID, and novel reconstruction techniques that leverage the advantages of both Cherenkov and scintillation light. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:00AM - 10:15AM |
D13.00005: Development of Low Threshold Detectors for Low-Mass Dark Matter Searches Pramod Acharya, Matthew Fritts, Dongming Mei, Vuk Mandic, Guojian Wang, Rupak Mahapatra, Mark Platt This study investigates the charge transport behavior in a cryogenic P-type Ge detector, fabricated from a crystal grown at USD. The influence of cryogenic temperatures on charge dynamics is explored using an Am-241 source to observe time-dependent impact ionization phenomena. The results reveal the formation of cluster dipole states at low temperatures, leading to time-dependent impact ionization. Several key physical aspects are examined, including charge collection efficiency, impact ionization rate, electric field-dependent trapping cross-sections, and the binding energies of cluster dipole states. The impact ionization scattering cross-section is measured within the range of 10-13 cm2. The binding energies of dipole and cluster dipole states are investigated under two modes: a constant electric field at cryogenic Kelvin temperature, following the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, and a variable electric field at cryogenic millikelvin temperature, following the Fermi-Dirac distribution. The first mode reveals binding energies below 2.5 meV, while the second mode indicates binding energies below 1 meV. This observation suggests the formation of distinct charge states influenced by temperature and electric field, offering potential implications for the search for low mass dark matter. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:15AM - 10:30AM |
D13.00006: Preparation of GEM detectors for DarkLight Michael Kohl, Manjukrishna Suresh, Jesmin Nazeer, Tanvi Patel, Ishara P Fernando The DarkLight experiment will search for a dark photon in the 10-20 MeV/c2 mass region and examine the reported evidence for the X17 boson using electroproduction of electron-positron pairs from a tantalum target. The first stage of the experiment has been approved and is under preparation at the ARIEL electron accelerator at TRIUMF. The experimental setup consists of two high-resolution magnetic spectrometers, with the focal planes instrumented identically with two layers of high spatial-resolution Gas Electron Multipliers (GEM) and trigger scintillator hodoscope arrays, suitable to operate with high efficiency under high-intensity condition. Details of the GEM detector preparation and commissioning will be reported. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:30AM - 10:45AM |
D13.00007: SQUID Gradiometer System for the Neutron Electric Dipole Moment Experiment Young Jin Kim, Steven M Clayton A search for a permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron is one of the most sensitive probes to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. A new experimental search of neutron EDM has been proposed with a goal of 100-fold improvement in the present experimental limit. In this experiment, polarized helium-3 atoms will occupy the same volume as the neutrons to serve as a co-magnetometer for precise corrections for ambient magnetic field drifts in order to reach the experimental goal precision. One of the two ways that will be built into the EDM apparatus is to directly measure the helium-3 co-magnetometer precession frequency with superconducting gradiometers coupled to SQUIDs. In this talk, we will present a candidate SQUID gradiometer system consistent with experimental requirements and report noise and performance studies of the SQUID system in a test apparatus. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 10:45AM - 11:00AM |
D13.00008: Development of the isomer tagging system for mass measurements at OEDO-SHARAQ Yuki Nakamura, Mei Amitani, Chihaya Fukushima, Daiki Nishimura, Shin'ichiro Michimasa, Shutaro Hanai, Eiji Ideguchi, Nobuaki Imai, Hiroki Nishibata, Kodai Okawa, Takeshi Y Saito, Daisuke Suzuki, Hiroyuki Takahashi, Hisato Tanaka, Keita Kawata, Rin Yokoyama The mass measurements of proton-rich unstable nuclei towards two-proton emitters have been performed utilizing the TOF-Bρ method with BigRIPS and OEDO-SHARAQ at RIBF. In this measurement, the secondary beam contained many nuclei with isomeric states in the pf-shell region. The isomer tagging provides us an exact fingerprint for the particle identification. While the measurement of isomeric ratio is critical for achieving the ground-state masses under a contaminant condition with isomeric states. Our purposes are discoveries of new isomers in this region and the determinations of their lifetimes and energies. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 11:00AM - 11:15AM |
D13.00009: A detector system upgrade at the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator for superheavy element studies Rodney Orford, Jacklyn M Gates, Fatima H. Garcia, Pavel Golubev, Dirk Rudolph, Roderick M Clark, John Gooding, Mallory McCarthy, Jennifer L Pore, Mark A Stoyer Rare isotopes of heavy and superheavy elements are produced through fusion-evaporation reactions at the 88-inch cyclotron facility of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The decay properties of these nuclei are studied using the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator (BGS). Recently, a new detector system was installed at the BGS focal plane and commissioned alongside a new digital data acquisition (DAQ) system. The SuperHeavy RECoils (SHREC) detector is an array of double-sided silicon strip detectors designed to greatly improve the measurement of superheavy alpha decay chains observed at the back of the BGS. SHREC consists of an implantation detector surrounded by an upstream box-shaped array for increased solid-angle coverage of alpha decays, and a downstream veto array to discern scattered light ions from the alphas of interest. This detector system upgrade is an integral step towards a future element-120 search at the BGS. In this talk I will discuss the successful online commissioning of SHREC and of the new DAQ and I will provide a status update on the preparation of a new element search campaign including the recent production of flerovium ions using the 244Pu(48Ca, 3-4n) reaction. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 11:15AM - 11:30AM |
D13.00010: SPIDER: A scalable fission product spectrometer for measurements with fast neutrons at LANSCE Jack R Winkelbauer, Panagiotis Gastis, Christopher Prokop, Shea Mosby, Sean A Kuvin New developments have been made in the SPIDER (Spectrometer for Ion Determination in fission Research) project toward a large-acceptance system. The goal of SPIDER is to measure Fission Product Yields (FPYs) consistently as a function of incident neutron energy using the Weapons Neutron Research (WNR) facility at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). SPIDER uses the 2E-2v technique to extract the mass of the fission fragments directly by measuring their time-of-flight and energies. By measuring the masses of both fragments directly and in coincidence, one can measure directly the number of neutrons emitted as a function of both fragment mass and incident neutron energy. The design requirements are strongly driven by the difficulty to measure the absolute kinetic energies of fission fragments with varying mass, charge, and kinetic energy, and challenges related to absolute calibrations. For the purposes of energy calibration, a gamma-ray tagging technique has been developed and implemented using 252Cf(sf) sources and HPGe detectors and a two-arm prototype system. The final design of a multi-arm system will be discussed, as well as recent progress in construction and fielding of this system. |
Wednesday, November 29, 2023 11:30AM - 11:45AM |
D13.00011: Composite matter/antimatter hadron structure indicated in petawatt laser experiments Mark Pickrell One of the great questions of modern physics is the "missing antimatter" in the Universe. It has recently been hypothesized that a hadron structure of composite matter and antimatter explains the missing antimatter. Based on experimental results at the Texas Petawatt Laser Facility, this composite hadron structure has been indicated. If accepted, this paper describes the composite hadron model and discusses experimental results that indicate that the model is accurate. Significant implications of the model are discussed. |
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