Thu·Nov 23, 2017Thursday·November 23, 2017

1. 01*

   A new scheme to measure the electron-neutrino correlation - the case of ${}^6$He

   I. Mukul (1)🇮🇱 · M. Hass (1)🇮🇱 · O. Heber (1) · T. Y. Hirsh (2) · Y. Mishnayot (1,2,3)🇮🇱 · M. L. Rappaport (1) · G. Ron (3)🇮🇱 · Y. Shachar (1) · S. Vaintraub (2) ((1) Weizmann Institute of Science, (2) Soreq Nuclear Research Center and (3) Hebrew University of Jerusalem)🇮🇱

   A novel experiment has been commissioned at the Weizmann Institute of Science for the study of weak interactions via a high-precision measurement of the beta-neutrino angular correlation in the radioactive decay of short-lived ${}^6$He. The facility consists of a 14 MeV $d+t$ neutron generator to produce atomic ${}^6$He, followed by ionization and bunching in an electron beam ion source, and injection into an electrostatic ion beam trap. This ion trap has been designed for efficient detection of the decay products from trapped light ions. The storage time in the trap for different stable ions was found to be in the range of 0.6 to 1.2 s at the chamber pressure of $\sim$7$\times$10${}^{-10}$ mbar. We present the initial test results of the facility, and also demonstrate an important upgrade of an existing method \cite{stora} for production of light radioactive atoms, viz. ${}^6$He, for the precision measurement. The production rate of ${}^6$He atoms in the present setup has been estimated to be $\sim 1.45\times 10^{-4}$ atoms per neutron, and the system efficiency was found to be 4.0$\pm$0.6\%. An improvement to this setup is also presented for the enhanced production and diffusion of radioactive atoms for future use.

   nucl-exphysics.ins-det5 citations
2. 02*

   Measurement of the multi-TeV neutrino cross section with IceCube using Earth absorption

   IceCube Collaboration: M. G. Aartsen · M. Ackermann · J. Adams · J. A. Aguilar · M. Ahlers · M. Ahrens · I. Al Samarai · D. Altmann · K. Andeen · T. Anderson · I. Ansseau · G. Anton and 305 other authors

   Neutrinos interact only very weakly, so they are extremely penetrating. However, the theoretical neutrino-nucleon interaction cross section rises with energy such that, at energies above 40 TeV, neutrinos are expected to be absorbed as they pass through the Earth. Experimentally, the cross section has been measured only at the relatively low energies (below 400 GeV) available at neutrino beams from accelerators \cite{Agashe:2014kda, Formaggio:2013kya}. Here we report the first measurement of neutrino absorption in the Earth, using a sample of 10,784 energetic upward-going neutrino-induced muons observed with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The flux of high-energy neutrinos transiting long paths through the Earth is attenuated compared to a reference sample that follows shorter trajectories through the Earth. Using a fit to the two-dimensional distribution of muon energy and zenith angle, we determine the cross section for neutrino energies between 6.3 TeV and 980 TeV, more than an order of magnitude higher in energy than previous measurements. The measured cross section is $1.30_{-0.19}^{+0.21}$ (stat.) ${}_{-0.43}^{+0.39}$ (syst.) times the prediction of the Standard Model \cite{CooperSarkar:2011pa}, consistent with the expectation for charged and neutral current interactions. We do not observe a dramatic increase in the cross section, expected in some speculative models, including those invoking new compact dimensions \cite{AlvarezMuniz:2002ga} or the production of leptoquarks \cite{Romero:2009vu}.

   ↳ hep-exastro-ph.HEnucl-exNature(2017)·259 citations
3. 03*

   Underwater detection of dangerous substances: status the SABAT project

   M. Silarski🇵🇱 · P. Sibczyński · Sz. Niedźwiecki🇵🇱 · S. Sharma🇺🇸 · J. Raj🇵🇱 · P. Moskal🇵🇱

   The Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) plays an exceptional role in the modern nuclear engineering, especially in detection of hazardous substances. However, in the aquatic environment, there are still many problems to be solved for effective usage of this technique. We present status of SABAT (Stoichiometry Analysis By Activation Techniques), one of the projects aiming at construction of an underwater device for non-invasive threat detection based on the NAA.

   ↳ physics.ins-detnucl-exActa Phys.Polon.B(2017)·0 citations
4. 04*

   Mini-phoswich and SiPM for Heavy Ion Detection

   D. Carbone🇮🇹 · P. Finocchiaro🇮🇹 · C. Agodi🇮🇹 · D. Bonanno🇮🇹 · D. Bongiovanni🇮🇹 · M. Cavallaro🇮🇹 · F. Cappuzzello🇮🇹 · L. Cosentino🇮🇹 · G. Gallo🇮🇹 · F. Longhitano🇮🇹 · D. Lo Presti🇮🇹 · S. Reito (for the NUMEN collaboration)🇮🇹

   The possibility to use a mini-phoswich detector to identify ions in the region of Z ~ 10 is explored in the framework of the NUMEN project. The NUMEN program, aimed at the investigation of the nuclear matrix elements connected to the neutrinoless double beta decay by means of double charge exchange nuclear reactions, foresees very high fluencies, which prevent the use of standard silicon as stop detectors. The need of reasonable radiation hardness, together with a total energy resolution around 2% and a high granularity, makes scintillators possible candidates. Promising results are obtained using an array of plastic + inorganic phoswich scintillators readout by means of Silicon Photo Multipliers.

   ↳ physics.ins-detnucl-exNucl.Instrum.Meth.A(2018)·4 citations

* Reconstructed cohort: no mailing for this day survives in the archive. Papers are grouped by their submission times and arXiv's announcement cut-off, assuming announcement without delay; positions follow identifier order. Validated at ~91% exact-day agreement against the archived era.