A search for massive neutrinos has been made in the decay π+→e+ν. No evidence was found for extra peaks in the positron energy spectrum indicative of pion decays involving massive neutrinos (π→e+νh). ...Upper limits (90% C.L.) on the neutrino mixing matrix element |Uei|2 in the neutrino mass region 60–135 MeV/c2 were set and are an order of magnitude improvement over previous results.
A new measurement of the branching ratio R_{e/μ}=Γ(π^{+}→e^{+}ν+π^{+}→e^{+}νγ)/Γ(π^{+}→μ^{+}ν+π^{+}→μ^{+}νγ) resulted in R_{e/μ}^{exp}=1.2344±0.0023(stat)±0.0019(syst)×10^{-4}. This is in agreement ...with the standard model prediction and improves the test of electron-muon universality to the level of 0.1%.
With the first direct detection of gravitational waves, the advanced laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) has initiated a new field of astronomy by providing an alternative ...means of sensing the universe. The extreme sensitivity required to make such detections is achieved through exquisite isolation of all sensitive components of LIGO from non-gravitational-wave disturbances. Nonetheless, LIGO is still susceptible to a variety of instrumental and environmental sources of noise that contaminate the data. Of particular concern are noise features known as glitches, which are transient and non-Gaussian in their nature, and occur at a high enough rate so that accidental coincidence between the two LIGO detectors is non-negligible. Glitches come in a wide range of time-frequency-amplitude morphologies, with new morphologies appearing as the detector evolves. Since they can obscure or mimic true gravitational-wave signals, a robust characterization of glitches is paramount in the effort to achieve the gravitational-wave detection rates that are predicted by the design sensitivity of LIGO. This proves a daunting task for members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration alone due to the sheer amount of data. In this paper we describe an innovative project that combines crowdsourcing with machine learning to aid in the challenging task of categorizing all of the glitches recorded by the LIGO detectors. Through the Zooniverse platform, we engage and recruit volunteers from the public to categorize images of time-frequency representations of glitches into pre-identified morphological classes and to discover new classes that appear as the detectors evolve. In addition, machine learning algorithms are used to categorize images after being trained on human-classified examples of the morphological classes. Leveraging the strengths of both classification methods, we create a combined method with the aim of improving the efficiency and accuracy of each individual classifier. The resulting classification and characterization should help LIGO scientists to identify causes of glitches and subsequently eliminate them from the data or the detector entirely, thereby improving the rate and accuracy of gravitational-wave observations. We demonstrate these methods using a small subset of data from LIGO's first observing run.
The three body pion decays ... where X is a weakly interacting neutral boson, were searched for using the full data set from the PIENU experiment. An improved limit on ... in the mass range ... and a ...first result for ... in the region ... were obtained. The Majoron-neutrino coupling model was also constrained using the current experimental result of the ... branching ratio.(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)
Charged lepton flavor violating muon decay μ+ → e+XH, where XH is a massive neutral boson, was sought by searching for extra peaks in the muon decay μ+ → e+ν¯ν energy spectrum in the mXH mass region ...47.8–95.1 MeV/c2. No signal was found and 90% confidence level upper limits were set on the branching ratio Γ(μ+ → e+XH)/Γ(μ+ → e+ν¯ν) at the level of 10−5 for this region.
Space-based gravitational wave interferometers are sensitive to the galactic population of ultracompact binaries. An important subset of the ultracompact binary population are those stars that can be ...individually resolved by both gravitational wave interferometers and electromagnetic telescopes. The aim of this paper is to quantify the multimessenger potential of space-based interferometers with arm-lengths between 1 and 5 Gm. The Fisher information matrix is used to estimate the number of binaries from a model of the Milky Way which are localized on the sky by the gravitational wave detector to within 1 and 10 deg2 and bright enough to be detected by a magnitude-limited survey. We find, depending on the choice of GW detector characteristics, limiting magnitude and observing strategy, that up to several hundred gravitational wave sources could be detected in electromagnetic follow-up observations.
In the present work of the PIENU experiment, heavy neutrinos were sought in pion decays π+→μ+ν at rest by examining the observed muon energy spectrum for extra peaks in addition to the expected peak ...for a light neutrino. No evidence for heavy neutrinos was observed. Upper limits were set on the neutrino mixing matrix |Uμi|2 in the neutrino mass region of 15.7–33.8 MeV/c2, improving on previous results by an order of magnitude.
The Mock Data Challenges (MLDCs) have the dual purpose of fostering the development of LISA data-analysis tools and capabilities and of demonstrating the technical readiness already achieved by the ...gravitational-wave community in distilling a rich science payoff from the LISA data. The first round of MLDCs has just been completed and the second-round data sets are being released shortly after this workshop. The second-round data sets contain radiation from an entire Galactic population of stellar-mass binary systems, from massive-black-hole binaries, and from extreme-mass-ratio inspirals. These data sets are designed to capture much of the complexity that is expected in the actual LISA data, and should provide a fairly realistic setting to test advanced data-analysis techniques, and in particular the global aspect of the analysis. Here we describe the second round of MLDCs and provide details about its implementation
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